True sense of Spirituality

  

             We know spirituality in many sense. When we see one saadhak meditating, or one pundit worshipping the thought that immediately  comes to our mind, that how spiritual is he. Same thought comes when we see a person wearing saffron color clothes. But how many people really understand what spirituality is? In our society there is a general myth that if you want to proceed for spiritual life, then you would have to quit this world and would have to leave alone either in a forest, on a mountain or any pilgrim as a sanyasi or as a monk.  In Mahabharat Kaal this myth was broken by Bhagwan Krishna in his message of Geeta. He explained very profoundly in Shrimad Bhagwat Geeta that you do not need to quit everything physically, to move ahead in the path of spiritual life. By living in this world with family, relatives and friends, and fulfilling your duty, you can adopt a spiritual life. You  just need to detach with every worldly desire. Just perform selfless Karma without any desires of fruits and you would be able to get the same salvation as you see a Sadhu or sanyasi gets.

                 Now we will move toward to our main point of discussion. What is spirituality? How a person can proceed without quitting this world in spiritual path. Just knowing the answer what is spirituality, a person very easily can understand how he can become spiritual.  A person is spiritual who has a kind feeling for every human being. He does not hate anything and anyone, and respect and love everyone, even his enemy also. By seeing other people in problem or by seeing others pain, his inner soul starts crying. He is ready to help every living being in this world. In true sense he is only a spiritual person. Becoming a selfish person to selfless person is in true sense a spiritual journey. When his selfish nature has been eliminated completely and when he does not differentiate any one on the basis of blood relation, relative, friend, close friend, lover, caste, religion, rich or poor, or human being and non human being, and when he loves everyone equally, then in actuality he reaches the peak of selfless nature. For him all living being, irrespective of he being a  human, animal or any other creature, are same.

       He becomes so kind that he considers the pain of any living being as his pain. He devotes his every effort to eliminate others problem. He does not demand anything from Khuda or God for himself. He prays only for others. When he raises hands for dua then he ask only the well being of others. He makes prayer to God to eliminate the pain of all other being. He makes a prayer that “hey lord, do not punish these ignorant children.” He makes prayer that show your children a true path where no pain touches these ignorant children as you have brought me.  Whole life he works for the well being of others. This is a journey of spiritual life. This is what every scriptures, Upnishads, Geeta, Bible tell us.

  And those who do not have kind feeling for others, irrespective of that he is wearing saffron clothes, doing worship 24 hours, performing Namaj as instructed in Quran or doing any other kind of prayer , cannot get any blessing of God. This was the ultimate message given by every path darshak of our life.   Take example of Bhagwan Buddha. Bhagwan Buddha by birth had  great kindness toward every living being. When he saw a bird in injured state, his heart started crying. For a bird he fought with his brother as he could not tolerate the pain of a bird. He did not have any hatred for any one. He went to Jungle by quitting everything so that he can find out the solution of the misery this world was living with.  And when he found the truth and solution, he spreaded it rest of life so that people can come out from all miseries and pain.

    Similarly Vivekanand was a spiritual person, not because he knew every mediation technique. He was spiritual because he was  very kind and emotional. By seeing situation of Indian people he could not sleep a single day. His Guru Brother in his biography explained that many time he heard the weeping voice from Vivekanand’s room. By seeing the pain of an Indian brother, he was weeping like a child. In whole life, he tried to empower other. He told to every youth that till every single human being does not get food, shelter and clothes, reading Geeta and Vedanta or meditating in alone would be a selfish task and curse for them. His message was very clear that being kind for every living being and by working for others is true spiritual way to make God happy and achieve salvation.

    Gandhi Ji in his whole life, spread only one message that become so kind that even for your greatest enemy, you have a kind and loving feeling. For your enemy too, you pray every day. It was his great kind heart, that he did not intend even a single time to heart any britisher. For Bapu, there was no difference between any human being. He loved everyone equally and spread the same message throughout the world. Jesus was hanging in cross. Blood was coming out as a river. But he was praying to God that forgives these ignorant children. He was praying to God that “ hey lord, they don’t know what they are doing. Please do not punish them for these hilarious acts.” He was in immense pain but then also his heart was praying for them who gave him grave pain. No one can claim such kind heart. This was the ultimate message he wants to give and for that he came to this world. Similarly Bhagat Singh , Ashfaq ulla khan, Sukhdev, Rajguru and all others sacrificed their lives because they could not see the pain of people. Their heart was crying to see people crying, being exploited and dying with hunger and cold. The power to sacrifice came from their kind heart. It is a kindness which gives immense power of tolerance and the will to sacrifice.

     But now question comes what make people more kind and generous. How we can enhance the kindness. It is meditation and worship which help us to become more compassionate and kind. In the study, Paul Condon and Dave DeSteno of Northeastern University and Gaelle Desbordes of Massachusetts General Hospital shows that meditation, whether or not it explicitly focuses on compassion, significantly increases compassionate behavior. Statistics on people who meditate in groups have even shown that crime behaviors in those particular people drop significantly. Therefore in Tihar Jail in India, govt are running Vipassana meditation center. And therefore Scientists at the Waisman Centre at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in Wisconsin, used compassion mediation – an ancient Buddhist technique to increase caring feelings for people who are suffering.

   Similarly worship to God makes people more kind and generous. Arthor brooks in his book mentioned that people of South Dakotan family give away 75 percent more of their household income each year than the average family in        San Francisco even though the average San Franciscan family enjoys 78 percent more personal income. He found in his research that 50 percent of South Dakotans attend their house of worship every week, while only         10 percent never do. The figures   are reversed for San Francisco, 10 percent, 49 percent. So it is clear that worship make us more kind and spiritual. And if it is not happening than we should understand that our worship is not with good intention and we will not get any fruits of this worship. Infact now in this way we can check that our worship is really working or not? Reverse is also true. If you are kind person, if you feel the pain of others, if you want to help others at any cost and if you are ready to devote your life to help others without any desires than you need not to go to any Mandir, Masjid, Church or any other religious place. Your work and your feeling of others well being is true worship. Your selfless nature is real devotion to God. You are a true spiritual person.

   But unfortunately today people are lacking this sense of true spirituality. Karm Kand and behind blind rituals, they are not understanding the right path of spirituality. Rituals make benefits only when we know and feel the real intentions of those rituals. Just following like a machine will not produce any result. Today our society lacks very deeply this sense of spirituality. We have eliminated teaching this in our school. Therefore, even a very educated person does rape, murder, corruption and exploit others.

   In our ancient education system, this spirituality was central point. In Gurukul students were first taught to become kind, spiritual and generous. In his Gurukul life, he was being trained for that only. Other subject like politics, math and language were secondary subjects. But today, all our focus has shifted towards these secondary subjects and we have completely forgotten the main central point.

 I am not saying we should not focus on these secondary subjects but I just want to say that we should include this spiritual way of life in our curriculum and we should give some extra focus to this.  If we want to change our society, we want to see a corruption free, crime free society then we would have to initiate this spiritual teaching in every school and in every college. We would have to start such curriculum in our colleges and school which can help us to become more spiritual and more wise. We would have to change our focus from a developed India to a Developed spiritual India.  Remember, God lives in a kind heart only.