What are the characteristics of a true spiritual person? How does she think, feel and behave? Throughout the ages there has been spiritual masters – Jesus, Buddha, Mohamed, Lao Tzu and many more.
The main characteristics of a spiritual person centre around the fact that their ego is no longer the most prominent part of their lives. They strive for inner peace, love becomes their biggest quest and peace is what they long for most of all.
These were people that are still idolized to this day and many religions have started around their lives and teachings.
Their ability to transcend the human condition not only fascinated but it awakens a primal desire in all of us and that is to know and understand our true nature.
Why are we here? Where do we come from and where do we go when we die? These are profound questions that we are all confronted with throughout life.
There is no such thing as a spiritual person.
We are all spiritual. That is what we really are. We are not this bag of bones. We are not this mind full of thoughts. We are pure spirit.
You have a body but you are not your body. You have a mind but you are not your mind.
You are a spiritual being having a human experience.
This is contrary to most religious teachings and practices. People go to church on Sunday to have a spiritual experience. After that they go straight back to “real life” where they might have fleeting spiritual experiences but it is more of an “add on”.
The world is full of religious people that live by strict religious rules but in reality there is nothing spiritual about their life experience. It is blind rituals without any spiritual experience.
It is mostly to please people and to please other people’s idea of what God wants from us.
A true spiritual person in the sense of the words is someone who deliberately seeks out the presence of God within themselves.
Every spiritual avatar throughout history had one central message to humanity and that is that the kingdom of God is within.
For those who deliberately seek a more spiritual way of living, there are some key characteristics that can tell you if you are a spiritual person.
1. The Expansion Of Consciousness
With all forms of meditation and spiritual living, the consciousness or awareness expands, it broadens our perspective of life. We become more self-aware and get to make conscious contact with God within us..
The self-awareness works as a spotlight that penetrates the deeper nooks of our mental habits – we become aware of good and bad habits and of their good and negative impact on their life.
The self-awareness helps us to become objective toward the body and mind. Then as we sense our aloofness from them, we become more and more self-disciplined.
Self-awareness along with a growing expression of intuitive conscience support us to choose between good and bad, the beneficial and the harmful.
We live more in the light of awareness.
Increasing and deepening self-awareness gradually penetrates into the subconscious (unconscious) mind. We begin to see the habit forming effects of our thoughts, feelings, emotions, perception and paradigms.
We are empowered to modify our mental patterns and turn them into more productive and harmonious one.
2. The Feeling Of Connectedness
Another significant change is the growing feeling of disconnectedness with nature and with whole of creation. We begin to feel that other creatures are not different; we are connected together by the fabric of the life force or universal energy.
As we march toward the goal of cosmic consciousness – the feeling of unity with whole cosmos, this growing unity of all in Spirit is expressed not through words but through actual living.
This gives us true empathy. We don’t look at others and see their personality but we see God in every person and thing.
This feeling changes our total perspective toward nature, other persons and the whole of creation. We begin to perceive the rhythm of nature, and become more attuned to it.
This feeling increases and grows to the point ultimately when we begin to perceive the whole world as the reflection of our own expanded consciousness or God’s consciousness.
3. Living in Joy
There is a big difference between pleasure and joy. Our modern culture confuses the one with the other to the detriment of society.
Joy is what you feel through your senses. It is short lived and has to be topped up all the time.
Joy is our spiritual nature, it is the characteristic of the soul. When we chase happiness in outside objects – sensory perceptions, our thoughts and ego – it is bound to go stale.
Think about it. We all have felt being passionate about possessing something. That passion and interest dissipates soon after possessing it. And our mind tries to chase something else.
The something else that will never go stale and that will never leave is the joy of soul because it is the innate property of soul.
So the first and foremost evidence of progress in spiritual practices and living is growing more and more joyous inwardly.
At first we feel it during meditative practices and for sometime thereafter.
As we become engrossed again in our previous living habits, we lose contact with our nature.
As we grow spiritually, the non-causal joy abounds in meditative practices as well as in day to day activities. We all have felt this kind of joy some time in our life, especially in childhood.
We are simply “are” and we are joyous inside. This is rejoicing in Spirit.
When we feel this bliss, the strongest attachments and the addictive habits lose control over us. We no longer remain mesmerized under their illusion of eventually bringing us joy.
4. Inner Peace
When someone is advancing spiritually, she will become more and more peaceful, without stress and without trying.
Being in the presence of such a peaceful person is calming. If you’ve ever been around such a person you would have felt it. There is an energy that radiates from them.
The silence of their presence speaks.
There is harmony and synchronization in their lives and they seem to manifest everything they need without any stress or strain.
Because of this inner peace they are centered in themselves. Outside circumstances and conditions have no power of them.
Many people who experienced so-called “near death experiences” are reported to have this inner peace. They have seen the other side of life beyond the body and know that the external world is all an illusion anyway.
5. Surrender The Ego
The Characteristics Of A True Spiritual Person Revealed
These four qualities are the telltale signs that a person is advancing spiritually. Whatever path one chooses, whatever practices one does, these qualities will start to show through in your life in varying degrees.
Your desire to connect with your spiritual nature is your purpose trying to connect with you. Do not let dogma or tradition dictate any spiritual beliefs to you.
Allow the light inside you to guide you and reveal itself to you.
God is not some old white guy who lives in the clouds and who demands you to do X, Y or Z to please him.
No!
God is within you.
That Divine spark is your very nature. You can never be disconnected from it but if you allow your ego to take over then it will do everything it can to put out this spark.
A truly spiritual person always lives from their higher self. They do not let the ego dictate their lives.
To really live a fulfilled life you need to live from your highest self.
