'Spirituality is in Experiencing' Experience=Action+Realization

A few of my iconoclastic friends often ask with a great sense of inquisitiveness, “Do you believe in God/why do you believe in God? /why do you not believe in God?”The very true but imprecise answer that I have is, “Yeah, I do believe in Him when the exams are near or when the things aren’t going the way I want”.

The Supreme Personality of Godhead- Sri Krishna, during His verbal discourse in the battlefield of Mahabharata, says to Arjuna, “Realization is the only channel which connects soul with enlightenment”. The two words which require greater emphasis are- ‘Realization’ and ‘Enlightenment’. What in actual is realization in your terms? For youngsters like us, it sounds something unrealistic, obsolete or even weird. We never pay heed to such words or rather we don’t want to and mistakenly, if we do pay little attention, we never bother to figure out its intricate hidden relevance. For most of us realization means awareness. It is awareness but awareness of what. Is it the awareness of your Surroundings or is it the awareness of your Self? It is the awareness of your SELF. I define SELF as Spiritually Enlightened/Eternal Living Force.

Spirituality is all about realization. It is about getting acquainted with one’s elevated state of soul or in simpler terms it is a process (kriya) to raise one’s consciousness. The problem with most of us is that that our senses are always in a state of commotion and divergence. By divergence, I mean that we never direct our senses to do a single work at a particular time rather we put our indriyaan (senses) in multitasking mode thereby expanding the gulf between our soul and consciousness. Take an example in this context; while studying most of us have the habit of listening to music. Though we are studying externally, internally our mind is in an altogether different zone. All the five senses are in fact doing different jobs, being completely diverged from our main task of studying. We are listening to music- our hearing is diverged, we are thinking of someone/something - our sense of visualization (vision) is diverged, we never feel what we are doing- our sense of touch is diverged. Our sense of speech is directed more towards the lyrics of the song which is being played. As such, there exists an utter commotion amongst our senses. This state of commotion is divergence and whenever there is any divergence, there can never be elevation in consciousness.

It is not obligatory to hold one’s belief in God to become spiritual. It is a sheer misconception that spiritualism is something which is meant only and only for the Theists to adhere and not for Atheists, both in terms of knowledge or practice. ‘To believe in God’ can never be a pre-requisite to become spiritual because spirituality is all about revealing the intricacies of one’s own immortal spirit. It is all about realizing the fact that this perpetual ‘spirit’ is the only force acting as a chauffeur to drive the material body. In fact, the word ‘Spiritual’ has often been misconceived and misinterpreted by most of us. Consider that I am a theist who believes in the existence of God but my actions are such that they are always directed towards harming others, may it be psychologically, physically or even emotionally; or consider that I am a theist but I always live in a zone of pessimism and reflect a defunct approach in my actions, always pertaining to the darker side of things. In the second case, consider that I am an atheist. I never believe in the physical or ethereal subsistence of God but I stand as an individual whose actions always show righteousness and are directed towards the betterment of mankind. Now, if you are to analyse and tell who amongst the two is spiritual, what will be your say? Is the theist spiritual in true terms? What according to you is the distinguishing factor in the above two cases? According to me, it is the fabric of goodness which stands as the only requisite distinguishing the two. Shiv-Yoga which in itself is a science of soul mentions- ‘It is the goodness which brings an aatma jeev closer to absolute consciousness’. Raising consciousness is the only panacea for all forms of defunctness and pessimism.

Often in pensiveness I ponder upon the query as to what life actually is and what is the real motive behind our creation? I haven’t been able to fetch a satisfactory verdict for my query. In fact, every time when I try to search for it I get engulfed and entrenched in an inexorable thought process and find it even harder to delineate in words. The answer to it is very well elucidated by Swami Prabhupada in his work ‘Easy Journey to Other Planets’ wherein he says that our eternal soul is a part of infinite cosmic energy which is as superior as the one whom we consider to be the superior i.e. God. There is a profound significance hidden behind this one line. If we are as superior as the God then we may even say that ‘We are God’. The celestial energy has never been created nor can it be annihilated by any means, irrespective of space or time. To have faith in one’s own existence is the only mandatory condition to attain spirituality. ‘I exist’ is a revelatory experience empowering our pure spirit (aatma) to transcend beyond the constrained limits of this world. It may sound strange and even frivolous but, this  in fact is a science.

Experience= Action+Realization

Firstly, let us try to explore its meaning at the surface level rather than searching for its underlying essence. Whenever we perform an action, we reap an experience out of it. If the task undertaken by us is implemented in accordance with our set strategy, our experience turns out to be a fruitful one and conversely, if our action is in conflict with our devised strategy then we experience aridity in our action. There is something which is intermediate between our action and experience. What is that parameter which enables us  to feel and sense an experience as good or bad? This intermediate parameter is ‘realization’. How is it related with enlightenment? Is it enlightenment which brings realization or is it vice-versa? The answer is quite simple- ‘Realization is an outcome of search for truth’. Whenever the truth is unveiled we experience the fruit of our sown action.  The intricacies of existence are indeed far away from human analysis but its revelatory elucidation by Swami Vivekananda in the Parliament of World Religions, Chicago, 1893 - “I know; I don’t know” is a transcending thought bringing forth its converging essence. I know that I exist but I don’t know that how I exist. Whenever these two gaps get lessened, spirituality is born. ‘Spirituality’ is not a belief; it is a ‘faith’.

Akshay Thakur