the conscious explorer
Welcome to the creative part of The Conscious Explorer. This page will provide you with information, ideas and exercises that will help you to put in to practice some of the things we have covered in the rest of the site.
Spiritual Practice
When we hear people talk about spiritual practice and the importance of doing something regularly in order to evolve spiritually, its usually meditation that springs to mind. For some people this works really well but for others it seems like a difficult and daunting prospect and I suspect in a lot of cases it will turn people off and they will just walk away. It is also a misconception that you have to 'learn' to meditate and then you can just do it whenever you want. It does get easier to achieve this point of stillness, the more you meditate but it doesn't mean "I've done it a few times, I know what I'm doing so now I have achieved a higher state of consciousness". Having a higher state of consciousness can only be achieved in one moment - the present - and therefore needs to be achieved in every single moment.
Even monks who spend years atop a mountain in isolation can struggle. Eckhart Tolle tells of a monk who did exactly this. He would sit every day and meditate and someone would bring him a bowl of food once a day and he spent his days being present and still. Only the mosquitos bothered him but he learned to deal with that. He then had to come down in to the city to renew his visa (he was a European in Thailand). He went to the passport office and was lined up for 2-3 hours only to find he was in the wrong queue. He was re-directed to the right queue and again had to queue for a long time. When he finally got to the counter he was told that he had not filled the form in correctly so he would have to go and correct it and then join the queue again. Enraged with frustration, he completely lost it and started shouting and banging his fists on the counter. He then realised that achieving that stillness atop an isolated mountain was easy, but to achieve it in 'the real world' was a completely different matter.
This demonstrates that as human beings we live in this 3 dimensional duality that constantly challenges us. It is why we are here. Its a rather over-used quote but it rings true.... "its about the journey, not the destination".
Creativity as a Spiritual Practice
An easier and more accessible way to bring your mind to a point of stillness is through being creative. This can mean a huge range of activities from arts and crafts to music, dance etc.
For me, I chose to do Ars & Crafts and at the time it was to help with chronic pain to provide a distraction as I wanted to avoid too much medication and standard pain relief isn't effective for chronic pain anyway.. I found it very beneficial and really loved doing something creative - and surprised myself at what I could create. As time went on I became aware that being in this creative space was more than just an enjoyable past time. It put me in a space where I was literally in the present. I had no thought about past or future or what else was going on in my life - and in the world as a whole. I was totally in the present and focussing entirely on what I was doing. I was part of a meditation group and meditated regularly for around 15 years and occasionally I would be able to reach that same point of stillness, but when I was doing crafts I just slipped in to that mode straight away.
So for anyone wanting to have a spiritual practice, I would highly recommend something along these lines. In the next few pages I have detailed some of the activities that I do that work really well for me. They are there for you to try out and see if maybe it works for you too.