How to live well in spirituality

TILL quantum physics said so, matter and energy were considered separate. Now they are integrated. Material life and spiritual life are considered separate. Not so. You think you need to make a choice. In thinking of making a choice you create a dilemma, you create constraints.

Wearing a saffron robe or a white habit does not help you renounce lust, greed and anger. If the mind does not shed these emotions, does not renounce these negativities, renouncing family and wealth superficially makes no difference. Your unfulfilled desires will follow you wherever you are. In the Mahabharata there is a beautiful story.

A passing crane shed its droppings on a young monk who was meditating. The monk looked up angrily at the crane which was immediately burnt. The monk felt a momentary pang of regret but also felt proud of the power that he possessed. He got up and went begging for food to a nearby household where the housewife was busy serving her husband. When she came with the food for him he glared at her. The housewife told him: Do you think I am a crane that you can burn? Startled the monk apologised and asked her how she knew. She directed him to a person in the nearby town for an explanation. The monk reached the address and found a butcher who enquired if he was the person sent by the lady in the next town. Once again startled, the monk asked him how he and the lady had these powers that even he did not possess. The teachings of the butcher to the monk, on how leading one’s material life correctly leads one to enlightenment, forms the Vyadha Gita part of Mahabharata.

Spirituality is not donning special clothes, sitting in discomfort and becoming unaware of what goes on around you. Spirituality is living in awareness of oneself and others, living in physical and mental health, with good relationship with all, with love and compassion for all, and with a natural spontaneity that results from the awareness and provides us with the responsibility to be of service to others.

True spirituality happens when you are aware, and when you are in the present moment. In the present moment no choices need to be made as there are no dilemmas when you are focused on the present. Do not renounce what you have; enjoy what you have. Renounce what you do not have; renounce your fantasies. Bliss will follow.