Spiritual Direction of a Spiritual Scientist By Gita Saraydarian

I am most honored to dedicate this article to my father Torkom Saraydarian, a true Spiritual Scientist. He taught me the meaning of “spiritual” and “science” and was a man of clear Spiritual Direction. He had immense spiritual depth and knew clearly the higher principles that have the greatest impact in life. And, he exemplified what it means to be inclusive and exclusive in his daily life.

“Spiritual” means the life of the spirit, the Soul or the essence. “Science” means a process through which we observe with our five senses an outcome that is tangible, measurable, and can be duplicated. “Spiritual Science” means the process of bringing out into our daily life the Wisdom Teachings of the higher worlds in such a way that our life shows visible, discernable, and measurable happiness, success, creativity, and health.

To be a Spiritual Scientist, one has to have spiritual direction. How do we attain this goal?

When a person learns solid and clear spiritual principles, practices what he learns, and focuses on a sound and proven spiritual practice that helps him gain deep and broad wisdom, he or she will eventually have spiritual direction and become a Spiritual Scientist.

But, human beings can be lazy, especially on the spiritual path. We want the easy, quick path without too much effort. Eventually, after many lifetimes, people do learn the art and science of the spiritual life. We see this in people who are mature, sincere, disciplined, lack ego and vanity, are down to earth and practical, and have a real sense of joy and optimism and hope in life.

I often hear about how bad the world is, how it lacks spiritual direction, how people are so backward and abusive and so on. Yet I seldom hear from people admitting that they themselves lack spiritual direction and are simply pretending to have it. We see the problem existing outside of ourselves and do not see that our inner life is reflected in the life of the whole. What happens “out there” is what is happening inside of us. It is easy to see the lack outside of us, yet the lack begins with us inside, individually. We may feel as if all of humanity is going deeper into the evils of materialism yet are we, as spiritual people, content with vacuous and confusing “new-age mumbo jumbo”? Who is going to lead humanity into a more abundant and noble life if not sane, balanced, mature, and thinking spiritual people?

So, how do we find spiritual direction? We find our spiritual direction by living our life within the following seven principles: Beauty, Goodness, Righteousness, Joy, Freedom, Striving Toward Perfection, and Sacrificial Service. When you live within these seven principles, every day, you will always have Spiritual Direction. You will never go astray. Remember, without the right direction, there is no such thing as “spiritual” or “science”

These seven principles are not just words. They are seven formulas, seven scientifically proven steps that, when used as filters to guide everything that you do in life, they will change the chemistry of your mind and your brain. A healthy mind and brain will result in a healthy life. If you adhere to these seven principles in all you do, say, feel, think on a daily basis, you will build sustainable bodies that will carry you to the higher wisdom. These are not the shortcuts to life; they do not provide a helicopter ride to spiritual attainment; there is no fast and furious way to spiritual progress. They are meant to be challenging in order to build “spiritual muscle” Try to put these into daily life and see how challenging it is and how humbling it is to become a Spiritual Scientist.

First: Make beauty the cornerstone of your life. Fill your life with physical, emotional and mental beauty. For example, increase the beauty in your home and in your person. Make your manners and speech beautiful. Greet others in beauty. Think in beauty. Feel in beauty Respond to life in beauty. See beauty in others. When people are not what you think they should be, do not judge them and criticize them and see something wrong in them. Be clear and observant and see the real beauty underneath all of life’s events.

Second: Always begin your day by being good to yourself. Do you eat, sleep, relate with others, exercise, and use your money wisely in a way that is good for your long term future? Can you treat others in goodness? If we learn to be truly good to ourselves, we are also good to others. When we are not good to others, it is a sign that we do not know how to be good to ourselves. If you want goodness to come to you in all its forms, first be good to yourself, honor yourself, and then be good to others around you. Everyone in your life is put there for a reason. Try to find that reason and live your life to fulfill that reason.

