Many of us have been striving to fulfil the spiritual purpose of life. Or at least pretending to do so! The saints say that realising our oneness with the Lord is the only real goal. The much-vaunted destination appears perennially distant, though. Effort is progress, says the wise one. And we have no choice but to believe him, for we can discern no evidence of having galloped past spiritual milestones, as per latest updates.
Yet, at times, Mother Nature and the divine hand indeed seem to be kind and loving, even if we happen to be inordinately restless individuals. But we hardly feel any divine joy, unless we are receptive to it. Life appears to be dotted with elements of drudgery. Still, a sense of mirth sometimes wells up due to some goof-ups that we manage to conjure up.
A senior monk was delivering a talk on deepening our meditation. And he recounted the story of a youngster who claimed to have seen the light already. When urged to describe the phenomenon, the young man had apparently stated excitedly, “I see a vertical rectangle of light, almost every night.”
Whereupon the monk had advised the youngster to reduce his screen viewing, because that was causing the imaginary shape of the light in question!
Some devotees of spiritually advanced masters are more interested in the personality of their master than the larger goal. They fall over each other to present bouquets or shawls or whatever, to the said elevated personage, whenever the said worthy arrives anywhere.
{{/usCountry}}Some devotees of spiritually advanced masters are more interested in the personality of their master than the larger goal. They fall over each other to present bouquets or shawls or whatever, to the said elevated personage, whenever the said worthy arrives anywhere.
{{/usCountry}}Yet, those who actually struggle against the tide and tug away at the long spiritual ‘rope’ must mostly face obstacles. The moment one sits down to meditate, the doorbell rings with the dhobhi or the milkman or the Blinkit man at the door. And even if our phones are on silent mode, we meditators face varied temptations.
These could include the aroma of baingan-bharta from the kitchen or the lure of a Netflix show or even the lust for a bar of chocolate lying quite contentedly in the larder.
The harder one tries to deepen one’s concentration in meditation, the peskier the opposing forces become. And if the family doesn’t support one’s spiritual leanings, then there’s a heavy price to pay.
“He used to be quite fine till recently”, could be the common refrain in a household. “He’s just too young to be into meditation and those kinds of things.”
And the WhatsApp brigade will make sure that hundreds of misleading forwards are received by any nouveau aspirant on the path of spiritual living. He or she will be thoroughly confused very soon by all the podcasts and the ‘gyan about dhyan’ that those purporting to be experts on the subject keep on espousing.
A recent encounter with one such newbie proved to be quite enlightening to Yours Truly. He was impressively full of the scriptures, having already read tomes of them. But he was determined to escape to the Himalayas and launch a meditation centre, where he and others could focus better, perhaps.
He’d also found a sort of guru who was said to be guiding his ‘baby’ steps. Yet, when our discussion deepened and widened in context, he proved to be rather full of himself and also harbouring hidden materialistic aspirations. The spiritual fad seemed to be a transient one in his life, although he claimed otherwise.
But what took the cake was a family who invited friends for a ‘silent’ retreat at their home last week. Every human phenomenon was in evidence, except silence. Loud guffaws, throbbing music, sumptuous meals, quiz games about the scriptures and even sound therapy were part of the agenda.
When one enquired about the time slot for silent meditation, one was duly informed that ‘five whole minutes’ had been earmarked for the purpose!
Needless to say, I and my admittedly more advanced better half, Neena, escaped without a trace, just before lunch.
The spiritual path is, at best, beset with impediments. But even if someone is resilient, he should at times entertain himself with the lighter side of the spiritual life. There’s no point in us being glum and grumpy when unlimited joy is what the divine represents!
vivek.atray@gmail.com