3 Keys for How to Live a Blessed Life
How to Live Life
Enlightenment may seem a daunting task initially, but if you can just figure out how to live life well, you will be well on your way to fulfilling this great destiny of yours. In the past, I have given some guidelines on how to live in order to facilitate spiritual growth, and enjoy a happy and meaningful life, but in today’s article I want to give you the absolute basic life keys to get you started on your journey to Enlightenment.
The previous 2 articles I was alluding to above are also of course worth reading and learning from and here are the links to them: 5 Principles of Living an Enlightened and Good Life and 10 Things You Should Do Everyday for a Happy and Meaningful Life.
Without a doubt living life with full awareness, watching the ego in action, meditating and having a personal spiritual practice are big factors in your spiritual growth, but not everyone is able to establish all these aspects right away. So for those just getting their feet wet, what is the best way to start? For those eager to take this great journey back to their original, infinite nature, how should they begin? Here is the answer to that question. Start by living peacefully, honestly and in an orderly way. This is something most everyone can aspire to and being able to live life in this way sets the stage for deeper and wider growth. Below, I will expand on these simple but important keys on how to live well and begin the journey to Self-Realization.
3 Keys for How to Live Life Well:
1. Live Life Peacefully:
The amount of conflict and violence in the world is appalling to say the least. In response to this, all decent people undoubtedly want wars and hatred to end, and the first step to this is to stop contributing to the state of human violence by living peacefully ourselves. I know there are deeper and wider meanings to conflict, in which “what should be” conflicts with “what is”, but here I am suggesting a more simple thing – which is just to live at peace with everything and everybody around us. That is the starting point.
Peaceful living softens the heart and teaches us how to diffuse our reactive nature so that we can become masters of our emotions. When the winds of conflict start to stir within, if you can remember your determination to live peacefully, it will lead you to becoming conscious and awake during such tumultuous times. Once conscious, you will be able to retain your composure and act intelligently, instead of becoming a slave to the storm of feelings conflict evokes. This ability to witness the ways of the ego and emotions, puts you on the path to awakening.
Learning how to live peacefully, will also teach you the art of forgiveness and the art of compassion. I have written about these topics previously and you can read about them in the following 3 popular articles.
My Simple Rule for a Peaceful Life
The Time I Met God, Good News and Bad News
2. Live Life Honestly:
The road to enlightenment is a path of negation. This is a very crucial understanding in order to make the right progress. What this essentially means, is when all that is false is taken away, what remains is your true, non-dual, already perfect nature. You are the substratum on which the game of life is being played out, and to encounter this timeless aspect of yourself, you need to shed all the masks you have put on. For that your have to learn how to live life honestly.
This is not as easy as it may sound initially. To live honestly you will have to shatter many images of yourself that you hold dear and face many aspects of who you are, which will downright appall and even disgust you. But this cleansing, this dying of our many false selves is a necessary part of the process. Real honestly leads to real simplicity and innocence, which is essential for walking this path path to your Natural Self.
To work on yourself, you have to first see things as they are, even if they are a mess. This is the first step and as your understanding deepens, you will come to realize that the way to break through is to totally accept the actuality of “what is”, without any attempt to change or escape it. A prerequisite for such action is brutal honesty. The mind is a master at deception and the practice of honesty in all forms is the beginning of clarity.
This is also a topic I have written about in the past and you can find more of my thoughts on it in the following article:
Silent Mind Meditation Program – Chapter 6 – The Importance of Honesty
3. Live Life with Order:
One great advantage that monks and yogis have when they live in an ashram or monastery, is that their lives have great order. This structured living then helps them establish internal order and helps them establish a strong spiritual practice. So try to adopt some of these aspects into your life as well and therefore benefit from such structure as the monks and yogis do.
The more such order emerges from your passion and your practice the more natural and effective it will be. Allow your practice to thus shape your life and structure your days so that you can move forward systematically and gracefully. Generally, you will find setting up a consistent time for your practice, waking up early, getting proper exercise, eating healthy, spending time in nature and other such wholesome activities becoming a natural part of your life as you progress.
Small things you do will matter also. Cleanliness, simplicity, balance, promptness, diligence, thoughtfulness will all start to emerge as you put your life in order. Also, order does not mean an absence of spontaneity. Being simple and making time for leisure will promote spontaneity, as will living in the moment, with honesty. So start to organize yourself and your time and get your life in order. You will be pleasantly surprised by how much this will help you in your personal as well as spiritual growth.
So how to live life in order to begin the great adventure to enlightenment? Live peacefully, honestly and with great order, and surely you will find yourself on the path to awakening and Self-Realization.
Dear Anmol,really,your’s articles are helping me to improve my life towards spiritual growth.Whenever i am facing any problem in my life ,i open your article and it is giving me peace.
I do feel to sit with you in your live session.
Thanks a lot for your excellent knowledge.
Jolly anju.
Dear Dalsukhji,
Thank you so much for your insight and sharing your wisdom with us.
