India's Divine Gifts: Spirituality & Gurus

Being an Indian I often get enquired about spirituality by foreigner friends. And it was in this context recently that i got to briefly put forth my basic understanding – acquired from Gurus’ teachings and preachings - in a discussion on the topic: India, Spirituality and Gurus.

Billions of years ago, the God - the ever-present being - got an “Idea”, wanted to experiment and thus decided to Create and created the Universe. Billions of years later, It’s latest and the best creation – Humans – realized the theory of ‘Big Bang’ and came a bit closer to the concept of Life.

Around five thousand years prior to the ‘discovery’ of the occurrence of the ‘Big-Bang’, on one of the millions of planets in the universe, a few advanced sages realized the real meaning of Life – body, mind & soul being the principle constituents. From the humans’ evolution-index chronology, the land mass was on the earth in the solar system and was called Bharat or later Hindustan - where germinated the thought of human civilization in the ancient era. India, as it is referred to in the modern times, is the place of the origin of the ‘idea of spirituality’ i.e., a soul’s communion with the Spirit, the God.

Human, though came last in the chain of earthly creations, had the most developed brain with an unprecedented power of thoughts and feelings. Inquisitiveness being its inherent nature, and not being satisfied easily with its external/outer discoveries, soon humans embarked on their inner journey to explore the realm of life beyond the mundane world of daily living – littered with sufferings - and occasional happiness. During their exploration the celestially blessed saints experienced the Creator Itself and passed on their understanding of creation to the rest of the human race. Few spiritually dedicated followers recorded the realized souls’ preachings and teachings in form of the Sacred Scriptures for the benefit of the humanity. As Bharat was the holy land of the oldest human civilization, The Vedas, The Puranas, The Upanishads, The Ramayana, The Mahabharata and The Gita - the holy compilations of Divine Intelligence captured by the highly advanced human intellect - became the moral compass for living in the big, bad world.

Rest of the curve of human progression, spread of human civilizations and advent of various religions are well known facts to the world. In the same period India too witnessed those inevitable and gradual changes in its societies. From having a spiritual foundation to its life, the way-of-life went on to rest on the fulcrum of a new concept of connecting with the God called religion; Hinduism evolved from the Vedic - Spiritual – base. From an absolute-yet-abstract being, the God went on to get myriad faces and forms and names. As a natural progression, Hinduism influenced and embraced everything in its vicinity and within its reach including various non-Indian religions. However, Hinduism too became besotted with dogmas and unfounded beliefs and illogical practices; the erosion of its spiritual core was unavoidable. Spirituality – in all its glory and description – remained in hearts and souls of a blessed few whom the Indians and the world went on to revere as Gurus.           

India, the land of the origin of ‘the idea of spirituality’, is today as far removed from this concept of life as a goat would be from a guitar! For a few quasi enthusiasts, religion, in its modern form, has become the method of acquiring some iota of so-called spirituality. For the rest, religion, with its contemporary interpretations and current practices, is the sole way to connect with God – for praying for granting wishes and taking away pains; God-realization and Self-realization are terms ‘not-applicable’ to most. Simultaneously, in the name of spirituality, India has witnessed the flourishing of a new breed of beings called the modern gurus – God-men & God-women, who have severely damaged the spiritual fabric of India.

Many a times it feels to me as if the nation is carrying the baggage of anciently acquired spirituality, now considered archaic from its practical purposes.    

However, the issue is not of rejection of spirituality by the modern masses; the case is of mass ignorance. If made to understand or even exposed to the concept of spirituality in the right manner, many would be willing to get deeper into the subject.

For walking on the spiritual path one needs the guidance from a Guru, and in India of today there are well known gurus with millions of followers to boast of. However, how many of them will qualify to be revered as a real Guru is a million dollar question.

Nevertheless, the current situation does not paint so faded a picture of India’s fast-fading spiritual treasure. Real gurus are there; one needs to search for them - in cities like Banaras and in the foothills of Himalayas; a few saints are present in down south as well. Because they are not ‘mass-gurus’ – commercial gurus – general public is generally not aware about their existence; they too remain aloof and are not easily accessible. However, every person knows about all the revered Gurus of India who were the founding fathers of Spirituality and whose work were carried further by the contemporary yogis; their teachings and preachings are well recorded and preserved and accessible to all; the requisite is an individual’s desire for wisdom.

