The Space Between Our Thoughts And Actions: Why Inner Awareness Is The First Step Towards Spiritual Growth

If someone asked you right now, ‘How you are feeling within?’, what would you say? Not how busy you are, not how things are going at work or at home, but how you are actually doing within yourself? Right?

Well! For most of us, that question lands with an uncomfortable silence. Because we rarely ask this to ourselves. When we sit quietly, we may discover thoughts we don't particularly like. Anger may be there. Fear may be there. Insecurity may be there. But there is no need to feel guilty about their presence. Afterall we are just humans. And every human being has a positive side and a negative side. Spiritual growth does not mean pretending that the negative side does not exist. It means becoming aware enough not to allow it to run our lives. And perhaps the most beautiful discovery is that we are not our thoughts. A thought may say, “I cannot do this.” But there is another part of us that can observe that thought and say, “Perhaps I can.” A thought may say, “I have been hurt, so I will never trust again.” But something deeper within us can say, “I can learn from what happened without allowing it to close my heart.” That little space between the thought and our response is where our freedom begins. It is a very small space. Easy to miss. Easy to skip past in the rush of a busy day. But it is the most important space we will ever inhabit, because everything we do, everything we say, and everything we become passes through it. So, perhaps, along with planning our external day, we need to create an internal timetable as well. Not a complicated one. Just a few honest minutes in the morning before the world rushes in, or in the evening before sleep arrives, to sit with ourselves. To notice what we are carrying. To ask which thoughts we want to keep and which ones we are ready to let go of. A mind that is tended daily does not become perfect. But it becomes quieter for sure. And a quieter mind makes better decisions, builds warmer relationships, and carries its burdens with far more grace than one that has never been looked after at all. We spend so much of our lives trying to change the world around us. Perhaps the greater work and the more rewarding one is to tend the world within. Think about it.

(The writer is a spiritual educator and popular columnist for publications across India, Nepal, USA, UK, Canada, South Africa, Australia, and Mauritius. To date 9800+ Published Columns have been written by him. You can reach out to him at nikunjji@gmail.com or visit www.brahmakumaris.com)