It’s easy to put off spiritual practice.

You’re busy, right? So, you decide the spiritual dimension will have to wait until you have more free time. 

Or maybe you think you’ll get to spiritual practice when you’re older—after you’ve lived a full life. You assume you’ll have plenty of time and space then, but is that true?

Life can be so compelling as well.

On a practical level, you have to pay the rent. On a mental level, you think you have to prove yourself and become a success. On an emotional level, you want to be part of the crowd and have fun too.

But if you keep putting off spiritual practice, will you ever really get to it?

When the time comes for your spirit to leave your body, you may suddenly realize you had your priorities mixed up. You elevated the transitory above the spiritual. Now it’s too late.

Whether you’re about to embark on the spiritual path or have become lackadaisical about the one you’re on, use the following three reasons to light a fire under your butt.

Because time is of the essence! We never know what will happen next.

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” — Teilhard de Chardin

1. Spiritual Accomplishment Takes Time

Rare individuals like Eckhart Tolle and Byron Katie have experienced a sudden spiritual awakening.

Both those individuals were emotional wrecks when their epiphany jolted them awake. They had no previous spiritual training at all.

I wish that would happen to me! I bet you do too.

But this type of instant awakening is extremely rare.

There are non-dual paths that can bring you to awakening in a matter of years. I’ve read many historical accounts of dedicated practitioners in Tibet who were introduced to the nature of mind and then meditated alone in a cave for six years to stabilize their realization.

This is the case in modern times as well. 

The contemporary spiritual teacher, Adyashanti, began studying Zen Buddhism at the age of twenty. His first awakening occurred at the age of twenty-five. It was followed by a voice that urged him to continue. His second awakening took place at the age of thirty-one. 

During that decade, Adyashanti meditated two-four hours a day alongside working in his father’s machine shop. He also attended long Zen retreats.

Six years. Ten years. That’s relatively fast.

You may not be so lucky. Awakening could take longer for you.

If you decided to start practice “later,” at some fuzzy, undesignated juncture, will you have enough time to achieve any real level of accomplishment? Or will the karma you’ve accumulated while living a full life postpone your achievement even longer?

Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’ll prioritize spiritual practice at an unspecified later date.

“The trouble is, you think you have time.” — Jack Kornfield

2. Good Health Can Be Lost in an Instant

The Words of My Perfect Teacher recounts the story of the nun Palmo who, stricken by leprosy, devoted herself unreservedly to spiritual practice and attained the “supreme accomplishment,” meaning enlightenment.

But let’s be honest. 

It takes an exceptional person to use serious illness as the path. Many of us would get caught up in self-pity. We would quickly put spiritual practice on the back burner while running after solutions and treatments instead.

I can tell you from my own experience, it’s not easy to practice with symptoms like brain fog, pain, and fatigue.

Well, of course you’re not going to catch leprosy!

But what about long Covid? Long Covid can take away your ability to think straight for a second or even get out of bed.

No matter how perfect your health is right now, it could be destroyed in an instant.

As people age, most become more susceptible to illness. Just as you sit down to get serious about spiritual practice, you might discover you have early-onset Alzheimer’s.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’ll always have good health, and thus can start your spiritual practice at a later point.

“Health is the greatest gift,
contentment is the greatest wealth,
a trusted friend is the best relative,
Liberated mind is the greatest bliss.”
—The Buddha in the Dhammapada

3. A Long Life Is Not Guaranteed

Impermanence constantly surrounds us—day turns into night, one season moves into another, each day babies are born and people of all ages take their last breath.

Yet we tend to think we’ll live forever. 

That is, at least in part, due to “Abhinivesha,” which the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali describe as “the ingrained desire for continuity.” 

We need to counter this strongly embedded tendency by constantly reminding ourselves of impermanence. I used to recite a Buddhist verse each morning as a reminder of the way things really are.

“But death is real,
Comes without warning.
This body 
Will be a corpse.”
—Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Don’t fool yourself thinking you’ll spend ten or twenty years gathering your resources so you can focus on spiritual practice once you have everything in place. 

Death will gladly thwart your plans.

Closing Thoughts

It’s a privilege to be able to engage in spiritual practice.

Many people will never have the chance. They’re fighting in a war, dying of starvation, or exploited by sex traffickers.

If you happen to have the privilege, don’t waste it by putting spiritual practice off till later. There’s no guarantee:

1. You’ll have enough time later

2. You won’t come down with a serious illness that makes spiritual practice no more than a dream

3. You won’t die this very instant.

Of course, you have to take care of your responsibilities in ordinary life. 

Adyashanti worked in his father’s machine shop to pay his bills. No one is asking you to run off to a cave in the Himalayas.

But there’s no time to lose. No one knows what the future will bring. Whatever your age, start now.

Don’t mix up your priorities and regret it when the time comes to take your last breath.

[Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels]

Thank you for your presence, I know your time is precious!  Don’t forget to  sign up for Wild Arisings, my twice monthly letters from the heart filled with insights, inspiration, and ideas to help you connect with and live from your truest self. 

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