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Yogic insights into human psychology

Yoga and worldly life

Dr. Alok Pandey

Abstract
There is often an idea that spiritual life is antagonised to the worldly material life of man. This
divide is at times seen merely as an extension of the opposition or so it seems between idealism
and practicality. However this is only one side of the story. The other side is that, far from
opposing each other the spiritual and the material are two aspects of one Existence and can fulfil
rather than cancel each other This article tries to build the bridges between the two.

A perceived antagonism in poetry of the most sublime kind.

There is a tendency to think that people But literature is not the only field of action of
who take to spiritual life become somehow spiritual men and women. Social reformers
weakened and incapacitated for dealing with such as Ram Mohan Roy, Swami Vivekananda
real life issues. Nothing can be farther from and the mighty Buddha were all deeply spiritual.
the truth. This misperception is based on a There have been kings who have ruled their
wrong understanding of true spirituality as kingdom with such beauty and grace that
well as a wrong understanding of life. The their exploits have remained ingrained in the
spiritual history of mankind is replete with memory of the race. There have been warriors
instances of spiritual men and women who and heroes who were deeply spiritual, Then a
excelled and had gained high attainments whole host of other activities such as painting,
in whatever field of work they chose. There sculpture, dance, science and technology,
have been writers like Vyasa and Valmiki, medicine, linguistics and many others have
Homer, Dante, Kalidasa and many others been taken to great heights by spiritual human
right upto Sri Aurobindo in modern times, beings. Even what is regarded as something
who have produced some of the finest mundane and ordinary as marriage and
literature of various kinds that have remained childbirth has been taken to quite another
unparalleled in their beauty and significance. level by spiritual people. Love itself has been
I am not even counting the works of the rrsis uplifted to levels beyond our imagination
of the Vedas and Upanishads which are rich and life has often felt the thrill of a diviner

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