Appropriate balance among practices brings robustness to our spiritual path, a readiness for the inevitable difficulties and droughts we encounter, a constancy and adaptability which can carry us to the uttermost depths. Assimilation Assimilation concerns what we take from the great world. It includes processes such as eating, learning, and perceiving. Our practices in this arena are to assimilate what is useful and forgo what is harmful. Managing our bodily excesses falls into this realm, as does learning new skills, learning the steps of spiritual exercises, learning the concepts of the path, knowing ourselves and the people around us, conscious eating, and conscious breathing.
Many practices have at least an element of effort.
Active inner effort is an absolute necessity in the spiritual path. Without it we drift in an imaginary spiritual life. Work with directed attention is the primary form of effort. Others include awareness of bodily sensations, conscious movement, fasting, practicing presence, contacting and transforming inner energies, and working with habits of body, heart, and mind. Openness Our own higher nature can only be brought out through receptivity.