Spirituality is an inward journey

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All spiritual awakenings are inward journeys, they are journeys of deep Introspection. Hence every individuals exploration is unique, and thus there are naturally many paths to such awakenings.

We should not fail to recognize that there have been many folks, learned and wise monks and sages in every region and religion, who have had spiritual experiences that has made them fell closer to and connected to the divine. So if such folks show us a path that has helped them, and genuinely want others to experience the joy and bliss of such awakening, It would be wise for us mere mortals to heed to their advice.

However, If any individual claims that his path is the only way is fooling both himself and those who trust him / her. So the choice of whose advice we want to follow is upon us. We are given the mental faculty to weigh in on each of the way’s and make a choice most appropriate to our character and liking. Making that choice is easier said than done. our choices and resolve is influenced by our upbringing, our environment, our feelings likes and dislikes.

Many who are initially interested are swayed by this various influences and tend to keep switching paths. Sooner or later they get disappointed and slowly loose interest. Some folks complain none are good and give up on the quest. And in many cases the daily grind and responsibilities are burdensome. In such cases just as hobbies take a back seat, this Quest gets postponed with a hope to continue post retirement. Thus most objectives of spiritual awakening, never go past the planning stage.

Another issue with Spiritual Awakening is the end is not in sight. nor is the path well known. But we should not lose hope. Like the old story goes — When you only have a candle or torch and you need to cross a forest or climb a mountain, there is no point in worrying that the torch cannot show you the whole path. the wise person makes every attempt to go till where the light shines, and as that path is traversed, he finds that further path is revealed. So one should make every attempt to make progress, however small it is.

As seekers there are a few more aspects to be aware of. Not all Monks and sages who experienced the divine felt obliged to help others. And among those who did want to help, they did not keep a record of their travails and triumphs during the journey. Also many of them were not great literary geniuses, that they are able to fully articulate the emotions and bliss felt on reaching milestones or the view from the peak they reached. Hence whatever literature & stories we find are mostly pointers in the right direction. It is for us to make meaning from them and make progress. Here due to our limited cognitive abelites we have over many centuries mostly mis-understood, mis-interpreted and as a result further lost our way

Another bottleneck that as seekers we need to be aware of is. It is to be noted that our senses such as Vision, Touch, smell, taste and Hearing help us to perceive the outside world. and has minimal use for inward spiritual journeys. Our thoughts and ability to make meaning from what our outward senses perceive are the only tools we have. So the sages and monks have tried to convey their wisdom using using language / words, stories which appeal to the Outward focused Senses of the naive beginners

Hence it becomes even more difficult and abstract for us mere mortals to envision the path or the destination — even though we may desire to get there. Thus it naturally becomes that we are forced to explore our own way through this forest and hope to come to the other side of this and experience what may lie in front of us. The many folks who have been there through various paths have guided us and shared their experiences. But we are constrained by our our ability in making meaning and deriving wisdom from what has been passed on to us.

So it is that all inward journeys are to be made in solitude, we could use advice and lessons from those who have travelled before us but it is we who have to make the journey alone.

Past exists only in memory

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Past does not exist anymore, you cannot revisit it, Nor can you go back and make changes. Past exists in our minds alone. Hence our pasts are not the same, Your past is not the same as mine, They are reminiscence of individual experiences, shaped by interactions with environment at a point of time.

Our memories have this great ability to be selective of what we remember … We have memories of this life and not of the past lives we lived. .. And as we age memories of current life also starts to fade. If we observe we tend to recollect difficult or tough times from our past with more ease, than the pleasurable happy ones.

In most cases the emotions experienced during pleasure — moments are felt then and there, so we feel the good and enjoy as it arises, that is the emotions associated with an event is consumed and exhausted; we live through our lives, and enjoy the next such pleasurable moment and this goes on and on and older ones in due course of time fade from our memory. In some cases, we may have memories of good times, but the pleasure associated with it is not carried forward. For example you go on a holiday with family and have a great time, seeing places and enjoying time together, laughing, traveling etc. … long after you may recollect that holiday from memory; but you cannot feel it again in the same way.

