It’s very practical,
you know,
this outer, inner, secret
Spiritual Practice,
Amid the cacophony of life,
Amid the hustle and bustle,
Amid a world embroiled
by nonsense,
here you are
empowered at least
at last,
gazing at mind, gazing at mind,
OM AH HUM, OM AH HUM,
Body, Speech and Mind,
confronting demons, obliterating obstacles,
finding peace, remaining at ease,
purifying your vision of the ineffable,
increasing your capacity,
living a good life;
Spiritual Practice
is
much more
than just
being one of the cool kids,
it’s about being weird,
being strange,
being unexpected,
doing what few have ever even considered,
not in an infinite series of lifetimes,
Aspiring to Awaken,
being diligent about it,
then
Awakening.
A poem by Robert Aho © 2026
When we are Spiritual Practitioners, we Aspire to Awaken. This is not so easy. The world is full of people who run from one meditation retreat to another, meeting famous Spiritual Masters, receiving profound teachings and empowerments, bragging about this or that practice or how long they’ve been practicing; and, yet, they’ve not really Aspired to Awaken, nor do they hold that as a precious gem. This is really tragic. I hate to break it to them; however, without this most precious Aspiration they are no further along than a beginner who is merely contemplating the Spiritual Path. Because of this, they’ve set themselves up to fail, to abandon what is most precious. We must Aspire to Awaken, or there is no point whatsoever!
If you Aspire to Awaken, I mean truly Aspire to Awaken, then enlightenment is a certainty. It’s not so difficult, even though it may seem overwhelming. There are millions of Buddhist texts, all of them extremely profound and useful. We can add thousands of different practices to that, all of them profound and useful as well. In reality, there is only one point to discover, and you must do that in a way that is uniquely useful to you.
We start with this profound Aspiration to Awaken, dedicating our own Awakening for the benefit of all beings, then we gaze at mind. We look within. It’s best to keep it simple at first. We will need time for our capacity to increase, which means opening our heart and mind to the ineffable reality, which is Ultimate Reality, or as I’ve called it, Timeless Luminosity.
We don’t know what that is at first. We simply open our heart and mind to the possibilities, to reality itself. This very act is at the heart of Spiritual Practice. As our capacity increases, we can learn to bring benefit in other ways, by living virtuously, by living altruistically, by transforming, by remaining at ease in all situations. This is the synopsis of the Complete Path. You should know what you are in for before your first step, before you let go of cyclic existence and all that binds you. When you let go, you are ready to receive Ultimate Reality, you are ready to finally do something that will actually bring benefit to yourself and others for the first time in your infinite existence.
What few will tell you is that the Spiritual Path changes. Not only is it different for the 84,000 different types of students, it’s also completely different and unique to each Spiritual Practitioner. Since progress on the Path is typically very slow, teachers may forget to mention this one blaring reality about the Spiritual Path. It’s not pertinent to most students.
If, however, you are the sort of student who intuitively knows how to be efficient with your Spiritual Practice, it doesn’t take long to realize that the practices of mind change quite significantly. The first step is all about becoming happy and virtuous. With increasing capacity, it is about becoming altruistic, much like what we saw with Yeshua and Gandhi. If we are ready to really supercharge our Spiritual Practice, as we see with the Vajrayana, we transform everything through elaborate visualizations and rituals, working with energy in a very dynamic way.
When we at last realize the Nature of Mind, we discover that there is nothing to do. It is all self-perfecting. With this recognition we discover that which is unchanging, perfect from the beginning, Timeless Luminosity, beyond any mental fabrication. We discover what has always been there, though our own ignorance, attachments and hatreds have prevented us from realizing what is real. We’ve been frightened to let go for an eternity.
Spiritual Practice allows us to go beyond the constraints of mind. It allows us to surrender to the ineffable reality that awaits us all, without any sort of concern for a self that never really existed to begin with. In this, we begin to witness the illusion as it unfolds, without judgement, without pain.
If you’ve read The Frog: A Spiritual Autobiography, Spanning Many Lifetimes, you may have learned more than you really wanted to learn about the breadth and depth of Spiritual Practice; however, in reality, I barely scratched the surface of what that actually entailed. Spiritual Practice unlocks the hidden recesses of your mind. Truly powerful and useful Spiritual Practice confronts and conquers millions of demons. All obstacles become obliterated along this Path to Enlightenment. It’s very much worth all the effort.
Blessings of Source,
Rigdzin Robert Aho
Robert Aho is the author of Timeless Luminosity and The Frog: A Spiritual Autobiography, Spanning Many Lifetimes. Both books, written after his death experience, give advanced spiritual advice regarding the complete Spiritual Path, inspiration for living each day and words of encouragement, with the intention of helping people to stay committed to their Spiritual Path, as well as preparing for death. This ultimately leads to discovering your own power within, which leads to Awakening. Both books are available on Amazon, Zenith Bookstore, as well as various other sources.