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The path of spiritual realization requires deep dedication and discipline. These mandatory tenets serve as essential guidelines to help you remain focused, clear, and aligned with the divine melody (Shabda). Breaking any of these tenets can create significant obstacles, delaying or even halting your spiritual progress. Each tenet is designed to bring you closer to the truth, peeling away the layers of worldly existence and allowing you to connect with higher energies.
How the Shabda Helps Reform
The Shabda, the divine melody, plays a transformative role in aligning your life with these tenets. It is not by sheer willpower or rigid discipline alone that we reform ourselves, but by the purifying power of the Shabda. As you connect with the Shabda, the resonance of this higher vibration begins to cleanse your mind, body, and soul. It helps you break free from the karmic patterns and worldly distractions that often prevent us from fully living these tenets.
The Shabda guides your inner transformation, gently removing the barriers that have built up over lifetimes. Through your connection with the Shabda, your actions, desires, and habits naturally begin to align with the spiritual path. The tenets, rather than feeling like external rules, become natural extensions of your inner growth and purification. The Shabda carries you toward this lifestyle, helping you reform from within.
1. Lacto-Vegetarian Diet
No meat, eggs, fish, or anything that could potentiate life or involve the taking of life is allowed. This includes a strict lacto-vegetarian diet, which means dairy is permissible but only when it is free of harm to living beings.
The tamasic nature of non-vegetarian food casts a shadow on your ability to connect with consciousness. Even a devoted disciple can be set back by accidentally consuming these foods, potentially losing years of spiritual practice. It’s critical to understand that food is not just physical nourishment but also a spiritual influence.
2. Clear Mind
No mind-altering drugs, addictive substances, or smoking are permitted. To maintain the clarity and focus required on this path, it is crucial to avoid anything that clouds or dulls the mind. This also includes a recommendation to avoid tea and coffee, as stimulants can disrupt your vibrational balance, pulling you away from inner consciousness.
The goal is to become the master of your mind, not its slave. A mind hazed by addiction or stimulation loses its strength to be tamed, making it nearly impossible to cultivate the focus needed for spiritual practice.
3. Growth Focused
Focus on your personal growth and seek solutions at every step. Only you know what is best for your life, and only you truly know yourself—knowing others deeply is impossible. This journey is about connecting to yourself, and focusing on self-growth and constructive actions brings progress and fewer hurdles. Direct your thoughts, words, and actions toward positive growth, for what you focus on becomes your reality.
4. Self-Control and Commitment in Relationships
Commitment in relationships and self-control are essential on this path. The energy required for spiritual progress is precious, and distractions in relationships can draw that energy away. Being in a committed, closed relationship is encouraged, as it helps you focus and channel your energy inward.
Sexual energy is one of the most powerful forces in life, and it’s important to manage it in a way that supports your spiritual journey. While the path doesn’t demand that you live like a monk, it does emphasize self-control. Being in a stable, committed relationship helps prevent emotional and physical turmoil that can arise from uncommitted or casual relationships. This stability allows you to stay focused on your inner journey without being pulled into unnecessary complexities.
Why These Tenets Are Essential
These mandatory tenets exist because breaking them can create some of the greatest hurdles on the path to spiritual realization. The process of connecting to higher energies requires you to peel away the layers of worldly existence, coming down to a state of clean slate. The activities these tenets address have such a strong negative effect on your spiritual progress that violating them can set you back years—or even prevent you from going inward altogether.
The tamasic nature of certain foods and substances weighs down your mind and consciousness, making it difficult to transcend to higher states of being. Similarly, a mind fogged by addictions or stimulants cannot be tamed, and distractions in relationships can drain the energy needed for spiritual work.
To progress on this path, a disciplined mind, body, and soul are essential. These tenets protect your spiritual practice and ensure you stay aligned with your purpose.