But the situation is different in case of pain; Just as pleasure causes emotional responses so does pain. But in many cases the the emotions associated are not fully expressed. Feelings are not adequately expressed at the time and place of occurrence; Hence our bodies keep the emotions associated with the respective pains along with the memories. We use the term bottled up emotions. This baggage of unexpressed pain is Suffering.

We are capable of expressing the event and the pain it caused to us in words. But the emotions associated with that pain are personal and cannot be shared. This holds true for Pleasure also, that is when a group of friends enjoy a movie or a joke, their response to that happy event have differences in intensity and in relation to that event, the Pleasure is also personal . I may thoroughly enjoy a joke and share it with a friend, who may not respond with laughter the way I enjoyed.

So the key point here is we cannot share the suffering associated with pain. It cannot be distributed by sharing with many people and hope that it gets diluted. Individuals at times find ways to vent out their bottled up emotions, many times though anger, and at times crying alone in solitude. At times such bottled up emotions, and its sufferings are carried to our graves.

But I believe there is a way to address this. Writing provides a channel to outpour our emotions, try expressing everything you feel in words in a personal dairy; make attempts to dispose the baggage’s of the past. We are capable of making this choice. We can brood over the past we cannot change, or focus our energies on a future we can shape. By creating many more happy memories today and henceforth, by involving in actions that give us happiness; or makes us pleasurable. So that over time the volume of happy memories far outnumber the painful ones. I Guess, That’s what positive thinking is.

The Three of us

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Sometime very long ago at the cusp of Stone and Bronze ages, an ape sleeping under a banyan tree on a hot afternoon, had the first meta-Cognition moment, he discovered that he had an additional ability devoid to other species around him. Thinking it was. Since then we are unable to stop thinking, our minds are never still, we can think of the past, think of the future, and think of everything real & unreal, factual & imagined. Our thoughts have raised many questions and our intellect has answered many of them. In spite of all this thinking, none of us think alike. Thank god, for then the world would be dreadfully monotonous.

However we can categorize ourselves based on what we think most off. So let’s group ourselves on a fundamental premise. That is .. We are all visitors to this planet earth. Visitors, caught up in this never ending loop of Life & Death.

The First group, are of the opinion, that now that we are aware of this life & Death cycle; we should make attempt to escape from this cycle once for all. Many a sages, monks and guru’s of yesteryears, spent a lifetime solving this perennial problem. Some succeeded. Presently, the idea of such an escape, still exists. we see folks very inclined towards a Spiritual inward journey, but only a handful you may know of.

The Second group, gave up on any attempt to escape. They instead said, if we are to be reborn on this earth for ever, we could as well make this a better place for ourselves and generations to come. Their thoughts were towards making the most of what nature has offered us. They studied nature, identified patterns, found new ways to use resources, discovered & invented tools and focused on making human life better. In today’s parlance, we can address this group as STEM Oriented (Science, Tech. Eng. Mathematics) . believing in utilizing the human cognitive faculty to better our lives making it more comfortable.

The Third group, take the middle path. They believe there is no escape from the cycle of Life & Death, and at the same time, running behind progress is a never ending journey, which will leave you exhausted and lifeless at the end. This group would say, there is nothing we can do about it, why not relax and entertain ourselves and entertain others. They remind us that All work and no play makes us dull. They are the artists, who believe that all world is a stage, and we are all actors in this divine comedy.

The world is not monotonous, we have a distribution of all three of us. Some inclined to Philosophies, Spirituality & Enlightenment, Some to STEM & it’s sub-divisions, and some to art & literature. Both among us and within us exist all three. So it is, at times we want to escape from the drudgeries of daily life, and at times contribute to make this world a better place for ourselves and secure our children’s future. But mostly we want to entertain ourselves — Just Relax and enjoy, and live life one day at a time.