India’s widespread prevalence of spiritual ignorance has become chronic. Actually as we have progressed as a society over the millennia, our spiritual interior has worn out and diminished to the extent that today we suffer from spiritual-amnesia! We have lost the vast knowledge base we had built about Life: with its God, Its Universe, and Life in it; the purpose of life, a soul’s journey through many physical incarnations including human form, and inclination of a soul to remain in its natural state of being i.e. in Bliss, and its return to its origin – by merging into the Supreme Soul, the Supreme Spirit – the God.

Compounding the problem, general public has a perception that being a ‘family’ person one cannot practice spirituality. Ignorance, again! In fact, being a family person – a person of the world – an individual is subjected to various types of stress in daily life, leading to ever-present unhappiness, lack of peace, frustration and insecurity. The genesis of these miserable feelings is rooted in human relationships and in events & incidents of life. Not that everything and everyone in a person’s life are bad. But because a person does not understand the meaning of Life, therefore, he/she senses life’s ‘happenings’ in an altogether a different manner than the real occurrence. Reason: Ignorance.

So, as it becomes clearer, human ignorance is about Life per se. That Life is about the Soul and its journey into the Ether through a pre-destined time spent on the Earth, interacting and living with all other souls in various situations and relationships, is a simple theory not many can comprehend.

“But it is not souls we interact with! We live with humans! Soul is released from body after death of a person!” ...  So, for most of us mortal beings, a human is a body which turns into a soul - ghost ! - after death. 

The biggest ignorance of Mankind!

Therefore, what is the solution for a soul’s salvation?

A Guru.

A Guru, the enlightened, God-realised soul, sent to the earth to take people from the darkness (ignorance) to the light (knowledge and wisdom) and thus guide them on the path of God-realization through self-realization, for attaining soul’s salvation and union with the Supreme Soul – the God. 

A Guru, to talk to the mankind that there is One Soul, the Supreme Soul, from whom all souls have originated. And because the Supreme Soul is ever-present and cannot be destroyed or killed, thus all souls emerging from It cannot be destroyed or killed either. However, once a soul gets originated, it is given a life-form – the physical form of a lowly creature, to begin with. The soul has to live the life of that creature and then pass through many more – millions! – births & deaths before it gets the opportunity to inhabit a human body.

A Guru, to teach the humankind that they are fortunate to be born in the physical body of a human being, the highest creation of God, and they should utilize this opportunity to tune with the God and return to the Source, and be free from the burden of rebirths and life-associated miseries.

A Guru, to enlighten we humans that the blessings to live in a human body is given to a soul based on its past lives’ Karmas i.e., actions. The purpose of a human life of a soul is to utilize the birth to work out its Karmas and pave its way towards returning to its Origin – the God.

A Guru, to tell us that though the human life is the highest form of life, however, the Creator has made the return journey of a soul to its Origin fraught with challenges; nevertheless, It has given adequate intelligence to a soul to overcome the challenges and carve a path for its joyous reunion with It.

A Guru, to give us the wisdom that human intelligence is actually the God’s Intelligence, and, with the Intelligence It has given us Free Will – to choose between good and evil. It depends upon an individual to utilize his/her free will and the given intelligence to his/her benefit, by either getting caught into the illusions of life ‘Maya’ or get conned by the Satan – the evil and the opposing force in the Nature – and get sucked into the vortex of life or get carried to the God by employing the Divine features of the given intelligence and the free will in living the life.

A Guru, to inform we human beings that the God has bestowed us with Its Intelligence because It has made us in Its Image. And that is the reason why a human is Its best and the ultimate creation! It is no coincidence but by Divine design that the world hasn’t seen any higher form of life being created after humans. And, because we are created in the image of the Supreme Soul whose nature is absolute Bliss, a human being also becomes happy when at absolute peace. 

A Guru, to educate us that though we are made in the image of God but we are yet not God! All God-features are latent in us; all powers stored but hidden in our body and mind. The God wants us to learn and become conscious of our Divine nature and work towards God-realization through Self-realization – and return to It!

A Guru, to divulge to us that we can realize both Self & God only through good Karmas by following the path of Spirituality – the quickest and the surest method for a soul’s union with its Source!

A Guru, to reveal to us that the fastest and the highest spiritual technique for Self & God realization is through the scientific method of Kriya Yoga – Yoga with Action, centred around deep and intensive meditation. Kriya Yoga is a practical approach by which a person leads his/her normal day-to-day life and simultaneously is spiritually active and gradually evolves towards attaining the highest goal of his/her soul – union with the Supreme Soul.    

