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.