It is always an honor to have you stop by the website and you enrich us with your presence.
Best,
Anmol
Please excuse my typos. I hope my meaning is clear. thanks.
Random thoughts; witnessing is observing the observer. It requires a lot of focus. In ding we, develop ego and pride. This development nullifies all we achieve
If you are helping/ advising an if the other person does not heed to our advice, we start torturing him with sublet hints..What ever comes out of 5 principles is enough to lead a good normal life. Even a smaoo profile – man can utilize these simple principles.
Nice.
I really like the last point when you say the small things matter. It’s like even if there is a piece of trash on the ground and laundry to be done, if you don’t have order, the little things begin to pile up and become big things.
I needed to read this one today. I have to add order to my life. I feel like a hamster on a wheel and not getting anywhere.
Dear Anmol,
I was browsing the internet and by chance I came across your interesting blog. I was particularly interested to learn that you regularly write about Yoga.
I thought of getting in touch, since you and your readers may be interested in “Stillness Buddy”, a software application I’ve just launched last week.
Stillness Buddy helps people to remain mindful of the present moment, relaxed and at peace, while working at the computer.
It works by displaying short “moments of stillness” and longer “mindfulness pauses”, interspersed during the day. These breaks are designed to be very brief, so that they don’t interfere with work. You can choose their duration and frequency, to suit your preferences and schedule.
By regularly practising the stillness and mindfulness exercises presented during the breaks, Stillness Buddy quickly and effectively helps to:
* Cultivate a deep sense of peace and stillness in your every day life.
* Remain in touch with the joy and love that you are.
* Be more relaxed in your body, less tense.
* Work in a more mindful, alert and stress-free manner
* Live more and more in the present moment
Stillness Buddy is for those of us who want to be more at peace and aware of the present moment, in the midst of our busy lives. It is also a great tool if you want to feel less tense and stressed. It is suitable for people of all walks of life, regardless of their spiritual practice or religious background.
You can find more about Stillness Buddy and download a 30-day free trial, at
If you like the application, would you be able to review it on your blog? I would greatly appreciate any help you can give me to spread the word.
In return, I’d be happy to provide you with a free, licensed copy of Stillness Buddy and to arrange a special discount for your readers, when they mention your name.
Also, I am setting up an affiliate program, which should be ready in about a month, which may be of interest to you too.
I look forward to hearing from you,
Hector
MindFree Ventures (Stillness Buddy)
Dear Debra,
In the article 10 Things You Should Do Everyday, item #7 is “Daily Accounting”. Check that method out. It was instrumental in my development, specially with regard to emotional mastery as well as insight into deception, pretense, falseness and total honesty. It is really a very good practice to undertake. One of the more unknown methods to really help you with your evolution.
Let me know how it goes.
Best,
Anmol
Hi KL,
Great to have you stop by. How’s it going… tick tock tick tock. New adventure is looming around the corner for you :-).
Glad you enjoyed the article, it is very close to my heart.
All Good Wishes,
Anmol
Hi Karthik,
Great to have you input here. Loved your article on inner peace. Very inspiring, great depth and very motivating. Great stuff.
All Good Wishes,
Anmol
Dear Anmol,
This is a lovely article. It is so clearly articulated that it sounds simple to achieve (the hallmark of a master – taking a difficult task and making it look simple). I have experienced struggles with each of these three principles at different times.
In terms of peacefulness, I find it takes time to remember to be present and observe. During those few seconds, my egoistic mind is capable of much mischief – urging knee-jerk reactions from a place of emotion (for me, typically a negative one). How does one balance the mental healthiness of “feeling one’s feelings” rather than dismissing them (and thus stuffing them away to resurface later) versus the spiritual path of peacefulness?
Secondly, I frequently find myself peeling away layer after layer of deception on any given problem I am facing… little by little moving toward deep honesty. In one meditation session I notice and correct one or two lies, only to find myself later noticing more misunderstandings or downright illusions. Maybe I need to make a distinction between misunderstanding or partial understanding versus ego lies and illusion? Help!
Lastly, there is living with order. For the most part, I find this the most pleasurable way to live my life. Clutter in my environment usually reflects inner clutter and so in correcting one, I usually effect an improvement in the other. Living with simplicity and orderliness just feels good and ego leaves me alone for the most part except when it tries to make me feel prideful for being adept at this. Ah… this pesky mind of mine!! ;-D
Best to you, friend!
Debra
Dear Anmol,
Great article on living life filled with inner peace.
Incidentally, I wrote a similar article two days back, but in less detail.
As you have mentioned, inner peace is a foundation for a harmonius,balanced and clear life. Inner peace takes one from the unreal to the real.
Kudos to you for your good work on disseminating information on yoga,meditation, and peaceful living.
a great reminder to live everyday life properly.
Hey Anmol,
I love this article – so simple and too the point, and yet so effective. Time and time again you just manage to provide such a great balance of articles on this site, no matter what level of yoga understanding one might be at.
Thank you and many blessings,
KL