SPIRITUAL LIFESTYLE

WHAT IS DHARMA?

DHARMA:	Heart centered, holistically healthy, educated, civilized, spiritual approach to life.
SADHANA:	The study, learning, practices, and guidelines to achieve dharma.

SOUL REALIZATION

Realize yourself and others as soul
Realize God as the eternal and loving creator of everything
Realize the Creation as the will of God
Realize the world to be in the loving hands of God and that all souls are learning that which needs to be learned
Perceive the hand of God at work in all things in the world
Free your heart and mind from vice by the process of understanding and purification
Let the body be a healthy body
Let the mind be a healthy mind
Let the heart be a compassionate, caring, and loving heart
Understand, purify, and master the seven centers of the human experience
Be respectfully and considerately at one with God, all souls, and all life
Surrender to God and God's will that creates all life, and experience the deep inner peace and happiness of soul and God Realization

Increase your sattvic force

Sattvic people like to progress, to grow, to evolve, but only in a creative, life-supporting, and holistically healthy way.

The secret of sattvic people is that they have naturally healthy and selfless desires. The sattvic force combats unhealthy habits. Increase your sattvic force by:

The daily practice of sattvic exercise routine:

Hatha Yoga Asanas
Tai Chi
Swimming
Walks in nature

Eat only sattvic (preferably vegetarian) foods:

Fresh fruit and vegetables
Warm milk
Whole cereals (eg: muesli)
Yogurt
Rice
Lentils and split peas

Understanding and taming negative emotions
Understanding and reducing the impacts of stress
Keeping your seven chakras in a sattvic, healthy, balanced state
Avoiding physical and mental lethargy - inertia
Avoid unwholesome surroundings and people
Violent, crude or shocking books and other forms of entertainment
Socially sattvic habits:

Relax
Be pleasant, warm, and tolerant toward everyone
Act on due reflection, not on impulse
Refrain from anger, wrath, hatred (and the other vices), and undue, impulsive criticism
Take time each day for play, humour, relaxation, meditation, and good company: Live a balanced, healthy life.
Wake up with the sun and go to bed before 11pm
Be generous with others in every way, even a compliment is a gift
Practice the Eight Limbs of Yoga
Practice the Eight Fold path of Buddhism
Overcome selfish egotism by daily purification, Practice the Eight Limbs of Yoga, and the Eight Fold Path.

CONSCIOUS SELF MASTERY

You can master your own body, heart, senses, and mind. If you achieve self-mastery then you are the master of everything in your life. Unfortunately, many have forgotten to exercise this mastery, and the body, heart, senses, and mind have become the masters. If you let them they will enslave you, but you can train them to obey you, then you become the master.

To control your mind you must control the senses because a large part of the mind, excluding the imagination, functions through the senses. By themselves the senses are innocent. They can't do anything. It's not the eyes that see, but the mind through the eyes.

The fifth branch on the tree of yoga (The Eight Limbs of Ashtanga Yoga) is sense control. That doesn't mean you suppress anything. Instead, you gain control over them. You use the senses as you want and do not allow them to use you. Through the conscious mind you send proper impressions into the subconscious mind to erase the old impressions and habits. That's what you cann will: use you will.

The best way to develop this ability - the willpower - is to begin with small things over which you can easily take control, and build from there. Gradually taper off unwanted habits. Instead of saying "I am going to stop smoking today forever" try steadily cutting down on a daily basis and then you will have success.

NURTURE SPIRITUAL QUALITIES

A spiritual lifestyle involves the gradual abandonment of selfish desire, narcissistic egoism, and life-destructive habits, purification of the seven centers (body, heart, mind, relationships, responsibilities, activities, soul, God awareness), and the establishment of heart centered spiritual qualities:

Balance
Care
Cleanliness
Cooperation
Compassion
Conscience
Contentment
Empathy
Forgiveness
God awareness
Goodness
Harmlessness
Healing
Humility
Holistic health
Holistic integration
Holistic life management
Honesty
Kindness
Love
Moderation: All good and healthy things in moderation
Not hoarding things beyond our needs
Non-stealing, non-covetousness, non-jealous, non-envy
Patience
Politeness
Prudence
Purity
Repentance
Self respect
Sincerity
Skill - strings to your bow
Social grace
Soul awareness
Surrender to God
Temperance
Thanksgiving to God
Trust in God
Truthfulness
Understanding vice and it's purification/removal
Understanding of the human experience
Understanding life roles
Understanding relationships
Wisdom

Whatever is done without VIRTUE-PEACE-LOVE-WISDOM, awareness of The One Real Self, and social conscience will bring unhappiness to one and all. Souls that believe that they can escape the consequences of their actions at the time of the death of the physical body are certainly a little shocked when they are reborn into another physical body and must face these karmic consequence.

Humble living on the good path OF SPIRITUAL LIVING

SPIRITUAL JOY-PEACE-CALM-HAPPINESS

When we gain control of our pleasure seeking desires, overcome our selfishness by the process of conscious and systemised purification, understand both the individual soul and The One Real Self (the deepest identity of all and the source of The Creation), and begin to wisely serve ourself and others with spiritual understanding, then we will begin to feel the joy and happiness that enlightened beings speak of.

The process is that of purifying our body, mind, heart, and soul (the seven chakras of the individual human being), realizing The One Absolute Real Self, and making a wise heart chakra our decision maker in all our actions. The heart chakra must be wise and becomes wise by a process of study, understanding, and experience.

GRATITUDE AND SERVICE

I am grateful to God and all souls for all things in life (The Creation). I thank God (the deepest, highest, and absolute Self) and all souls for making all things possible. I love God and all souls. I serve God and all souls with respect, care, consideration, and love.