If you don’t carve out some time for spirituality and your inner growth, everyday activities and preoccupations quickly take over your focus. In today’s busy life, it’s not easy to find the time and mental space for spiritual practices that will elevate and divinize your day,
But it is possible.
You may need to shift your priorities in some aspects of your daily routine and tweak some of the things that you already do. However, these little changes are worth it!
Here are 6 ways to divinize your day:
1. Breath break
Your higher Self is the peaceful inner witness of all your activities. When you are tuned in to it, your thoughts, words and actions bring harmony and peace within you and in the relationships and situations around you.
Mistakes and regrets come when your mind gets caught up with day-to-day concerns and drifts away from the serene Self.
Using the breath to tune the mind inwards is an effective technique.
Sit down where you are and close your eyes. Be aware of your breathing. Make your breathing slow and deep.
Follow your breath with your mind.
Then turn your attention to being the inner witness. Be aware of the cool air entering your nostrils and the warm air leaving them.
You can enhance this simple practice by mentally chanting an affirmation such as “peace” or a mantra such as “OM”. Imagine all your stresses and worries leaving you through your exhalation.
Do this for about 3 minutes.
To ensure you don’t miss your practice, you can set an alarm to go off 2 or 3 times a day such as the mid-morning, afternoon and evening.
When you divinize your day by tuning inwards through your breath, you will be calmer and better able to handle the stresses of the day.
2. Read and reflect on something spiritual
The next thing to divinize your day would be to read and reflect on something spiritual.
Spiritual literature reminds us of our innate spiritual nature and how to live making higher choices in life. It guides us on how to cultivate goodness of character and how to respond to life so that we can be happy and evolve spiritually.
Take a few minutes to absorb the teachings and try your best to see how they can apply to your life.
Perhaps you may read something that makes you aware of your own weaknesses. Resolve to change and think of how you can do it.
This kind of reading and reflection requires some quiet time and mental space. Generally, the first thing in the morning is the best time.
This will inspire your mind with good and noble ideas that will help to elevate your responses through your day. You will be less likely to get swept away by the never-ending list of things to do and stresses of everyday life.
If the morning doesn’t work for you, you may prefer to read and reflect at the end of your day before going to sleep.
Reading something spiritual before going to sleep helps to uplift and calm your mind. It infuses what you have just read into your subconscious where it can transform you. What’s more, it can help you get a sound sleep.
Now, if you can read and reflect on something spiritual first thing in the morning and right before sleeping, it will divinize your day—and night!
Over time, this practice will transform your character.
3. Choose spiritual company
When we have some free time, we often fill it up with doing something to entertain ourselves. For example, we may decide to consume and engage in content on social media platforms like Instagram, Tik Tok, You Tube, or news or entertainment sites.
Or, we may watch programs and movies on TV for relaxation or entertainment.
To divinize your day, it’s important to keep spirituality and your spiritual growth in mind. To help you do this choose spiritual company whenever you can.
For instance, instead of going on to the entertainment sites, you could seek out accounts of people or groups that are posting inspiring or spiritual content.
Instead of turning on the TV and watching the programs that you regularly watch, you could read or listen to something that elevates your mind.
You can listen to talks and podcasts given by spiritual teachers on the internet or better still, meet with other like-minded people face-to-face to discuss spirituality once a week or more.
The group could take up a topic to discuss such as how to understand and deal with loss, grief, or difficult relationships from a higher spiritual perspective. You could discuss death, the purpose of life and how to live a meaningful life.
As you sprinkle a little spirituality and divinize your day, it will boost your ability to handle life’s ups and downs with an even mind. You will start to experience a greater joy within which will spill over to your relationships with things and people around you.
4. Divinize your everyday actions
Young or old, we all have daily duties to perform. They come to us based on our roles in life. For example, as a parent, one must provide for the family, feed them and ensure that they remain safe. As an employee or employer, one must do all the tasks that come with those roles.
You can divinize your day as you continue doing your duties and other everyday actions following the principles of Karma Yoga. Karma Yoga is the practice of doing your actions with the right attitude to grow spiritually.
Here’s the attitude you can adopt:
- Always do your duties (never neglect them).
- Focus on the work at hand without allowing other thoughts to interrupt you.
- Do the work readily, cheerfully, and efficiently to the best of your ability.
- Do not allow your personal likes and dislikes to determine what you do or the attitude with which you do it.
- Let go of your desire for any tangible or intangible rewards. Examples of tangible rewards are money, favors or gifts. Intangible rewards include receiving praise, appreciation or recognition from others.
- Dedicate your actions to a higher cause, God or any form of the Divine that you like.
- Find your joy in doing the action itself so you won’t have to wait for the results to come so you can be happy. (Joy comes when you follow points #1 to 6)
- Whatever the results you get, accept them cheerfully with an even mind.
5. Choose peace
Divinize your day by striving to make peace of mind your highest priority. Peace is the nature of your Higher Self. When you choose to identify with it, your mind becomes peaceful.
When we identify with our ego or lower self, troubles begin. The ego tends to assert itself, jumps to conclusions and creates misunderstandings and conflicts among people.
Resolve that you will do your best to stay peaceful regardless of what is happening around you and what others say or do.
This is a tall order and it’s not easy to remain calm when things disturb your mind.
One solution is to nurture a healthy, positive mind so that you will be able to respond to things in a constructive way.
Ensure that you are in positive company in all aspects of your life. This includes the people you spend time with, the type of food and drink you take in; and what you listen to, watch, read and study.
Another way to choose peace is to accept things and people that we cannot change.
There are some things that we will never find the reasons for. Why waste time and energy in finding out why things are the way they are? Or why people are the way they are? Accept them as they are and move your attention and energy to dealing with them instead.
Peace is a choice. Always choose it and be in control of your happiness.
6. Daily prayer
There is nothing that will divinize your day better than daily prayer. Prayer helps to uplift the mind and tune it to God or the divine.
Sit daily in your sacred space and invoke the remembrance of God or the divine in any form you can relate to.
Begin by remembering your blessings and thanking the universe for them. You don’t have to use any formal language. The best prayer is one that comes directly from your heart.
In prayer, you drop your ego, negative emotions, and worries and surrender your personal will to the will of God.
You will be surprised to see how surrendering brings a sense of calm. The universe is always listening and waiting to help. But you must invoke its presence and ask for help and support.
Daily prayer helps you see the divine hand through all the circumstances of your life. It increases your faith in God and purifies the mind. You understand that everything happens for the best.
Since we gain our abilities and faculties from the divine source, we can offer all our actions to It with feelings of gratitude and surrender. There is a special Sanskrit prayer of surrender that you can chant everyday as part of your daily prayer time.
You can listen to me chanting it and follow along. Click here.
Personal transformation
I personally use the six simple habits that I have shared in this article and have seen a steady improvement in my inner life.
The habits of reading and reflecting in the morning and at night (#2), and substituting everyday mundane activities with those that remind me of my spiritual goals (#3) are now ingrained in my character.
And what to speak of prayer? (#6) I don’t go a day without it. It has helped to bring God into my daily activities and interactions. It has made it easier for me to perform my daily duties in the spirit of karma yoga (#4) and choose peace (#5). When I drift away, I stop and breathe into the moment (#1).
I do still make mistakes. But I recognise them more readily and do my best to correct myself. If others are involved, I seek forgiveness and make amends.
Incorporating the simple six habits in this article will not only divinize your day, but they will also sanctify your entire life. Try them and see.
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