Doses of spirituality

Micro, Macro, and the spaces between

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Transcend Ego with Daily Spiritual Practices

We need to have a microdose and a macrodose. I’m not referring to substances here. Not necessarily, at least. A spiritual microdose and a macrodose. An act of connection. An exercise of dimming activity; an exercise in dimming ego, in dimming the “I”, in dimming Satan in dimming this inner voice whispering at all times.

That’s your spiritual quest. And in this spiritual quest, it helps To have a ritual that serves as a microdose, or a set of rituals that serve as microdoses. Jabs to the ego, if you will. And then you need to have the knockout punch. You need to have a macrodose. You need to have a ritual, or a set of rituals. Usually. This one is rarer. This one is of lower quantity. Maybe only one ritual that lasts days.

How to meditate and clear your mind

Think ‘Vipassana’ – something along the lines of a silent meditation for 10 hours a day for 10 days. Give or take, I may be off on the details. I’m not an expert on Vipassana meditation. But it’s a good example of an exercise that would serve as a knockout punch to ego.

On the Abrahamic side, there are many rituals that serve as microdoses. And there are many that serve as macrodoses. And many that are maybe somewhere in between – very large micro dose or a smaller macro dose.

Think of the Sabbath, stemming out of the Abrahamic side, out of Judaism, mainly. It is an exercise in ego taming. In inner voice silencing. It is an exercise in self nurturing. It’s a dopamine fast. It is a ritual that should be practiced by all, especially in today’s world. Unfortunately, ‘especially in today’s world’ also translates to ‘very few can do it’. Very few would be courageous enough to stand up to that challenge of spending a Saturday, four walls, some bread, water, and nothing else. Maybe a book, maybe a pen and paper. I’m also not an expert on the Sabbath, but I’d love to know more about it. And for one day to be courageous enough to try it, even. No phone. No laptop. That’s not easy to commit to, but we should all at least rise up to the challenge once. Just once. Can we not even do it once?

The Sabbath is certainly more than a microdose. Not quite a macrodose. Maybe it is for some, maybe it is for monks, for those who are trained, restrained, tamed. But for the average Joe, for the you’s and I’s, for most of us, it’s not enough to completely dissolve ego and awaken self, awaken heaven, God’s promise to those who abide; who step away from the whispers of Satan.

10 minute meditation

Another example of a microdose would be Lent, or prayer in Islam. The exercise of taking 5, 10, 15 minute chunks of your day, 5 times a day, time dedicated to God, a time to pray, and it’s a few jabs to ego throughout the day to sustain you, a few sips of self to keep whispers at a distance. And by the time it gets close, close, close, whoop, it’s time for the next prayer, my love.

On the Islamic side, there’s the annual hajj, spiritual route to Makkah, which is another few days. I’m not an expert on that either. Maybe 10, maybe 7, not sure. But it’s, it’s quite the process, and it’s quite the journey, and it’s in Mecca, which is in Saudi Arabia, and sometimes, as they follow the lunar calendar, sometimes it falls around summertime, and you have to spend time being active, walking distances. If you want to be true to it, you tread those distances physically. If you want to be true to the struggle necessary to experience this spiritual trip. But now it’s cheapened. People are taking selfies. People are smoking hookah at night in between. That exists in today’s pilgrimage. People sitting there posing. Creating reels of them engaging. Engaging who? Engaging what?

Rituals to Knock Out Ego and Awaken Self

Exercises like , Vipassana meditation, or Hajj, or 0Dose, the uDOSE ritual, can be successful in knocking out ego in you. It is capable of taking you to a different realm. To opening some curtains to a behind the scenes to gardens and rivers regenerate and reinvigorate and re create and neurogenerate. And the byproduct of that is an overwhelming feeling of love. It is a cocktail of hormones with an active ingredient and a main ingredient of oxytocin.