Did you ever get into your car, drive somewhere, and then become amazed at how quickly you arrived at your destination, congratulating yourself, not even remembering the drive? Most likely many of us have had that experience. Over the years, driving has become common-place. We go through the motions without even thinking about them, especially if it’s a route we often take. That is ritual; ritual is doing anything with repetitive motion that is unconscious. The key word here is unconscious—doing the same things over and over again, not aware of what we are doing. It happens all the time throughout the day, when we are driving a car or fixing a meal, or when we go to work and do the same things the same way everyday, and then come home and sit in front of the TV to watch the same programs, and many other routine actions. When we begin to look at our lives and become aware of those moments when we do things without real awareness, we start to discover how much of our lives are lived unconsciously, on automatic pilot.

The first thing we need to remember, if we want to wake-up spiritually, is that everything we do in life should be done as a spiritual practice. A huge mistake most of us tend to make is to think that our spiritual practice consists only of a formal practice that we have set up for ourselves—like meditation, reading sacred texts, reciting prayers, chanting mantras, or maybe reading or listening to a Teaching.

But even formal spiritual practice is sometimes done quite unconsciously. If we practice meditation, do we sit there talking to ourselves, maybe thinking about a problem or listing all the things we need to do tomorrow? This pretty much negates the purpose of meditation. When we recite a prayer or mantra, are we truly aware of what we are saying as we are saying it, or are we off in our heads thinking of other things? If we are reading or listening to a Teaching, are we saying to ourselves that we already know what we are reading or hearing? If we are practicing in any of these ways, we have allowed our formal spiritual practice to become ritual.

Ritual can also be filled with superstition. We may think that bowing in front of statues, or reciting a certain number of mantras or prayers will bring us good luck or merit. These practices put the power of awakening in the steps of doing something, rather than in the awareness of the meaning behind the action or words. One must have great awareness to awaken spiritually 

If we are doing any formal spiritual practice in a certain manner just because that is the way it has been done for hundreds of years, we may be wasting the moment. If we are doing spiritual practice because of a driving need to say a certain number of mantras, we are fooling ourselves to think there is an automatic benefit from that particular number. Remember, only if one is doing spiritual practice consciously, is there any real benefit.

True spiritual practice is about having our spirituality as the #1 priority in our lives. This means that we must maintain our spiritual awareness throughout every moment of every day. Everything in our lives is then lived through our spirituality. 

What usually happens when we lose awareness is that we go into a state of oblivion, where we start living habitually, over and over and over again. Until one day, we begin to see a glimmer of awareness in what we are doing, and the glimmer of awareness is so sweet that we begin looking for more ways to become aware. Now, when we start becoming aware, that is where the true learning begins and also where a taste of true freedom starts to enter our hearts.

We begin to see how very important it is for us to become aware of the places in our lives where we are doing things mindlessly. If we are not mindfully aware of our every action, we lose great freedom. We lose the ability to be aware and the flexibility to follow our hearts.

From the Buddhist perspective, the whole purpose of life, is to wake-up spiritually. True Buddhism means the Path to Awakening. There seems to be no other real purpose for living but to awaken. This means that everything we do should be done, not just from ordinary awareness, but actually from being aware that we are aware. This means we are aware that we are aware of what we are doing. We need to be very careful not to let ritual seep into our spiritual practice, or any part of our lives.

On the path of HÜMÜH, we have several formal spiritual practices that help keep us focused and aware of living spiritually. One is bowing. When we bow to another person whom we encounter, we always bow to the divinity in them and never to a personality. We also have mantras and prayers that we recite, but the purpose is to always be aware of what and why we are saying them. We consciously practice to be aware of everything that we do and to root out any habitual and/or ritualistic behaviors that we may have.

So, the next time you get into your car to drive somewhere, take the opportunity to practice being aware. Don’t allow your mind to continuously talk or go off into a daydream. Just observe. Be aware of everything—the sights, sounds, and feelings that arise in every moment. Don’t talk to yourself, just observe. Take any opportunity that you possibly can to be aware. The more one can become aware, the more freedom is gained.

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