The Spiritual Journey Is Not Just About Learning Something New…

The Spiritual Journey Is Not Just About Learning Something New… It Is Also About Letting Go of What We Have Already Learned

From the moment we are born, we spend our lives learning one thing or another.

First, we learn to speak.

We learn to walk.

Then we learn to read, write, work, and manage a family.

As we grow older, our knowledge and experiences continue to expand. We listen to others, read books, accept the advice of elders, and follow the paths shown to us by society.

Without even realising it, we gradually accumulate countless beliefs, opinions and ideas within ourselves.

But have we ever stopped to ask whether everything we have learned over the years is actually true?

Are some of the things we believe in based on our own experiences, or have we simply accepted them because others told us they were true?

It is in asking these questions that an important part of our spiritual journey begins.

When we speak of spirituality, many of us tend to think of learning something new, discovering new mantras, reading spiritual books or listening to the teachings of different spiritual masters.

All these can certainly support one's spiritual search.

However, the spiritual journey is not simply about accumulating more and more knowledge.

Sometimes, true spiritual growth lies in freeing ourselves from the thoughts, beliefs and assumptions that we have already accumulated in our minds.

There are many examples of this in our everyday lives.

### Do We Need to Believe That Everything We Have Been Taught Is True?

From childhood, we are taught many things.

We are told what is good and what is bad, how we should live, and how we should behave towards others.

We trust what our parents tell us.

We accept what our teachers teach us.

We follow what society considers normal.

There is no doubt that many of the things we have learned in this way have become valuable guides in our lives.

However, as time changes, there are certain beliefs that we need to examine again.

For example, someone may believe that they will only be respected if they have money.

Another may think that achieving a high position is the only measure of success in life.

Someone else may feel that they must constantly receive praise and appreciation from others.

But do we genuinely believe these things?

Or do we think this way simply because the world around us believes them?

Take a little time to sit quietly and reflect on this.

You may begin to realise that many of the things we spend our lives pursuing are not necessarily things we truly need. Some desires may simply have grown within us because we constantly compare ourselves with others.

When this understanding dawns, we gradually become capable of letting go of certain unnecessary beliefs.

That, too, is a form of spiritual growth.

### Let Us Free Ourselves from Unnecessary Identities

Every one of us lives with several identities.

To someone, I am a father. To another, I may be a mother.

To someone, I am a husband or wife.

At work, I am an employee. In society, I may hold a particular position or status.

All these identities are part of our lives.

There is no need to reject them.

The problem begins when we start believing that these identities represent the entirety of who we really are.

When someone describes us as a particular kind of person, we often begin to believe that description ourselves.

When someone praises us, we feel happy.

When someone criticises us, we feel broken.

We allow other people's opinions of us to become the measure of our own peace of mind.

This is where we need to pause and reflect.

Can the names and identities that others have given us truly define our innermost nature?

If someone misunderstands us and judges us wrongly, should we begin to believe that there is something wrong with us?

Does our worth diminish simply because someone fails to appreciate us?

Certainly not.

We do not need others to tell us who we are.

We should make an effort to understand ourselves through our actions, our thoughts and the voice of our conscience.

When we begin to shed the unnecessary identities imposed upon us by others and live more naturally, a new sense of freedom begins to emerge within us.

### Let Us Give Up the Urge to Know Everything

In today's world, we seem to have an urgent need to find immediate answers to everything.

Who said what?

Why did they do that?

What will happen tomorrow?

What will we receive?

What is the other person thinking?

We keep asking questions endlessly.

We expect ourselves to have answers to everything in life.

When something is beyond our understanding, we become restless.

We want everything to happen according to our wishes.

But life does not always unfold the way we expect it to.

Some events cannot be understood immediately.

We may never fully understand the behaviour of certain people.

We may struggle to find explanations for certain losses.

And life may allow time to pass without ever providing answers to some of our questions.

At such times, rather than exhausting our minds trying to understand everything, we should learn to leave certain things unexplained.

That is not ignorance.

It is the maturity to accept what lies beyond our ability to change.

When our desire to control everything begins to diminish, many unnecessary struggles within our minds also begin to disappear.

We gradually develop the maturity to accept life as it unfolds.

### There Is a Difference Between Accumulating Knowledge and Turning It into Experience

We may read many spiritual books.

We may learn about the lives of great spiritual masters.

We may listen to countless teachings and practise different forms of meditation.

All these are worthwhile efforts.

But there is one question we should ask ourselves.

How much of what we have read and learned has actually become part of our everyday lives?

We may have read many books about love.

But do we treat the people around us with love?

We may have listened to many teachings about patience.

But when someone speaks against us, are we able to remain calm?

We may have heard countless explanations about detachment.

But when we lose something dear to us, how deeply does our mind become disturbed?

This is where we begin to understand the difference between knowledge and experience.

Knowing something is knowledge.

Feeling its truth and living according to it is experience.

Reading in a book that fire burns is one thing.

Touching fire and experiencing its heat is quite another.

In the same way, rather than knowing a thousand things about spirituality, it may be far more meaningful to understand one simple truth through our own lives and live by it.

There is therefore no need to wear spiritual knowledge like a medal on our chest and parade our wisdom before others.

What matters is not how much we have read, but how much we have changed.

