Time and again, I have sought to distinguish between the concepts of practice and cultivation as necessary and distinct features for enlightenment. For this blog, I would like to clarify these terms and to help further the understanding of these two concepts so individuals can understand why they do not feel progress with their meditation or yoga practice.
What is Practice?
Practices are various activities many religions and spiritual groups employ to clarify attention and prepare the body, mind and energy systems. Many if not most of us have been exposed to various spiritual practices. They include prayer, reading the bible, going to church, singing praise and worship songs, chanting, yoga, meditation, chi gong, darshans, shamanic practices and more. There are so many beautiful practices around the world rich in bringing attention to mind, body and soul. We must engage practice daily as it is the first step for raising one’s vibration and achieving order and discipline in one’s life. They put the body and mind in receptive mode and can be used for maintaining one’s vibration. Today, cultures are becoming a melting pot, and people can happily engage any practice they so fit so long as they understand why these practices are being done and what one should expect to gain from these practices. I feel that practices must be life long, for throughout the life, we must consistently prepare and cleanse our energy systems. There are many energetic pollutants around us and with technology, the mind is being exposed to toxic thoughts in the media and all around us. People are operating in fear vibration, and we will be affected if we do not get our life in order and discipline through practice.
Personally, I have utilized many different practices over the years. To me, it is like going to the gym and trying new machines to work and strengthen the muscles of the body. Same way, practices strengthen the mind and bring about focus. Without meditation for instance, the mind will keep collecting disgusting junk from childhood to present day. The mind is a sponge and even things we are not cognitively aware of is being collected by the subconscious mind. The mind is then filled with all kinds of trash percolating one’s thoughts and causing disruptions in the emotions, behaviors, and actions of people. The mind has collected so many false belief systems and they must be sorted through practice. The mind will weaken over time with constant use and no chance to power it down and re-bout. The body’s energy system will become clogged up with energetic toxins in the environment. People wonder why they have negative thoughts that will not leave their mind, and they don’t realize that it is due toxins and energetic attachments in their vibration. Practice requires that we keep our energy system clean by washing the body, mind and soul and to pay closer attention to our relationships, interactions and thoughts.
It is my wish that when human society wakes up, that it will re-create its system to help children develop a good disciplined and orderly life that also promotes spontaneity and creativity. Practice must be carefully imbedded in our daily life but it is difficult to do when the life is chaotic.
What is cultivation?
Every soul incarnates on the planet for the purpose of transforming its enlightenment quality. We are all born with a certain percentage of good and bad karma, and we instinctively feel a sense of urgency to do so. This is why people may feel scared that their time is running out or that they do not want to age. This is because the body must be used by the soul to utilize daily life experiences for the transformation process.
Cultivation aims directly at people’s hearts to develop true spiritual convictions that will feed and develop the soul’s enlightenment. This is the absolute truth of the universe. Cultivation is the key to increasing enlightenment quality. Cultivation includes the transformation of virtue (a white substance) and karma (a black substance), the abandonment of ordinary human desires and attachments, and the ability to forbear the tough hardships of all and bring the bad karma within the soul to love. It also encompasses many types of things that a person must cultivate to raise his or her level of consciousness. When we raise our consciousness, we raise our enlightenment quality.
I feel that many of us miss the mark on cultivation because unfortunately, cultivation is purely an individual act, and it cannot be impacted or sold. It cannot be made into a business for people to go and pay for a service and automatically achieve enlightenment. It cannot be achieved by reading a book and feeling good, watching a few podcasts here and there, attending an ashram or spiritual retreat. Cultivation is the real meat of spiritual practice and without a thorough understanding, a person can meditate, become a pastor or spiritual world leader and not achieve enlightenment in this life time. Their vibration will not move an inch and they will then cross over from the death and still be stuck in the mental planes. This is because, of all their spiritual practice they did not develop true spiritual convictions or transform their suffering into unconditional love. Everybody wants to live a rich and easy life, but this will not motivate us to cultivate. We will then become lazy and the soul will become lethargic.
Two examples I can give about cultivation are two stories many know well. One is the story of Jesus, on the cross, nailed, beaten and accused of blasphemy. In the throes of deep suffering, he said “forgive them father for they know not what they do”. In that moment, by that response he transformed the suffering into light and achieved the resurrection. Another example is the Buddha. When Mara tempted the buddha by demanding that the buddha prove that he had actually achieved enlightenment, and the Buddha responded by placing his hand on the earth and said “the earth is my witness”. The ground shook and Mara was defeated.
Daily, we will be tempted, challenged, and even tormented by evil and agents of evil. Sitting in our homes and pretending it is not happening will not help you cultivate true conviction. Not speaking up for truth and calling a spade a spade for the sake of being nice will not help us transform our bad karmas. Claiming the truth of our being in the face of fear is one way to transform bad karma and increase our enlightenment quality. Many think that complacency, reading a good book and watching spiritual movies is a enough to achieve enlightenment without realizing that all they are doing is adding more junk in their mind. Many of these moves are created with negative subliminal messaging that will not promote true conviction. True conviction happens in daily life and this is why we must be awake, present and ready for the test of daily life experiences. To take a deep breath and remember love in the face of fear, to feel compassion for another who is not your family, to be honest about your ancestry’s involvement in evil, to acknowledge that your history of victimization, to recognize your negative thoughts, with deep acceptance, respond with true conviction.
One upright mind can subdue all evils, provided that in the practitioner’s cultivation practice he maintains his cultivation, abandons his attachments, and forgoes any incorrect pursuits. Any evil demon will be afraid, and anyone not related to your improvement will not dare to interfere with you or disturb you.