A Guru, to give sermons on the Kriya Yoga. Kriya Yoga, the ancient and the most complete form of yoga, was taught by Lord Krishna to his dearest disciple Arjuna while giving him the Divine Wisdom through his discourses of the Gita. The Guru of all Gurus, Babaji, revived the Kriya Yoga by teaching it to his most advanced disciple Lahiri Mahasaya, who in turn carried it forward through his followers – especially Sri Yukteswar Giri. Babaji, the still living Guru in the Himalayas for over three millennia now, further bestowed the Divine responsibility on Sri Yukteswar-ji to train his pre-destined and blessed disciple Mukunda Lal Ghosh in Kriya Yoga who, as Paramahansa Yogananda, took the ancient yogic teaching treasures to the West. Jesus Christ had requested Babaji to send a suitable soul to America to teach Kriya Yoga for liberation of deserving and willing souls there.

A Guru, to make us realize the real meaning of Life – human life in particular; that Life is not the few years a soul spends on the earth but its origin dates back to its emanation from the Soul itself and its existence is till eternity. That a soul’s human life is not one life but many human lives – till it has worked out all its karmas and has no desire left absolutely, a state when the soul is ready to travel to the next and the higher sphere of existence.

A Guru, to impart the knowledge on the intriguing intricacies of a soul’s human-life journey, which passes through many incarnations on the Earth to the Astral world to the Causal space before it dissolves in the Supreme Spirit. Earthly life form is the grossest physical form; a soul gets to go to the astral world – in its finer form made up of ‘light’ elements – once it is fully realized. An Astral being is either kept there for further evolution of other astral beings or sent back to the earth – as a Guru – to liberate suffering souls. Once an astral being has finished its assigned duties, it is brought closer to the God – by the God itself – as a Causal being. In the causal space every soul is in its finest and its initial state of existence - an abstract appearance, without any physical form - in form of an idea! The soul is now closest to the God in its character and power. After spending pre-assigned time in the causal world, the soul finally merges with its Originator. The entire journey of a soul takes millions of years. A causal being could be sent back to the earth if need is felt by the God. Jesus Christ, Lord Rama and Lord Krishna are some of those souls!

A Guru, to highlight the fact that the Creator has ensured Its presence in every created particle – animate or inanimate – of the universe, which is in actuality a part of Its own body. It resides in the Heaven, a place beyond the universe and within the universe itself. There is absolutely nothing in this world without the manifestation of the Lord within it. And, at the fundamental level everything in the creation is made up of Its Idea - which is vibration and light in form. The entire cosmos and the life in it is Its’ show entirely; various creations have their allocated role to play and then exit into the next life, till the soul is able to overcome the births-deaths cycle and mingle with the Creator. Everything and everybody belongs to the God, and to nobody else.

A Guru, to put forth the essence of consciousness and its various stages: sub-consciousness, consciousness, super-consciousness and cosmic consciousness. Only a human being can comprehend the various stages of consciousness in one life – through the practice of Kriya Yoga. Sub-consciousness denotes the ‘sleeping’ stage; a human has consciousness when it is ‘aware’ and is ‘awake’ in the worldly sense; in super-consciousness a person is connected with the higher consciousness of the universe; and, a super advanced being - yogi - with a universally expanded consciousness can comprehend the cosmic consciousness - the God’s consciousness. Only a Guru qualifies to have the cosmic consciousness.    

A Guru, to explain to us that as all souls have come out of the same Supreme Being, thus, we all are one in every aspect. In numerous human births our individual souls have inhabited many places with various nationalities and races and religions and creeds and castes and colours, and have been in both genders and all possible relationships. Therefore, in effect, no single human life defines a human being. A human being is the sum total of all the human lives it has lived and will live.

A Guru, to reiterate that with the wisdom about Life per se, there is no need to obsess about anything in the world. A human being should do its worldly duties walking the path of morality and aspire towards its soul’s liberation. Rest all endeavours are foolish and cause only sufferings and miseries for all including the self, and make no sense at all. Universal unity, brotherhood, respect and love should be the fundamentals of our human existence. 

Finally, I pray to the Heavenly Father and the Divine Mother that It resends the Causal Souls as reincarnations - God’s Sons & Daughters & Gurus - to preach to each human being the practical paths of spirituality, following which every person will get uplifted into a higher being – transforming the Earth into the Heaven, with Love, Peace and Bliss pervading its every element and the ether!

Jai Gurudev :)    

P.S.: 'Hand of God' photograph courtesy NASA.