Page 21 - NAMAH-Oct-2020
P. 21

Namah                              Yogic insights into human psychology





        touch and filled with a diviner breath, when  tolerance and take away the drive of ambition
        it has entered the frame of a spiritual being.  and desire and hence it is concluded that
        One could go on multiplying examples with  these people become unfit for life, which
        no end. This is not only in India but all over  needs those aggressive instincts to survive
        the world.                               and achieve. Besides with the great Nirvana
                                                 as the goal, whatever normal operations of
        The difference however has been that in the  life we may be engaged in are regardedonly
        Western world, ever since spiritual impulsion  as some kind of concession to the fact that
        got divorced from life and became confined  we are embodied beings and hence need to
        to monasteries with the masses being content  continue our outside life as before, under
        with religious belief-systems, the impact of  the stress of the past momentum of nature,
        spiritual life has remained little known. Those  while inwardly we are losing interest in it and
        who were truly spiritual did not advertise  preparing ourselves for some kind of a final
        their spirituality and since they had pursued  exit. Then there is also this conception that
        it independent of the religion they were  at the root of things is Nothingness which
        born in, their spiritual side did not receive  makes a mockery of ‘everything’.
        much support from the organised religious
        institutions. In fact if facts were to speak for
        themselves then, the great days when intense
        creative impulsion moved India were also
        those times when the spiritual impulsion
        was at its peak.

        But the misperception is there that spirituality
        is other-worldly and hence has little role in
        our everyday life. The spiritual man must
        abandon normal ordinary life to pursue
        his spiritual quest. This misunderstanding  Life denying and life-affirming spirituality
        is largely due to identifying one kind of
        spirituality as the only one. Most people  We usually identify spirituality with the
        regard spiritual life as asceticism and think  denial of life, but there is also a world-
        of a spiritual man as someone who wears a  affirming spirituality as given to man by Sri
        certain kind of robe, who has no house or  Krishna and Sri Aurobindo. Besides, denial
        bank balance and who wanders from place to  is also sometimes a step towards a greater
        place begging for alms for sustenance, since  affirmation. Spiritual life may find life as it
        he has lost all interest in his self-preservation,  stands today very inadequate and imperfect
        reducing it to a bare minimum. Even when  and hence it may go far away from it in search
        one admits some kind of a meeting- ground  of a more perfect existence. But having found
        between spirituality and life, one identifies  this, it may return to life as it stands today
        spiritual life with learning and practising  and pour its riches upon the world to try and
        some form of meditation techniques which  make life perfect with the Divine Perfection.
        calm us and give us peace, which fills us with  There is in fact, another line of spiritual living

                                                                                     21
   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26