Of Purpose and Rituals: The Anatomy of Conscious Living

Rituals are the energy of what is alive - they cycle through you and bring rejuvenated energy back into life. 

Rituals help us connect with ourselves and grow in that consciousness. When we do things with our complete presence and awareness, we put meaning into them. While our actions are the performance part of our life, rituals are the setup for that action. They are deliberate and alive.

For things to fall into place, why not create a place to fall back on?

Rituals are not just performed as a preface to things. They are the solid foundation for a better and more successful life. Some people perform a ritual peculiar to them, right before an important meeting or an exam, or some other event crucial to them. Anything from a little tic to a talisman, breathing sequences to eccentric acts, whatever the ritual might be, it helps curb the nerves. The more converging rituals in life’s fabric, the everyday conscious acts pave the way for success.

Creative rituals create the perfect canvas to paint on; they help you channelize your energy for translating your best work into reality. Vilasa believes in the power of rituals, elevating mundane activities into meaningful and mindful moments that help us stay grounded and connected to ourselves. It helps in overall well-being, builds connection, helps in choosing the right path of conscious living and growth. Let’s tackle the question of building a ritual, creative or otherwise.

Introspect
Look within what it means for you to occupy space in this world, like the story of priorities and a jar, where a professor begins by filling the jar with rocks and asks the student if it’s full. To their collective response echoing ‘yes,’ he goes on to put tiny pebbles shaking the jar to accommodate them, followed by pouring sand. The jar signifies our life. The rocks are things that should matter most to us. The pebbles, other important things that are not indispensable, and finally, the sand stands for the smaller things. If you pour in the sand first, there’s no room for other things in the jar, similarly with life. This unraveling and questioning should come before you build a solid ritual in life.

Get Intentional
As with anything else, manifesting a ritual requires intentionally feeding your mind with the affirmations that get you to internalize the whole experience. What you put your energy into believing, you become.

Hone Your Intuition
Tune into your deeper energy where you harness a more reflective self. Rituals demand engagement with your complete self. And in turn, we become more aware and attuned to ourselves practicing those rituals. Creative rituals require emotions to channel them into creating your best work.

Dedicate Time
Doing is becoming. Set yourself into the natural habits of what feels best. Even when sometimes the best is to lift yourself out and away from instant gratification to do what serves the bigger picture. Moods can be fickle, but for any creative development to show, frequency plays a major role.

“For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” ― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

Rituals get you where you want to be. But they never push you into focused behaviors or strict patterns that go against your instincts for rest and recreation. Rituals, more than anything, help you celebrate life by bringing a deep somatic experience that is emotionally rewarding. They are the windows of the soul that help you achieve beyond the regular. Fostering a collective strength of shared experiences, rituals help bond people together and create profound connections. Rituals enhance your overall well-being, promote personal growth, and pave the way for a life where you show up fully and with complete presence.

So, what is the cultural purpose of your ritual?