Spirituality

With the growth of technology, ideas can now spread across the world rapidly, and the fight against any sort of injustice has become stronger. The movements like Black-lives-matter, Gender-neutrality, LGBTQ+ rights have become decentralised, and people from across the countries actively participate. At the same time, constitutions and law enforcement agencies protect and promote human rights in most countries.

In this time of era, people are losing faith in religion, which presumably promotes discrimination between people based on faith, gender or caste. Also, in all religions, one needs to follow some rigid set of instructions which often does not make any sense. Swami Vivekananda once said, "Religion, having tremendous power in them, have often done more injury to the world than good, simply on account of their narrowness and limitations." It is not surprising that more people are becoming irreligious day by day.

There is another dimension of religion that is mostly irreligious by nature, we call it spirituality. Gautama Buddha, a son of a king gave up all the royal comforts and went to the forest. He had not been looking for God nor any post-death heaven. In fact, he had been a critique of traditional religious practices in then India (There is no concept of supreme Creator God in Buddhism and Jainism.). His sole goal was to know how one can end our suffering. He experimented with his life to find out the answer.

What we always look for are comfort and pleasure. But what we really want is peace. Scientists promise to remove discomfort and pain, which in many cases lead to more suffering. On the other hand, a spiritual person learns to find peace amidst the worst discomfort and pain. The objective of this post is to spread awareness among people about the ancient knowledge of spirituality. Science students often orthodoxically reject God and religion. It is not very scientific to reject an idea without knowing it properly.

One can understand spirituality through reasoning. But intellectual understanding usually does not help unless one practises them in his/her own life. Today's world has already accepted various elements of spirituality; for example, pranayama and meditation are parts of Patanjali Yoga Sutras. But we can make our world the best place by accepting more of it.

Various philosophies provide various paths for the same supreme reality. Sri Ramakrishna said, "Joto Mot Toto Poth" (As many views so many paths to experience the divine). Buddha started with the question, "How to End All the Sufferings?". In Advaita Vedanta, the seekers ask the question, "Who Am I?". Advaita Vedanta says the real "I" is not the body. The real "I" is not the mind. It is not anything that can be perceived by the senses. The real "I" is all-pervading, infinite, pure consciousness (called Brahman, Atman or Turyam). Pure consciousness reflected by the mind gives the illusion that I am the body, I am the mind. It is like the moon is thinking egoistically that he is illuminating the earth. But the moon has no light; it is the sunlight which is reflected off the moon.

The real "I" is always present and always experienced but the self-limiting nature of the mind obscures the true experience of the real "I". The real "I" is revealed as it really is when the self-limiting tendencies of the mind have been discarded. The most important and hardest step towards the spiritual goal is the purification of the mind (Chitta suddhi). The degree of purification of the mind can be regarded as a measure of someone's progress in the spiritual path. It does not matter what religions you follow and what gods you worship. Ironically, the people who project themselves as the protectors of a religion and whose voices can be heard when it comes to religions are in most cases the worst religious persons.

Devotion is a very effective way to purify the mind (Chitta suddhi) and reduce the ego or I-thought. Devotion has little to do with rituals. It is all about unconditional surrender and love for the god. A true devotee may worship a particular god but never denies the fact that people worshipping other gods from other religions or sects are in fact worshipping the same supreme reality.

Let's take a real incident to understand the power of devotion (Bhakti). How would the parents feel if their nine-year-old daughter is raped and killed? No one can imagine the pain, the anger and the hatred of the parents. But the parents cannot bring back their daughter by anger or hatred. Instead, they are going to suffer a lot because of their anger and hatred. Even if they understand it intellectually, it is impossible for them to forget everything. Yet, it is possible for them to find peace through their surrender to the god. Devotion is so powerful.

We all have to do a lot of physical and mental work everyday. It would be great if we can make use of our work to purify the mind. This is the idea behind Karma Yoga. You might think that unselfish works can purify the mind. But, Karma Yoga is more than just unselfish works. Swami Vivekananda said that one can practise Karma Yoga (with the help of jnana or buddhi) even if he/she does not believe in god. Of course, it becomes easier for someone who believes in god.

What is wrong with "just-unselfish" work? The unselfish works are good as we are helping others. But we are still thinking, "I am doing the good work". This does not remove the ego or I-ness, instead increases it. So, claiming the doership of works is problematic. Also, when we help someone, we often expect that he/she would help us back or be loyal to us. We become sad or upset if we do not get the expected results. So, claiming the fruits of works is also problematic.

One way to deal with this that we do not claim the doership of works. All works are god's works. All the works (from sweeping to worshipping) are the same. God is doing god's works through us. We are worshipping him by doing his work attentively. We shall not expect anything in return. Of course, if we get something in return we shall take it. This way of doing works has been proven to be efficient.

There are numerous meditation techniques almost in all religions. The difficulty level and the purpose of various techniques are different. If you can find time, I suggest you attend a 10-day introductory course on Vipassana Meditation. This is based on a very ancient Buddhist technique to remove mental impurities. The course is entirely free; one can donate any amount he/she wants but only after completion of a 10-day course.

The purpose of Vipassana meditation is to purify the mind not to sharpen the concentration. The concentration gets sharpened as a result of purification of mind. The two are not the same. Let's consider a hypothetical situation. A boy thinks that a spirit is following him everywhere. He gets very scared. Then he goes out and starts playing with his friends, and completely forgets about the spirit. He has just concentrated his mind on something else. But this does not give him a permanent solution. The fear of spirit may come to him anytime. He has to face his (fear) thought of spirit and deal with it to remove it permanently from the mind. Vipassan mediation helps to remove mental impurities and purify the mind. One must use the method properly to get the desired results.