by Lavanya Nicola

Spirituality, in our modern world has become the most interesting topic of debate, discussions and forums. And why not? Because this is a word that which (on a physical state) cannot be seen, smelled or touched and our so called human intelligence generally has the tendency to dissect, inject and interject over any commodity which is invisible to human eyes.

And although the foundation of spirituality is supposedly planted in ancient scriptures of Asian culture, nevertheless, its true essence and understanding in both, the East as well as the West has been either lost, torn or conveniently customized to our personal justifications. Even in an country like India, which is recognized and proved to withheld the most valuable ancient knowledge of Divinity and Spirituality, it is interesting to see how the truth is brutally lost. For millions of Indian, their understanding of spirituality has shrunk down to performing daily rituals to one of their favorite Gods, be it an idol, the holy fire or even a dip in the holy waters of Ganges under open sky. And this practice has become more of a chore performed under fear of God or with an expectation that God must reciprocate back with something good in their lives in return of their prayers. And interestingly, the temples of India in the last 10 years have become filthy rich in earning so called donations from these naive devotees for every order of numerous ritual.  The Balaji temple of Tirupati (south India) considered to be second richest religious body in the world after the Vatican is supposedly has over 8000kg gold ornaments on the shrine in addition to its overwhelming collection of over 210 million dollars annually.  Imagine all it takes to make a God smile in one of the developing nations of the world.

Needless to say, our Western counterparts are never behind in any sort of competative growth? Right? They, on other hand, love to grow their already overdeveloped economy under any name, label and identity.  The West which is usually a land of opportunities for develpoing countries henceforth become breeding grounds of some Asian oversmart, spiritual entreprenuers to make big money overseas under the cozy blanket of money driven Westerners who have no apprehension to try and adventure upon any thing that is served to them in a well packed platter, especially when it is labeled with best marketing tactics possible.

The most ironical aspect, that stands out in both cultures, when someone truly seeks for spirituality in true sense, is their reactions towards this true seeker. While in India or asian culture it is taken almost as a taboo to consider such ‘inner spirituality’ unless you marry off your children, become grandparents and become physically handicapped enough to depend on others for your daily chores. Myself; an Indian by birth, grew up doting my own family as my most essential treasure until adulthood. And whom, I expected to be most supportive, post my realization in Sahaja Yoga, totally panicked and sincerely announced that I was lost, transformed and mesmerized (and religiously continue to do so). In a way, maybe I don’t blame them totally, as in the early months of having tasted the Holy nectar of vibrations and inner joy with my self realization, being new, I was totally unaware of the inner transformation which was taken place inside me, but they did not. Improbably, they witnessed the changes within me ahead of my own introspection.  And due to generations of attachment and conditionings, it became unbearable for them to see loosing their youngest member of the family.

The principle that is visible from this small episode of my personal life, is the fact that, how truth is easily lost due to layers of falsehood that we human beings have built over our skin, perhaps more so, in the past decades than before. The hype and thrill of our moderization, computers, hitech technology has boosted our ego to a level where we cannot anymore stoop down enough to look at ourselves anymore. We are busy looking at everything outside us and everyone around us with an untiring anxiety of overtaking each other all the time. And in this very self created human maze, we have absolutely lost the essence of our human birth, our evolution with Divinity and our vision of reaching true spiritual heights. The biggest Myth we have about Spirituality is that,  it is only for saints and seers.

So, the question remains: What is spirituality?

In Sanskrit, the ancient most sacred language in world, there is an interesting  explanation given to the term spirituality, called as “Aaddhyatmikata“, which is made up of five letters.  The meaning of five letters is as follows. “Aa” – Completeness. “Ddhya” – To culture and express in action by holding on to it. “Tmi” – To express the internal energy in the Self. “ka” – To portray wisdom in many forms. “ta” – Ta is symbol for tatwa. By awakening the our inner root – energy,  one can with  wisdom and will power connect with the universe with essence of the five fundamental elements (panchatatwa). By possessing and culturing that essential awakened spiritual state within, all created souls in the universe get evolved, disciplined and express a new force of progress through work, wisdom and enjoy a purnajanmam, second birth.  The true inner seeking of this person further takes him into a journey of self realization, where he/she automatically is guided by the inner energy. With this new recognition, he/she learns the real Truth. He is able to seive the truth from untruth, fatal love from true love and illusions from reality.  This is the living process of spirituality.

So as a whole, the universe and the individual soul gets blessed with the conscious energy of “Satchidananda”, the supreme Brahman, and transform to completeness that is called as spirituality!

And with one’s complete Faith and Surrender to a Guru, who is self realized, this  spirituality can be very easily understood.

Although there are millions still in this world who are still unaware of above reality or many more even shy away from it purposefully, the time is now, for all to recognize the above Truth or continue towards the path of self destruction. It is only in modern times that the spiritual awareness, evidently, will grow in leaps, thanks to the self created havoc by human beings namely; materialism, ecological issues, natural disasters, and much more.

And for us few, who have been uplifted beyond our expectations to new awareness, let us come together in true essence of spirituality; surrender our spirits to Faith in Divine and Dharma in action – the only resolution for Human Emancipation.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 16:36 and is filed under Sahaja Yoga. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.