Third: Find joy and increase it. Joy is the power and glory and wings of your soul. As you cultivate joy, remember it, share it with others, life will change dramatically. Finding joy forces you to interact with the best parts of life. Joy is interrelationship with life; it is a communication with life. Joy is always an effort that involves another part of life. When we remember the smallest gestures in life that brought us joy, our very cells change. Instead of bringing people down with our pessimism, negativity, darting remarks that make us sound smart, we bring people up with smiles of joy, words of joy, hugs of joy, thoughts of joy, always looking for the hidden kernel of joy in all our experiences.

Fourth: Live and believe in the essence of freedom. Live free from addictions and obsessive/compulsive behaviors. Be free of jealousy, envy, belittlement and put downs. Free yourself from the attachments and expectations of the personality. Leave your loved ones free to be their True Self. Celebrate freedom, encourage it. Let your loved ones have their own vision of freedom and limitless possibilities. Keep that door of possibility open for your own life. Never close the door to love, compassion, understanding, forgiveness, and of possibility. As wives, husbands, lovers, parents, grandparents, friends, daughters and sons, affirm the freedom to be who we are all meant to be.

Fifth: Be Righteousness. Righteousness is to treat others the way you want to be treated. It means that the spiritual law applies to you as well as to others equally. To be righteous, we need to forgive, not to judge; to let go, to heal; to love with all our hearts and stop hating and belittling; to stop trying to dominate and being unfair; stop expecting and being disappointed in what is not yours to have and to demand. To be righteous in a most serious way is not to expect from life what you are reluctant to give! Righteousness makes us grow up and be balanced, serene, calm and know what we sow we also reap. It makes us understand why we suffer, why we lack, why we have to undo the tangles of karma and make good and righteous choices in life.

Sixth: Strive every day; your life depends on it. Life is truly lived when we struggle and strive toward perfection. Why do we get up every day? Why do we fall in love, get married, have children? Why do we celebrate the new births in our life and remember anniversaries? Why do we bother to exercise, diet, pray, meditate, love others and ask others to love us and help us? Why bother at all if we don’t inherently know that there is something to be gained in doing these things? We know that to have and to improve depends on striving, having righteous goals, and most of all, knowing deep inside of us that there is always a possibility that a door will open and you have to do your part in knocking on that door, over and over again, until it is opened.

Seventh: Serve and give sacrificially. This is not just doing something nice. It is much more than that. It is giving, doing, thinking, providing for others because you know they are divine Souls, they are sacred, they deserve your sacred service. Your service is sacred because you are sacred, you are important; you make a difference in people’s lives. We cannot sustain service unless we know what we are doing is important and it affirms and upholds the sacredness of all life including our fellow travelers.

If your heart is broken, for any reason, you are not alone. Filling your home with more spiritual materials will not help it. Hoping everyone around you will change to suit your expectations is not going to heal it. Being depressed, withdrawing from society will not heal your heart. But, putting yourself actively into these seven principles will heal your heart. You will slowly gear into the psychic energy of space. Your life will improve and you will become vibrant and creative in all that you do. These seven principles are chemical agents that change your mind, your brain, your emotions, and the chemistry of your physical body. When you see tangible changes in your life, you will see science at work!

When you apply these seven principles in your life, you will grow up and become spiritually mature. You will not blame and complain about others. You will take responsibility for your life. You will learn the mystery of human evolution. You will see the difference between spiritual materialism and spiritual science. You will have Spiritual Direction and become a mature human soul.

The process of the birth of you as a soul is momentous; so is the birth of the soul of your loved ones; even more so is the birth of the soul of the community, the nation, and all humanity. The next time you look at yourself and your loved ones, remember beauty, goodness,joy, and freedom. Be righteous in all that you do. Strive and do not prevent the striving of others. Serve the soul in yourself by every action that you make. Serve the soul in others every time you do anything.

It is a pleasure to welcome this magazine’s birth. May all of you be blessed by the Great Ones. May you give birth to yourself, your True Essence, the real Spiritual Scientist.

With love and gratitude,
Gita Saraydarian
Cave Creek, Arizona
January 2013