The spiritual journey is one that finally leads the seeker towards emancipation. It is a journey that ultimately leads the seeker beyond the recursive cycle of life and death; so he can finally be free from the perpetual sentiments of despair and regret that epitomize the human existence. While many know this fact to be true, few are indeed aware of the fact that spirituality does not promote escapism. Few are indeed aware of the fact that spirituality inherently teaches an individual to be exceedingly pro-active in his life. Thus this falsified perception of spirituality that is lodged into the minds of many people dissuades them from walking on this path. Conversely owing to this falsified common perception, many people come to this path only after encountering failure and rejection in all walks of life. Many people look to the spiritual activities as nothing but counseling sessions that in the end leave them with a happy and contented feeling. While the spiritual path proves to be exceedingly effective in instilling that sense of peace and contentment in these individuals, the fact remains that in the end, the spiritual path is not meant to do that.
The spiritual path is not a momentary fix that you can take as an aspirin when you come home with a headache. It is not something that you turn to owing to circumstances; it is something that you adopt after making a conscious choice. True spirituality is a way of life; it has to be. If you are to truly progress significantly on the spiritual path, you have to be devoted in it mind, body and soul. Only then will you end up making a substantial difference in your life and in the lives of those around yourself. Only after you walk the path with complete devotion and dedication in your heart, will you truly realize what it is really meant for.
The spiritual path is a ultimately a journey of evolution. Evolution itself is a vast and expansive subject that incorporates within itself every single thing in the world. Thus the spiritual path, being a path of evolution essentially encompassed every single thing in this world. As a seeker walks further ahead on the spiritual path, he realizes that there is indeed that can be truly separated from his spirituality. Ultimately he realizes that true spirituality provides him with a solution to all the problems that he faces in life. Ultimately he realizes that as he walks further ahead on the spiritual path, the path itself transforms him completely. He becomes more capable and more responsible in his life. This makes it all the more easier for him to dispense his worldly duties. He starts becoming more and more productive in life, which ensures that he is successful in all walks of life. He starts developing a wholesome and creative approach to life; which results in him deriving nothing but unhindered joy and ecstasy from it. The spiritual seeker slowly starts to lose his self-centered nature as he starts becoming more and more benevolent. This essentially means that he starts becoming an asset for the society.
With all these transformations that the spiritual path brings in an individual, he slowly starts becoming a perfectionist. Ultimately he becomes a source of inspiration for those around him; as he intuitively ignites the light of spiritual excellence within himself. Ultimately the spiritual path completely transforms an individual and ensures that he comes out of this worldly strife as a winner.
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Religion forms an integral part of any individual irrespective of which religion one truly believes in. Through the ages, religion has always served as school of thought that was employed to inculcate a sense of ethics, morals and values in people. Man in a social animal; but still an animal in his very essence. Thus the qualities that essentially differentiates a man from an animal is his discerning intellect and his somewhat diminished sense of instinct. Animals are ruled by instinct alone, but in man that instinct is somewhat dimunitively manifested. This enables him to function more efficiently and survive more amicably in society. Religion has always served a crucial role in uplifting man from his primal origins. Religion in every way is responsible for the evolution of man, for it has been instrumental in bringing him to this point in time.
While many will disagree with the aforementioned facts, they would not be completely wrong in doing so. Given the current times, we see that religion is often the source of much grief and destruction throughout the world. Religious extremism has slowly transgressed to take the form of terrorism in the current age. While many people may be content in placing all the blame for the said debacle on one particular religion, fact of the matter remains that in the end it is not the religion that is at fault. Man is a social animal, but an animal nonetheless. The problems that stem from religious extremism are necessarily problems that arise due to man. Man is inherently reponsible for corrupting every single thing of virtue that exists in this world. Religion, of course has been no exception to this rule. Religions all over the world have been sufficiently corrupted, modified and manipulated by man to suit his social, political and socio-economic ends. But even though such corruption exists, there still remains much to acquired through any religion.
Religion is best described as the way to reach God. It can be thus summarised as being a school of thought and action that trains an individual to make him worthy of realizing God. However there are certain limits to this outreach as far as worldly religions are concerned. Worldly religion can only introduce an individual to the concept of God. They can only take me so far as to cognize that there indeed is something that is beyond his scope of understanding. Beyond that there is little that worldly religion can accomplish. The only signifcant contribution that it makes to an individual’s spiritual journey, is that it invokes a desire in him to know God. It stokes the fire within his heart. Simply put, worldly religions have a sole purpose to fulfill; to lead any individual towards his inner religion.
