Why Spirituality?
A life of spirituality, or a spiritual life, means one devoted to earnest effort for realizing and uniting with the Divine. The term spiritual life in itself may sound somewhat like emphasizing the obvious. For without the divine spirit there can be no life. As has been said, not a single blade of grass can move without divine will. One infinite divine consciousness, commonly referred to as God, permeates and activates the entire creation.
Modern science has proved that even apparently inert substances have activity in them—activity of the fundamental particles in different configurations characteristic of each substance. Hence, all life must inevitably be spiritual. And yet a person interested in spirituality is ordinarily looked upon as rather odd and as taking to the spiritual path perhaps out of some frustration in life, or for some material benefit.
Is it necessary that these should be the reasons a person takes to the spiritual path? What could be more natural for a human being as the embodiment of the divine spirit than to try to identify himself and unite with that spirit? If he does not attempt this, will he not be deceiving himself and laboring under a cloud of continuous delusion? As Sathya Sai Baba has said, “For the consummation of human evolution and man’s realization of his highest goal, religion, and spiritual discipline are very essential.” He has also said, “More than food for the stomach, man needs food for the spirit.”
The common man may ask, since memory does not continue from birth to birth, why should anyone care in this life about what happens to him after death? Instead, the answer goes, he should make the best of his life by trying to satisfy earthly desires by whatever means available. Studies in spiritual science have shown that while the divine spark in every person is the same and is part of the infinite divine consciousness, it acquires in each human being an individuality of its own. This individuality, which continues its existence separately even after the disintegration of the body, is determined by the strength of the ego, the desires and thoughts, the actions and reactions, and the other factors that make up the complex human personality. A vital part of the complexity of the human being is that he is surrounded not merely by the seen material world but also by certain unseen spiritual worlds, or planes, where after shedding his material body his consciousness continues its existence, [having experiences] based on the strength and nature of his thoughts, desires and actions while he was on the material plane.
The thoughts and actions of man on the material plane leave a corresponding impression or effect on one or the other of the spiritual planes. The noblest and the purest thoughts and actions leave their impression on sathyaloka [the realm of the Lord], and the grossest or most devilish thoughts leave an impression on the astral plane at the other extreme. The intermediate thoughts and actions would make their impressions on the other planes, depending largely on the degree of purity and unselfishness in each case.
In the course of a man’s life, he builds up impressions all the time on these planes, with the impression on each plane depending on the nature and strength of his thoughts and actions on the material plane. These impressions act as encrustations around the divine spirit within him, imparting a separate identity or individuality to it, which can be called the soul or jivatma. On the disintegration of the body—that is, the death of the person—the soul continues its existence and retains its consciousness on any or all of these planes, tormented by desires corresponding to the impressions left on each plane. However, the soul does not have the capacity to fulfill these desires in the absence of the body that it no longer occupies.
The duration of existence on any plane would depend, again, on the strength of the impressions left on it during the soul’s earthly existence. The soul continues in this way until it takes on another birth. For example, if, as a net result of the thoughts and actions on the material plane, the soul is left with the predominant desire to seek liberation, the next birth may be in a highly spiritual family, thus facilitating the course of the soul toward that goal. If, at the other extreme, the soul is left only with evil desires, the birth may be in an atmosphere full of evil. This process would keep going on, with each new birth giving the individual soul an opportunity to improve itself and march toward the final goal of liberation and merger with the infinite Divine.
If the soul does not utilize the opportunities given to it, it has to go through an interminable cycle of births and deaths, with the inevitable experience of acute sufferings and apparent joy. However, if the soul makes a determined effort to be spiritual on this plane, its lives will be happier and it will thereby expedite the process of progressive evolution toward its ultimate goal of merging with the Infinite.
As divinity is the source of, and the ultimate in, perfection, harmony, and peace in every respect, the life of a person who follows the spiritual [that is, divine] path will inevitably be based on the elimination of all that is evil and the pursuit of all that contributes toward perfection, efficiency, beauty, harmony, peace, and happiness.
As Sathya Sai Baba has said, spiritual living is not merely an intellectual exercise; it is right living, good conduct, and moral behavior. A society consisting of individuals following the spiritual path cannot but be an active instrument for bringing about peace, harmony, and happiness in the world. As a corollary, a society made up of individuals not following the spiritual path would be a menace to the peace and happiness of mankind.
~D. Hejmadi
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, June 1979
