I want to start a conversation about something that I think is really really important and I feel like it’s part of my responsibility as a spiritual leader and as a mentor and someone who has been on a path of spiritual seeking since birth (because my first spiritual teacher my mother Angelique has been on her path that entire time). It’s over 20 years that I’ve been actively on this path of spiritual seeking and I’ve learnt a thing or two (thankfully), because if I hadn’t then I was probably doing something wrong. One of the things that I would like to share, is the difference between the trinkets and superstitions of the New Age, and devotion.
I saw something recently that really kind of jarred me and made me feel really concerned that perhaps there was some confusion between the idea of trinkets and superstitions, and the idea of the New Age ghetto producing a kind of spiritual retail therapy. It means that we have all the nice stuff and we go buy our malas and crystals, we study our modalities, and we keep removing ourselves of our own personal power. We put our power outside of our self. We put our power in the trinkets and superstitions.
So, unless the moon is in a particular phase or my star signs are doing something a rather, or if Mercury is in retrograde, or if I haven’t had my latest crystal bed therapy, or whatever it is… that I somehow can’t be a fully functioning, fully contributing, spiritual being. This is all trinkets and superstitions. They are ideas that are human-made not divine and holy.
Somehow we give our power to, or we look to these superficial things, as the the reason that a spiritual awakening occurs. Our spiritual awakening doesn’t occur because we bought a crystal or because we bathed under the full moon, or any of those things. There’s a very powerful reason why, and this is the point of difference to devotion.
It’s so important that we understand the difference between the tools that give us power, and the tools, trinkets or superstitions which take our power.
I want to add here that I am NOT saying that we should never pursue the things like specialist treatments or sessions with spiritual practitioners. I think there is a time and place for that. In fact, I train women to serve in that way because I believe that there are times where we do need scaffolding. But to believe that those interventions are the thing that caused our spiritual awakening is where our thinking falls down and where I really want to make a point of difference because that is not devotion.
Devotion is something entirely different. As a spiritual seeker you cannot build a life without devotional practices.Your devotional practices are what bring you into true remembrance of who and what you are, which in my language is God.
As God having a human experience it is vital that you engage in those practices that bring you as close as possible to your God consciousness. In its fullest form this is very different to a spiritual trinket. Whilst fun, they are not the reason or the cause of your spiritual evolution. Your spiritual evolution comes only from going deep into your devotional practices and handing yourself over to God. It is that devotion where we meet God.
The really beautiful thing about reaching our God consciousness is that we are no less God than we were before we came into human form, we’ve just forgotten.
God is not in this illusion, this beautiful human dream that we’re inhabiting right now. Whilst that might make you feel uncomfortable it is truth.
Whilst we are overly invested in the external life, in our human experience, our 3d reality, we have forgotten our true nature. Our devotional practices are those things that take us away from the superficial dream and back into the truth of what we are, which is God consciousness or pure unlimited consciousness. 5d rather than 3d.
When you don’t have devotional practices in your life as a spiritual seeker, things will start to go wrong very very quickly because you are totally wedded to the external world. You are only invested in the trinkets and superstitions in that external dream layer of consciousness which cannot nourish your soul, cannot remind you of what you truly are, and cannot bring you closer to the place where you truly manufacture your reality.
When your devotional practices are part of your every living moment, then you are absolutely certain of meeting your own infinite power and awakening to the truth of what you are.
So what is a devotional practice? A devotional practice is primarily anything that takes you into silence and stillness.
Silence and stillness typify a devotional practice but they can also include sound so we can think of chanting as a devotional practice. The reason I would still consider sound to be part of inner silence and stillness is because even though you’re making sound, you’re using that sound to alter the fabric of your existence. You’re using sound or chanting to guide you to that inner state.
The ultimate devotional practice is of course meditation, and a spiritual seeker who does not have meditation in their daily life is not actually on the path because you are not able to access God consciousness. Without meditation you are not able to be a hundred percent in the external reality and meet yourself as your infinite unlimited self.
I know I’m saying this a lot, but I feel like it’s it needs repeating.
We use up devotional practices of things like chanting, mantras, or even things like yoga using asana to get us into those inner states of stillness where we can then go and meet God. Where we let God move into us in full consciousness, where we hold our vibration in such a way that we are able to know the truth of what we are. Everything that we do in the world can be done as an act of devotion and I want you to remember that.
I’m not saying that you have to sit down and meditate for an hour a day, you simply may not have that time. But, if you are not able to cultivate silence and stillness for at least five minutes in your day then I would encourage you to look at what else you could give up in order to have that silence and stillness, because that should be your priority.
I guarantee you whatever it is you’re trying to make of your life will be made so much more successful when you introduce silence and stillness into your daily practice.
That can be achieved in five minutes, you can do it once or you can do it 17 times. You can walk in devotion, do the dishes in devotion, do most of our daily chores in a state of devotion. But still we must also cultivate those states that allow us to know the truth and that is not going to be met in the busy activity of our lives.
So please don’t confuse the trinkets and superstitions of the New Age with your devotion. Your devotion is that non-negotiable thing that must be present and must be cultivated.
It isn’t easy. I’m not saying to do this because it’s an easy thing to do, I’m saying to do it because there is really no other path for the spiritual seeker. If you don’t have this time of stillness, this time of going in to meet yourself as God, this time of prayer, contemplation and reflection upon your own soul nature, you will burn out. You will go into crisis. You will experience anxiety and depression because you are not fuelling or feeding your soul. Without feeding your soul will burn out. You will simply have nothing to run on because nothing in the dream is going to nourish you in the way that your devotional practices will.
The reality is that the dream, no matter how good and high vibing it is, does not exist. That is truly confronting for some people to hear, and I understand that, but it is the truth.
I’m not here to give you comfort for your limits, I’m here to inspire you to see yourself as God. That requires you going beyond the belief that even the good things of the dream are not real. And, the love that you experience in the dream is a pale imitation of what it is that you’re truly capable of.
These practices are the only way for the spiritual seeker to go into those true states of bliss. Nothing in the dream is going to do that for you.
The more time we spend in our 5D reality, our pure consciousness state, the more possibility our life presents to us, and the more bliss and joy we experience.
So I feel like I’ve made my point, and I hope that it’s sitting well with you because it’s meant to be an inspiration rather than a sense of being told off for not doing enough devotional practice. It’s truly an invitation to know that if you give yourself this stillness and silence, if you cultivate practices of prayer and meditation, that you will actually meet yourself in so much more power and glory than you have ever known.
Dr Ricci-Jane Adams is the principal of the Institute for Intuitive Intelligence, a world-class, global professional intuition training school. She trains exceptional spiritual women as new paradigm priestesses, socially conscious leaders and profound mystics. Ricci-Jane is the author of bestselling Spiritually Fierce, as well as Intuitive Intelligence Training and the forthcoming Superconscious Intuition. Ricci-Jane has a doctorate from the University of Melbourne in magical realism. She has spent over twenty-five years devoted to her spiritual awakening and is a qualified Transpersonal Counsellor. Subscribe to the Mailing List