The inner religion is an individual’s true religion. It is a school of realization that is unbounded by any social, political and economic agendas. It is a path of self-introspetion, self-realization and self-discovery that essentially leads an individual towards complete knowledge. The inner religion is what takes the individual towards the zenith of God realization. Ultimately it leads him beyond all existing dualities of belief, choice and desire. Through his inner religion man can learn all the secrets of this universe, as all the knowledge from conception to perception and ultimate manifestation is laid bare before his eyes. These aforementioned facts may sound a bit obtuse to a pseudo-intellectual, but be assured that these words come from experience.
Ultimately that is what true religion will lead you to in the end . It will lead you to experience God more completely than ever; it will lead you to truly understand, realize and percieve God for in the end, it will lead you to Him; neither figuratively nor symbolically but literally….
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The spiritual world has often been the target of claims of disillusionment and superstition. Many in the “scientific” community accuse the spiritualists to be too dogmatic and unreasonable. The reason behind this is that science is essentially too short-sighted to realize that there are possibilities and realities that lie outside the scope of human intellect; that there are things in this world that cannot possible be mapped through the analytical and questioning methods that scientists use to prove their theories.
Albert Einstein
Through the years, a mathematical equation has been considered as an irrefutable proof to any assumption, corollary or idea suggested by scientists. The reason for this being that a correct mathematical proof is truly beyond the scope of doubt. Scientists often argue the existence of God as they are unable to map Him and prove Him mathematically. Thus the scientific community in one voice strikes down any and everything that they perceive to be in the realm of religion, spirituality or mysticism.
Point of the matter is that owing to this trend, the scientific community in a way distances itself considerably from the knowledge that it could gain through embracing these different schools of thought. Albert Einstein once said that all religions, arts and sciences are different branches of the same tree; that all in the end point to one single common truth that is irrefutable and beyond the scope of doubt. Essentially, this is the truth that spiritualists refer to as God. God in true spirituality is manifested as nothing but the integral of all the energy in the universe. The entire cosmic energy flux which constitutes within itself infinite parallel universes with countless organisms is what constitutes the phenomenon of God. The living and the dead; the animate and the inanimate; all matter which in the end is resolved into pure energy; that energy itself is God. Hence when the spiritualists say that God is there in every one of us, they mean it in every single way; for we of our own accord are also parts of the cosmic energy flux. The only difference being that some of us are polarized compared to others and hence are more receptive of God’s cognition.
Thus to represent God in the language of mathematics would be to represent the “ever-variable, non-static phenomenon of the cosmic energy flux” in terms of numbers. Mathematics is a branch of science that essentially deals with the finiteness of things. Mathematical equations constitute some variables and some constants. Therefore to simply express God in mathematical equations would mean that scientists would have to localize and limit the infinite cosmic energy flux in order to get an overview of what God would truly looks like. They would have to fit the limitless phenomenon in the scope of their mind’s windows so that they could understand it and peruse it; finally taking a few steps towards proving it.
But then how different would they be from the religious leaders that preach a singular way of life to lead towards God. The answer is that they are no different. Scientists in themselves are following a religion; the religion of science through which they ultimately hope to decipher and demystify all the questions in the universe. They refuse to call it God for they on their part are dedicated to their religion as any other religious clergy. No religion accepts the deity of a fellow religion to be real. That is just not the way.
Hence we come back to the words of the great physicist Albert Einstein, wherein he states that all religions, arts and sciences are but branches of the same tree. We have to realize that in the end, they all are ways to understand God; some of them take you tantalizingly close to Him; and some of them prefer to engulf your intellect in illusions of grandeur. Whatever they may be, a spiritualist is a person who in the end cognizes that these branches are only a means to get to the final end; that they are only the ways to imbibe in himself the final expression of undefined divinity; the sum integral of all the cosmic forces; the phenomenal enigma of God.
Images: top-right: Albert Einstein, physicist;
also see: Realization and Enlightenment
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January 24, 2010 10:03 pm | 
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