Are we missing something if we are not practising spirituality?
I asked my elder daughter to practice spirituality. She quickly responded, ” I am happy the way I am now, why should I practice spirituality?” One of my ex-colleagues, who is highly successful professionally, answered similarly when I suggested to him that he should practice spirituality.
Is their view right? Are we missing something if we are not practising spirituality, but are generally successful in life?
We can compare this situation to asking a child to study. Studying is essential to realise the future potential. Spirituality is also a potential. The benefits of studying are tangible and can be easily correlated with academic progress. In contrast, the benefits of spirituality span over a very long period and seem intangible. Our intelligence is not enough to comprehend them. We miss out on realising those potentials.
What are these potentials? Let’s delve into each of them to get a deeper understanding of the significance of practising spirituality.
Potential 1: We are satisfied with the slow pace of our evolution while we have the potential to evolve faster.
In simple terms, evolution means positive progress. Evolution of whom? In the context of this discussion, we are not referring to biological evolution but rather to the evolution of our consciousness. Our individualised consciousness, commonly referred to as the soul, undergoes evolution over a long period across numerous incarnations till it eventually relinquishes individuality to reunite with Cosmic Consciousness. The pace of this evolution varies from person to person. What determines the pace of our evolution?
The pace of our evolution is determined by how much we are learning. Just as we return to school till we complete our learning, we come back to this earth to complete our unfinished learning. The school syllabus is relatively simple, but the curriculum of life is more difficult to comprehend. Our life is governed by the laws of nature. However, the effect of these laws can be seen only across many incarnations over a long period. They are beyond our intelligence. So we make many mistakes and stumble in life. This slows down our progress.
Where is the knowledge about our life? Today this knowledge is not with science, psychology or philosophy due to the limitation of learning tools used in these domains. However, spirituality, equipped with a more potent learning tool, possesses this knowledge. We can learn the curriculum of life through spiritual reading and practices and speed up the pace of our evolution significantly. As Paramahansa Yogananda said, spirituality gives us an air ticket while we are travelling by a bullock cart. Are we missing out on this opportunity?
Potential 2: We accept momentary pleasure as happiness while we can experience bliss.
If we think we are happy the way we are today, we might be mistaken. What we are calling happiness is a state of momentary pleasure. It will fade away in some time. Soon we will chase something else to get back to that state of pleasure, but that will also not last longer. We will find ourselves chasing something new again. This cycle repeats in our life. Lasting happiness eludes most of the common people.
Why can’t we get lasting happiness? Because we are giving a toy to a thirsty baby crying for milk. The toy gets attention for some time and the baby stops crying for a moment. But soon she feels thirsty and starts crying again. Our desires satisfy our ego. But the need to be always happy comes from our consciousness or soul. This need always remains unsatisfied.
What is the source of real happiness then? It is within us, not outside. Real happiness comes from knowing our true nature. While this notion might be familiar, we may not know how exactly we can realise our true nature. This knowledge comes from spirituality. Following spiritual practices we can realise that we are the ever-existing consciousness. This realisation is bliss. Are we settling for momentary pleasure missing out on the experience of true happiness?
Potential 3: We consider delusion as reality when we have the opportunity to know the truth.
Identifying ourselves as ego brings more misery to us. The ego conceals our true nature and prompts us to display qualities that are not genuinely ours. The ego survives by identifying itself with some objects or social positions. The more it has, the stronger it is. It always needs comparison and needs to feel superior. The strategy ego uses is to always work to own more, seek others’ attention to prove its worth, find fault in others to feel superior and behave defensively to protect itself.
These needs and strategies of the ego explain why most of us behave the way we behave. Pursuit of our material desires becomes our highest priority, we don’t mind being selfish and dishonest to meet our goals, we always complain about others, we are restless and impatient, get angry very quickly and behave rudely with others, and we have very little control over our temptations. All these behaviours are prompted by ego. They are not our true nature.
In our true nature, we are always calm, truthful, kind, caring, compassionate, and selfless and possess a very strong ability of self-control. These divine qualities of ours are always within us but overpowered by ego. Why should we contend with the current way of living when it is possible to live a divine life on earth?
Why do we have two natures in the first place? Our true nature is consciousness or soul, but we think we are the ego. This is a delusion. Delusion is necessary for creation. A storm is needed to create differentiated waves from the undifferentiated calm sea. Similarly, cosmic maya or delusion is needed to create the differentiated beings from the undifferentiated Cosmic Consciousness. Everything in nature has an opposite. Good and bad, day and night, birth and death, light and dark, knowledge and ignorance. This is the duality of nature. Humans are also part of this nature and subject to this duality. Delusion makes this duality possible for us. Without delusion humans and God are the same.
Potential 4: We strive to gain perceptual knowledge while we can transcend beyond our senses.
Albert Einstein rightly said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift”. Despite the limitations of perceptive learning using our senses and intelligence, we heavily rely on these methods. The mysteries of the universe are beyond our sense perception, but not beyond our reach. They can be learned intuitively. Everyone has intuition, but covered by the gross outer layer of our body. While ancient sages and religious prophets got access to this capability through spiritual practices, we are ignoring them.
Creative ideas emerge into our consciousness when we are not working on them. They come intuitively from within. Einstein said, “ I think ninety-nine times and discover nothing, I stop thinking, dive into deep silences and, behold, the truth is revealed to me”. While numerous discoveries have come intuitively, we rarely develop our intuition using age-old meditation practices. We are striving for new knowledge, and we are making progress but we have the opportunity to accelerate it more.
In summary, if we are satisfied with our growth, happiness and knowledge, we might be mistaken. Undoubtedly, the growth, happiness and knowledge that we achieve in this life are of great value, but they are insufficient to say that we have lived our human life to the fullest potential. As humans, we have the potential to realise growth, happiness and knowledge at a completely different dimension. Without that the purpose of this human life is incomplete.