Τhe most essential of the spiritual practices / Swami Chidananda

Question: What would you say are the most essential of the spiritual practices?

Chidananda: The central practice, the central sadhanas in all yogas is a constant abidance, a constant wakeful abidance in the goal you are seeking-which is the Reality. That which you seek being already part of you, being your innermost Self, --to be aware of your abidance in It and of Its abidance in you is the central essence of all yogic sadhana.

Dwell in God; this liberates us from all sin, from all ignorance and from the notion that I have not attained God yet and that I must attain Him in the future. If He dwells within you, what is the meaning of saying that I have not attained Him? If He is far distant, there is a meaning in saying that I have to attain Him, I have to strive, and I have to draw nearer. But when we are told and believe that God dwells in the heart of all beings, where does the notion come from that He is someone that has to be attained after a long journey? To shed this wrong notion and look within are needful. 

Awareness and consciousness are at the centre of my being. In Him I dwell at all times. Everything that exists is within Him and in everything that exists, that Supreme Being exists.

You as a human being are the one unique being who can reflect upon this and become consciously aware through a purposeful awareness, created by contemplation and spiritual practice. Only the human individual can enter into conscious awareness of this great fact, the central truth of all existence. In the ultimate context, all yogas and forms of spiritual practice are meant to accomplish this-to reach a state where all other awareness recedes and give place to this one central awareness. 

To abide in this awareness and to keep striving to keep up this constant awareness is bhakti. It is spiritual life.