How to Make Spirituality Relevant in your Life
If life’s kicking you down and you're wondering about how to have a sense of spirituality in your life, you'll want to read this interview.
Vishnu has dedicated his life to helping others. He shares his personal journey on his humorous blog site which includes stories about his travels and lessons learned along the way. He encourages others to give spirituality another look and incorporate spirituality into their lives.
Even if spirituality is not your thing, Vishnu’s sense of humor comes out in his writing in such a fun way that it’s worth your time to read his blog just for an occasional good laugh.
Enjoy!
1.You started your blog this year. What inspired you to start the blog and share your wisdom and humor with the world?
Tal, I had been writing a similar column for my family newsletter growing up.
You’re probably thinking, ‘who the hell has a family newsletter’? Unfortunately, mine.
We’re spread out all over the world so we actually had a family newsletter and I wrote a column about living a good life, spirituality, God, and some personal development topics. I really enjoy writing and felt inspired to write again and instead of just to my family, I thought I’d share with the world.
2.What is spirituality? How would you define it?
Spirituality for me is being true to yourself and living in tune with the world around you. That probably sounds like a lot of nonsense to most people but for me, that’s what it means. It’s not finding God, practicing religion or the ritualistic things we do in pursuit of spirituality.
When I say being in tune with the world around you, I believe there is a higher intelligence guiding the universe and my goal in spirituality is to be in sync with that higher intelligence. Sure, the means is prayer and meditation but the goal is to align with the higher intelligence. It’s an internal process that I imagine would take a lifetime or two 🙂
3.What is enlightenment? How would one know they were enlightened?
Enlightenment is realizing our divinity. If you wake up and everything seems divine and you love everyone, you might be enlightened. You might also still be hung over from the club the previous night so give it a few hours to determine if you’re a realized being or just drunk.
Seriously, I think realizing that everything is spiritual and divine is what enlightenment means to me. If you’re religious and believe there’s a higher intelligence governing the world, then enlightenment is realizing that everyone and everything is divine.
4.You sprinkle sincere humor throughout your writing online. How important is humor in your life?
Very important Tal.
Life’s too short and too difficult to not laugh a lot at it. Even a topic like spirituality and religion deserves to be laughed at. Sure, I may be going to hell but I’ll be laughing all the way there.
I use humor because I enjoy reading humor and appreciate humor as a teacher. It’s more interesting to learn things when we are laughing.
Use to drive my Sunday school teacher craaaazzyyyyy but now I’m enjoying entertaining my readers on the blog.
5.You maintain a very active blog. What inspires you to write about the things you post? Where do you get your topics?
Life gives me the topics.
I’ve had some of these ideas my whole life so the blog gives me a way to explore and further examine them.
I’m in no way realized, enlightened or anything like that. I’m pursuing this spiritual path and want to learn and share as I go along on it so whatever I find interesting along the way to help my readers, I write about.
I’m also relatively new to blogging so I’m also writing about topics that are interesting to me – church-hopping, how to overcome excuses and resistance in life, traveling in Central America, etc.
We have hundreds of encounters every day in our lives. Life is really a school and a teacher (and great inspiration for blog posts) That’s why I love reading Srini’s blog at www.theskooloflife.com.
One of my other favorite writers, Alexis Grant, says blogging is about sharing your ah-ha moments in life. I love that concept and plan to blog more about what I learn in life.
6.Your spiritual path to enlightenment started ages ago. Describe your journey.
Ha ha – Tal, you have a great sense of humor with these questions. I love them!
I’m not too old so it started not too long ago, maybe in my teenage years. It started from living in an over-the-top religious family. My family life revolved around religion. I wouldn’t say brain-washed for 4 hours a day, 7 days a week but close.
Actually, it wasn’t brainwashing. My parents just lived a very religious life and infused spirituality in everything we did. It kind of wears off on the children.
As I grew up and started having some real life challenges, I started seeking more answers from within myself. As I mentioned, I’m far ways from enlightenment. Just a spiritual traveler like some of your readers.
7.On your website, you mention that you meditate eight hours a day. What does meditation entail for you?
Tal – that’s hilarious – that was a joke. LOL I sleep 8 hours a day. I meditate for about 30 minutes. I focus on my breath most days and try to be mindful of my mind so I can observe it.
8.How do you define “a spiritual traveler”? What are some places you’ve visited on your journey to enlightenment that have meant the most to you?
Spiritual travel is all within yourself. It’s going within to understand your mind better and to align your soul with the universe.
Religions and spiritual practices are some of the vehicles to help get us there.
I would describe a spiritual traveler as someone who is trying to understand themselves better and align themselves with a higher intelligence, which I believe governs our universe.
You don’t really have to go anywhere to go within yourself.
You don’t have to physically travel anywhere but being in India, I’ve always found to be a spiritual experience. Being with spiritual beings all around you helps put you in a more spiritual mindset.
9.You say that your day job is in the social justice movement. What do you do when you’re not blogging and maintaining your site?
I help people fight through their collective struggle.
I work for non-profits, working people and people without voices who want to come together and organize themselves to create positive change in the world.
When you don’t have money and power, you’re battling against powerful forces in the world. All you have is yourself.
Spirituality plays a big part in my work too. When all you have is yourself and your community members, you rely on faith and spirituality to take on powerful forces. You have to go within, usually to a spiritual place, to overcome struggle.
10.What is next for you on your journey?
I need to publish this ebook I’ve completed – It’s called “Is God Listening” and takes people through one of the most difficult periods of my life and shares my spiritual journey with everyone. Anyone who’s going through life-crushing, soul-crushing struggles in their life and wondering if God exists will benefit from the book and no, He’s not where you think He is.
Otherwise, I’m just trying to improve my blog, my writing and providing value to my readers. I’m thoroughly enjoying the blogging journey and meeting a lot of wonderful people, like yourself, along the way.
Thank You
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Vishnu (Yes, that is his real name) is a blogger who live a spiritually-rich life. His website, vishnusvirtues.com, was founded in 2012 and had already built a strong audience. His easy-going writing style, coupled with his wisdom, make his blog posts and website informative yet light. You can also find him on twitter at @VishnusVirtues
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
