In his New Year’s message at the dawn of 2023, Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj shared his slogan for the year: Be Spiritually Free in 2023. Today, in his first Sunday spiritual discourse of the year, the spiritual Master elaborated on the importance and meaning of this motto and laid a clear blueprint for how we can achieve it in the coming months.
Each new year is a new beginning and a time for us to resolve to do better than we did the year before, said the spiritual Master. Because we focus on the physical world, we may determine to take steps to be physically fit, emotionally sound, or intellectually strong while forgetting the most important aspect of our being—the spiritual aspect. What is truly important is growth in the spiritual arena, and the slogan for the year will help us prioritize this aspect of our lives.
What does it mean to be spiritual free?
At our core, Sant Rajinder Singh Ji explained, we are soul, spirit, conscious beings bound by the body, by our emotions, and by our intellect. To be spiritually free is to free our soul of these bondages so it can realize its goal of oneness with God. It is much like a bird soaring into the skies when freed from its cage.
How can we be spiritually free?
First, we need to have a passion for being free, and we need to be one-pointed in our focus toward this goal, undistracted by the myriad desires and wants of this world. Next, we need to learn the mechanism by which we can free the soul. This is the process of meditation, whereby we learn to still and silence the body and the mind so we can focus our attention on the inner spiritual worlds. Having learned the practice of meditation, we must strive to meditate accurately. The more we practice, the better we are at harnessing the power of the mind to focus on God. Along with accuracy, it is also essential that our practice be regular. We need to sit in meditation every day, as each day brings progress.
Beyond our spiritual practices, we also need to learn to let go of everything that keeps our soul shackled to this world. We are all attached to our outer environment through our desires, relationships, and responsibilities. If we want to set our soul free, we need to focus on activities that will bring us closer to God, as this is our ultimate goal.
Another critical factor to help us succeed in our quest to be spiritually free is to live a life of gratitude. When we have gratitude for God for all the blessings in our lives, we find peace and harmony. This helps us reach deeper states of consciousness when we meditate. As we put these steps into play in our lives, we will find that progress on the spiritual path comes rapidly, and we have become successful in our goal to be spiritually free.
It is God’s love that brought us here, Sant Rajinder Singh Ji said, and it is God’s love that we need to experience in this human existence as it is this love that will draw our soul from its cage and into the openness of the vast inner skies.
