What is the ultimate purpose of a spiritual practice? I’m sure there are many different valid answers, but I’d like to suggest that for the moment we assume that the point is to attain bliss.
The following quote from Sadghuru’s book “Karma” hit me hard:
“The human equation was always meant to be like this: to move from being to doing to having. This means we were never meant to act in order to find fulfillment. Fulfillment was seen as an inner condition. It could not be pursued externally. We act in order to express our fulfillment, not to acquire it. We act in order to celebrate our inner completeness, not to pursue it.”
Now, it would be nice if we could just flip to that state, but most of us cannot (yet). If we could, there would be no need for the concept of spiritual productivity. We would be blissful and fulfilled, and act effectively from there. We would no longer need to react to the world, but could act from our true nature. There would be no resistance to any action that needed to be performed, because there would be no deviation from a blissful state, with no preference expressed. The problem is that we simply do not have the capacity for fulfillment that is required.
Therefore, the state has to be cultivated. This is tricky, because if we try to cultivate it by performing physical actions, we start relying on those physical actions to bring us satisfaction, which means the state is conditional. The answer, in my opinion, is awareness. Notice your preferences when or before performing any action. Notice your resistance to, or eagerness for, the action or condition. When you can discern between the observer and the preference, you can start to notice the gap between consciousness and mind. When that happens, you can start to rest in the blissful consciousness while the mind does its thing. Your job then becomes increasing the gap, and watching like a hawk for when it disappears.
Only when you start to realize that there is nothing you can do to attain fulfillment can you truly start to act.
The Flow Diaries 