Way To Spiritual Awakening? This Is How I Comprehend It…

I am born a Hindu; I grew up listening and believing the stories of our Gods and went to temples religiously with my parents. Educated in a convent school, I have been exposed to Christianity as well and used to visit my school chapel every afternoon and even more during exams, and my parents were quite okay with it. I grew up to be a non-believer of my religion, or for that matter any religion, but I am not an atheist. Neither do I believe that God has a religion, but what I believe in is His supreme power.  I may not do my “puja paat”, observe fast, visit temple often or practice unconditional love, but I respect my elders, love and take care of my parents, try to be of help to my fellow beings, sympathise and keep my conscious clean and above all, thank God for the life I have. To me, if I am able to continue doing this for the rest of my life, I am on my path to spiritual awakening.

Now by saying that I may have made many frown; seriously, I cannot do much about it because it is your eye brows and you got to take care of it! :P

Growing up, my father was particular that we spent our summer holidays at his native and that meant meeting cousins, getting pampered by grandparents, and we used to love it. My grandfather who was then a farmer and a landlord in the village (yes, my dad is a self-made man and never took pride in his dad’s money) had two houses - one where my grandmother used to stay and another one closer to the paddy fields he owned. Every morning he used to leave for the house near the farm and every evening he used to return to the other one, where we all stayed during our vacation. Back then electricity was limited to just one bulb in every household and so after dinner, all kids used to follow grandfather to his bedroom, where he lay in that majestic bed and sitting around him we used to listen to wonderful tales from Geeta, Mahabharatha, Ramayana and such other Hindu scriptures. We grew up listening to such stories and believed in it, but the education my parents provided helped me and my sister differentiate stories from reality; we realized stories were means to help us understand good and evil, triumph and failure, and how to lead life in a way that will take you one step closer to being better human being.

Spiritual awakening is a topic that is complex and sensitive, thus requiring in-depth study and knowledge before making any statement, but what I am sure of and believe is that blindly following a religion or a faith is not the path to spiritual awakening. You will not know the truth about life, if you stay focused just in prayers and do not find time to live it out. Only a person who has lived the life the way it should be will be inspired to know the underlying truth and purpose of life. One must live all stages of life (as mentioned in Hindu scriptures) and in all stages do their assigned dharma (duty) to finally find their path to spiritual awakening. For e.g. - being dutiful to God and ignoring one’s duty towards others is not the right path, because performing one’s duty towards others in itself completes your duty to God. Did I make that sound confusing and largely philosophical? I hope not!

I have seen and heard of people undergo transformation after having attended those courses on spiritual enlightenment (I am sure you got what I meant). I haven’t attended one and do not know what they preach to have someone leave their family and worldly life to lead a completely detached existence. All is well as long as you do not hurt a single human being because of the actions you take. If I am married and have a loving husband, my action to desert him and go in search of enlightenment does not really make sense to me. I would leave with him or not leave at all and continue as a worldly being. As I said, the moment my actions make another person’s life miserable, I am not on the right path.

However, I agree that every human being requires a guru (teacher), who can show them the right path or help them cope with changing stages of life – something like how you should start practicing yoga or meditation under an expert so that you do not do things the wrong way. Now, attaining true spiritual awakening depends a lot on finding that perfect teacher, who can guide you and groom you for the divine meeting. And only a true seeker with passion to achieve that will find it. In the meantime, let the rest of us continue dwelling in this little world and hope for good and do good!

Today during my leisure time at work, we had this interesting conversation, which started off with one of my colleagues joining a yoga class. The matter then got directed to Godmen and the courses they offer to package life in a better way, and to instances where people who have left high paying jobs to be a part of such communities. The conversation was pretty interesting and by the end of it, I was happy to learn I was with a gang that thought pretty much like I did. We concluded that we are good as we are! Cheers to my team!