Principles and Practices

for Practical Spiritual Living

Hi. My name is John E. Groberg and this is a site I created for the purpose of sharing my writings, recommendations and product offerings on all things related to personal and spiritual growth.  To learn more about who I am, read About John.

It is my intention to help all who find this site to live a more purposeful, joyful life of real happiness, inner peace and deliberate creation.  Everything I share on this site is designed to help you better understand and overcome real practical things we all deal with-feelings of stress, anxiety, worry, resentment, guilt and inadequacy.  Then learning how to replace these with things we all truly desire- feelings of inner peace, forgiveness of self and others, finding our true path, living more fully in the present moment, and choosing to grow spiritually no matter what life throws us.  And everything I offer on this site is based on conclusions I've drawn from my own personal life-long quest to really understand and apply the principles and practices of practical spiritual living in my own life. It's not just pie-in-the-sky, feel-good theory.  It's stuff I've lived myself and experienced myself.   

My focus is on Principles and Practices for Practical Spiritual Living.  Let me briefly explain what each of those keywords means to me.

Principles:  Eternal truths underlying all creation that can be relied upon with absolute certainty.  Principles are not bound by precedent or by our belief or lack of belief in them.  I focus on distilling principles that are common to all the world's great spiritual traditions and modern teachers and masters of life.

Practices: Simple little things we can do on a routine basis with our thoughts, words or actions that can bring us to our own personal realization of the truth of the underlying principle(s).  Personal practices are how we take personal ownership of true principles.  Without practice it's all just theory and won't have the power to transform us.

Practical:  My focus is on making spirituality practical- something that directly impacts real life- not just at a theoretical or metaphysical level, but right down to the very smallest details of living with ourselves and with others.  If it doesn't help us effectively deal with things like stress, anxiety, worry, resentment, guilt and feelings of inadequacy- it's not really practical.  Forget thinking that being "spiritual" is somehow reserved for priests, nuns or monks who can remove themselves from the world.  True spirituality is practical or it is of no use at all.  In fact it is the ultimate practicality and once realized as such- everything we thought of as sophisticated or educated or worldly before, now seems very impractical and ineffective.  

Spiritual: Being spiritual is independent of religion in that it includes but also transcends religion.  To me "spiritual" really just means "inner"; that non-physical reality that exists beneath the physical or surface reality that we perceive with our physical senses.  Our spiritual reality is what creates and sustains everything we think of as "real" or tangible.  It is the world of CAUSE and our physical reality is the world of EFFECT.   

Living: Really enjoying life and learning and growing from it- not just surviving it or enduring it.  Letting joy and expression be our engine instead of fear.  Experiencing happiness as constant and unconditional instead occasional and conditioned on things being the way we think they should be.

At our core we are spiritual beings, therefore all "personal" growth is really "spiritual" growth.  Spiritual doesn't necessarily mean religious.  One can be outwardly religious and not be spiritually aligned within.  On the other hand, one can strive to be spiritually aligned within yet remain aloof and uninvolved in a religion.  In my experience, being spiritually aligned and being religiously active are very complimentary to each other and one without the other results in imbalance and slower growth.  

I have come to realize the main purpose of life is to grow spiritually (or to grow within). Life is designed to help us grow spiritually- but it is also designed to not force us to grow. While change is inevitable, growth is a choice. The intention behind this site is to be a valuable tool to help me and you choose to grow spiritually regardless of what changes life brings us.   

The following graphic illustrates what I'm offering you:  my own conclusions and recommendations on living a practical spiritual life arrived at after much study, experimentation and personal reflection.   

I invite you to search around this site for anything that calls to your attention, and judge for yourself if this site is of value to your own journey of spiritual growth. I also invite you to subscribe to my FREE WEEKLY UPLIFT email which will give you something brief, but uplifting to reflect on every week. You might also be interested in any of my e-courses , products, or maybe just my recommendations of my favorites in different categories or my free articles.  This site is and will always be a work in progress- just like my life and just like yours. 

Thanks for your attention- it's the most valuable thing you have to give. May you be well rewarded with increased spiritual growth for giving some of your attention to this site. 

Sincerely,

John Groberg