### There Is an Answer Even Within Silence

Let us try to develop a small habit in our everyday lives.

Every day, spend a little time sitting quietly without reading anything, listening to anyone or looking at your mobile phone.

Do not try to stop the thoughts that arise in your mind.

Do not fight with them.

Do not classify them as good thoughts or bad thoughts.

Simply allow them to come and go. Just observe them.

Initially, the mind will wander in many directions.

It will remind you of something that happened yesterday.

It will worry about something that may happen tomorrow.

It will repeatedly bring back words spoken by someone.

But when we learn to remain still without rushing ourselves, we gradually begin to understand our thoughts and emotions a little better.

We are so accustomed to constantly receiving something from the outside world that we rarely find the time to observe what is happening within us.

In that silence, we may sometimes discover the clarity we need.

A problem that has troubled us for a long time may suddenly appear from a different perspective.

We may realise that the anger we have been holding against someone is unnecessary.

We may even become ready to let go of an opinion to which we have stubbornly clung for years.

We do not need a miracle to make this happen.

What matters is that we begin to observe ourselves.

### Let Us Respect Our Gurus and Books, But Not Forget Our Own Experiences

In life, we need good people to guide us.

We need books that bring clarity to our thoughts.

We may also need spiritual teachers who help remove our ignorance.

But we should not mistake spirituality for accepting everything they say without question.

A good guide will never encourage us to remain dependent on them forever.

Instead, they will encourage us to think for ourselves, experience life for ourselves and seek the truth through our own understanding.

We need not accept something as true simply because someone has said it.

Likewise, we need not reject something as false simply because someone else has denied it.

Let us listen.

Let us reflect.

Let us experience.

And when clarity arises within us, let us accept it.

I believe this is a healthy approach to follow on our spiritual journey.

### Sometimes, Letting Go Is the Greatest Form of Freedom!

As we reach a greater maturity in life, one truth slowly begins to dawn upon us.

Over the years, we have accumulated so many things.

We have accumulated wealth.

We have built relationships.

We have gathered experiences.

We have acquired knowledge.

We have accumulated beliefs.

But is the purpose of life simply to keep accumulating more and more?

Should we not also learn how to let go of certain things?

We can let go of painful memories from the past.

We can let go of unnecessary anger.

We can let go of the habit of comparing ourselves with others.

We can let go of the expectation that everyone should think well of us.

We can even let go of the arrogance that makes us believe we are always right.

By letting go of these things, we do not really lose anything valuable.

Instead, we create new space within our minds.

In that space, love can grow.

Patience can blossom.

The ability to understand others can develop.

And we may discover the maturity to accept our lives with greater peace.

I believe this is one of the true benefits of spirituality.

### A Few Thoughts from My Own Life...

Standing at the threshold of old age and looking back at the journey of life, many thoughts arise within me.

Throughout our lives, we are constantly running in search of something.

At one stage, we chase money.

At another stage, we pursue positions and status.

Later, we seek the happiness of our families.

As we grow older, we begin to search for peace of mind.

Yet, it takes us so many years to realise that the peace we have been searching for all along may have been within us from the very beginning.

I am not a great spiritual master.

Nor am I a scholar who has mastered countless books.

I am simply sharing with you the thoughts that have emerged within me through what I have seen, heard and experienced in life.

As far as I am concerned, spirituality does not mean withdrawing from the world.

It does not mean forgetting our families.

It does not mean abandoning our relationships.

Nor does it mean running away from our everyday responsibilities.

It means developing inner peace while continuing to live with our families.

It means reducing unnecessary expectations while remaining connected to our relationships.

It means loving others without trying to control them.

It means accepting with happiness what life gives us and not allowing ourselves to suffer endlessly over what life has not given us.

These, to me, are some of the simplest expressions of spirituality.

There is still so much more for us to learn.

At the same time, we must also examine what we have already learned: which things genuinely benefit us and which keep us trapped within unnecessary limitations.

Sometimes, a book gives us knowledge.

A spiritual teacher shows us a path.

An experience teaches us a lesson.

But it is we who must quietly reflect upon that knowledge, guidance and experience within our own hearts and discover their true meaning.

Peace does not necessarily come only after we have understood everything.

Sometimes, peace comes when we realise that certain things do not need to be understood at all.

Happiness does not necessarily come only when we have everything under our control.

Sometimes, happiness is born when we accept that certain things are beyond our control.

Peace of mind does not necessarily come only when everyone understands us.

Sometimes, it comes when we begin to understand ourselves.

So, dear friends!

On our spiritual journey, there is no need to keep counting how many books we have read, how many teachings we have listened to or how many new things we have learned.

Instead, let us ask ourselves:

How many unnecessary beliefs have we freed ourselves from?

How much anger have we let go of?

How many expectations have we reduced?

How often have we listened to the voice of our own conscience?

Because the spiritual journey is not merely about creating something new within ourselves.

It is also about gradually removing the unnecessary layers that conceal our true nature from us.

Sometimes, true wisdom is not born from learning more and more, but from forgetting what is unnecessary and learning to remain peacefully still.

May our journey of self-discovery continue.

May love, peace and clarity fill our lives as we travel along this path.

With affection,

Sakthi Sakthithasan