Finding My Way and a Very Happy New Year
This is an invitation to embody what we already know.
This is not an invitation to learn something new or to rediscover spirituality. It is about learning how to live it — honestly, with integrity, every day. Most of us already know the language. We know the principles. We know the teachings. We can explain them beautifully. Spirituality becomes real only when it shapes our choices, guides our responses, shows up in our relationships, and influences how we speak, pause, and decide. Otherwise, it remains an idea — inspiring, perhaps, but distant from life itself. Finding my way means learning how to live this path of spirituality — not just understand it.
The real question is quieter and far more demanding:
Are we breathing it?
We are not lost — we are pausing to sense what is true
Finding my way is not about creating a new path. It is about recognising the soul’s original direction beneath the noise — roles, habits, conditioning, and expectations. Direction is revealed in silence, not urgency. Before goals, plans, or resolutions, there must be clarity of consciousness. At the end of a year, or at any turning point in life, there is a natural pause in the drama — a moment where life itself seems to hold its breath. This pause is not for judgment, neither self-criticism nor self-congratulation. It is for self-honesty. When we step out of the identity of the doer and rest in the awareness of being, direction becomes visible. This direction is not about navigating the road ahead, but about the one who is driving. When consciousness is aligned, the way unfolds naturally. When it is not, even the clearest map leads to confusion.
The real question is not: What did I do?
The deeper question is: Who did I become while doing it?
Finding my way is not about speed. It is about alignment
When consciousness is aligned, even a small step carries the soul forward. When it is not, constant activity only creates exhaustion and confusion. Alignment means my thoughts, intentions, and actions are pointing in the same direction. It is the inner agreement that removes friction — and with it, the need to rush.
Speed asks, “How fast am I moving?”
Alignment answers the deeper question, “From what state am I moving?”
A way to live with integrity
Integrity does not mean perfection. It does not mean performance. Integrity means that my inner knowing and my outer living are not at war. It is the state in which I no longer have to split myself — one self for spirituality and another for life. It is honest alignment. Many of us do not break integrity loudly. We do it quietly in private.
We also postpone it quietly:
“I value peace,” we say — yet we keep saying yes to situations that disturb our peace. Outwardly, we justify it as accommodation, service, or responsibility. Inwardly, the truth may be fear of disappointing others or a lack of trust in our own choices.
“I live with integrity,” we believe — yet we avoid a difficult but necessary conversation. Outwardly, we say, “It’s not the right time.” Inwardly, we know we are protecting our image or avoiding discomfort. Integrity is rarely shattered in dramatic moments. It is more often delayed in small, reasonable ways. And the cost of this quiet misalignment shows up not as failure, but as chronic tiredness, dullness, irritation, or inner tightness.
Finding Where Life and Conscience Disagree
Finding my way begins with finding where my actions and values quietly disagree. This is not hypocrisy in a moral sense. It is something subtler. The mind believes one thing, but life is moving in another direction — gently, slowly, over time. Because it feels reasonable, justified, even spiritual, we often do not notice it.
If this action truly matched my value,
would I feel more spacious or more contracted afterwards?
Inner Truth
When my values and actions disagree, I spend a lot of energy explaining myself — to others, or to myself. Truth does not need explanation. Misalignment does. Truth is not opinion. It is not belief. It is not what sounds right. Truth is what remains when I stop pretending. Truth leaves a residue of lightness, even when the action is difficult. Misalignment leaves a residue of heaviness, even when the action is praised.
Pretending is like holding your breath underwater.
Truth is what you feel the moment you come up for air.
A person may say, “I want to help. I’m doing so much for others.” That may be partly true. But when the performance stops, what may surface is quieter and more honest:
“I’m afraid of being irrelevant.”
“I feel valuable only when I’m needed.”
“If I stop doing, I don’t know who I am.”
That moment — when the role falls away — is truth. Not as a judgment, but as an honest seeing.
Truth is not what sounds spiritual.
It is what feels undeniable when I stop managing my image.
And truth is always the starting point of alignment.
Finding my original intention
Finding my way is also about remembering, not inventing. There was an intention to be something before there was pressure to do something. Original intention is not a career goal, a role, or a spiritual ambition. It is the quality of consciousness with which the soul came to this life.
Original intention answers questions like: What state was I meant to live from? What quality was I meant to radiate naturally? What kind of presence did I come here to offer the world? For some, that intention may be peace. For others, clarity, courage, love, stability, or truth. Not as an effort — but as a natural expression of the soul. Over time, this original intention often becomes covered by survival strategies. We learn to adapt, to protect, to perform, to please, or to control. Life becomes about managing expectations rather than expressing our essence.
Finding my original intention means noticing the difference between who I am trying to be and who I am meant to be. It is not about going back in time. It is about returning to the inner posture from which right action flows. Choices then becomes simpler, effort reduces, direction feels steady even without certainty. The path becomes clearer not because I know the future, but because I am moving from the right place within – the right intention!
This remembering does not come through effort. It comes through stillness. Through letting go of what no longer belongs. Often, finding my way means finding what to stop doing also. Finding what effort is masking fear. Finding where busyness has replaced clarity.
The way appears when the unnecessary falls away
Alignment, Not Answers
Answers satisfy the mind. Alignment settles the soul. Alignment feels like quiet certainty, inner relief, less inner argument, and more simplicity. When something is true, it does not need constant justification. Most people are not confused. They are conflicted.
“I know, but I delay.”
“I know, but I’m afraid of the consequences.”
“I know, but I’m attached to comfort.”
So, finding my way becomes finding the courage to live what I already know.
Where am I already clear — but not yet aligned?
Maya* and the Subtle Loss of Unity
On this path, maya rarely arrives as something obviously wrong. It arrives as justification, comparison, urgency, or emotional reaction. Its most subtle work is not temptation, but disunity — within the self and between souls.
Maya is not what makes me forget knowledge
it is what makes me forget myself.
Maya creates inner conflict first, an inner discord: mind against conscience, knowledge against behaviour. When inner unity is lost, outer conflict follows naturally. Small misunderstandings become personal. Differences become divisions. Ego disguises itself as righteousness. We begin reacting instead of responding. Finding my way means noticing where maya is trying to pull me out of alignment — not dramatically, but gently — and choosing to return without guilt, drama, or suppression. Alignment is not a one-time achievement. It is noticing misalignment early, correcting gently, and coming back … again and again.
A Way to Shine, Not Suppress
Spirituality is not about becoming smaller, quieter, or more contained to fit an image. Suppression creates tiredness, dullness, resentment, and inner rebellion. Truth creates steadiness, dignity, quiet confidence, and radiance. Finding my way means learning how to shine without fear — expressing truth with clarity and light, not aggression or performance. It means allowing the soul’s authenticity to be visible, without apology.
Finding My Way, Today
And when I stop running from what I already know, the way does not appear all at once. It appears step by step — in the direction of honesty, simplicity, and inner truth. When I am aligned, even the unknown becomes friendly.
Finding my way is not about arriving at a place. The “way” is not a destination: next year, next position, or next (mental) state. It is about living in the NOW and TODAY.
If I truly lived this path (of deep spirituality),
what would change — now?
Not ideally. Not eventually. But today.
Finding my way begins where I stop ignoring the small moments where my life and my conscience are having different conversations.
Truth does not shout.
It waits.
© ‘It’s Time…’ by Aruna Ladva, BK Publications London, UK
*Maya is the subtle influence of body-consciousness that distorts the soul’s awareness
of its true self, its values, and its relationship with God, leading to inner conflict,
attachment, and loss of clarity.