# Spiritual Evolution and Practice

UPL calls for continuous spiritual growth and discipline. It emphasises the importance of prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, meditation, mindfulness, and community unity.

Every tradition the teachings draw on gives its followers a discipline to grow by. The Buddha set out a path of eight parts, among them right effort, right mindfulness and the stilling of the mind. The Bhagavad Gita teaches paths of action, of knowledge and of devotion, for people of different temperaments. Islam rests on five practices, among them daily prayer, the fast and the pilgrimage. Jesus taught his followers to give, to pray and to fast quietly and not for show. Judaism keeps a day of rest each week and holds study to be a lifelong duty. Seicho-No-Ie practises Shinsokan, a prayerful meditation.

The forms differ and are not interchangeable. What they share is the conviction that the spirit grows by practice, steadily kept. UPL leaves each person free to find the practices that serve that growth.