The Aim of Spirituality
Divine Life
Society Publication: Chapter 1- True Spiritual
Living by Swami Krishnananda
Spirituality, is the expansion
of being. And whatever we do as an action is also a part of being. It is meant
for expanding being. That is why they say karma yoga is a yoga by itself for
attaining God-realization. You will be wondering what the connection between
karma and God is. The connection is simple. Every kind of relationship with
others is an attempt of the soul to come to a unity of being, in a largeness
which expands to entire infinitude. This Supreme Being is called God. We call
God Supreme Being because there is only one Being. And all beings put together,
many people sitting together, is not one being – just as, in the analogy, many
sand particles put together do not make one sand particle. We merge in the
Being of God, as all drops merge in the ocean.
Therefore, in our attempt at
being a spiritual Being, we are not trying to establish an externalized
relationship with things, because in the Infinite, there is no externality but only
universality. So we must make a distinction between universality and
externality. All our activities are externalized; therefore, whatever be the
apparent success of our externalized actions, ultimately they are a
failure unless they are charged with a spiritual consciousness which is the
consciousness of a real unity of Being. It is a single Being that is working,
ultimately. That is what our religions tell us. It is God working.
When we say God works, it does
not mean that somebody else is working. We also have a wrong notion of God,
that God means somebody else. We make a distinction between God, world, and
man. That is again due to the prejudice of space, time, and cause. Why do we
think that God is in the heavens and outside us? It is because of space. We
bring a spatial distinction even between us and God. The concept of God
transcends the idea of space, time, and cause. That is the real Being,
inseparable from our being, and inseparable from the beings of other people
also, so that there can be only one Being. This consciousness of the totality
of Being – not merely an aggregate of particulars, but the real merger of Being
– is the aim of spirituality. This consciousness has to be manifest in our
action, even when there is activity.
Somebody asked me, "Are
you not disturbed and distracted when you are working?" Two days back,
some visitors came to me. "Swamiji, you are working so much. Are you not
distracted in your meditations?"
I said, "I am not
working. If I am working, I will be distracted." I asked him one question:
"What do you see? This is a table. Is this a desk or is it wood? What is
it?" I said.
He said, "It is a
desk."
I said, "I say it is
wood, because 'desk' is only a name that you give to a particular position of
wood. The position of wood is not a thing by itself, so you cannot say that
there is such a thing as a desk. Only wood is there; the wood placed in a
particular context is called a desk. Can you call a context or a position as a
thing by itself? No. I can place the same wood in another position and it
becomes a cot. In a third position, it becomes a chair, doesn’t it? So there is
no such thing as chair, no such thing as table, no such thing as desk, except
the wood. I am also, in my own humble way, trying to see no such thing as work.
It is only consciousness that exists, just as only wood exists behind the
table."
He said, "It is very
difficult to understand these things."
I said, "It is very
difficult. What can I do? But once you become habituated to this way of
thinking, all your activity becomes a manifestation of your being. You yourself
are moving in your actions, like the ocean moving through the waves. So you are
not doing something external to you and, therefore, karma cannot bind you. That
karma which will not bind you is called karma yoga. When you yourself are the
action, how can it bind you? You don't bind your own self. If you have so many
confusions in the head – it is something outside you, proceeding from you
through space and time, in respect of somebody else – then it will react upon
you. That is called the nemesis of karma. That is binding karma."
It is very difficult,
therefore, to even conceive what real spirituality is. It is impossible to
maintain even a consciousness of what spirituality is. Even the idea of it is
impossible to entertain in the mind, let alone practice it. But once it becomes
a part of our natural way of thinking, we become supermen from that very
moment. This is the aim of our life.
Excerpts from:
Chapter 1: True Spiritual
Living by Swami Krishnananda
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