Spirituality, are you committed to knowing the truth?

By Yogi Baba Premacharya

www.vedicpath.com

Looking back over the last hundred years or so, spirituality has waxed and waned as a popular movement in western society. Within the last 100 years, mystical spirituality began appearing strongly in the 1920s as a progressive movement, reappearing in the 1960s and a long run from the early 1980s through the mid to late 1990s.  This cycle seems to appear, collect dedicated followers and then slip back toward obscurity for a period of time. 

For much of the world, spirituality is the last great frontier of the human experience.  Ironically, unlocking the hidden potential of the mind, through its universal techniques and providing healing techniques that confound the modern scientific models.   The problem and solution is ironically time.  For the first time in recorded human history, the masses can practice mystical techniques and truths more than ever before.  This is due to specialization of different worker groups, which has created a greater amount of discretionary time amongst the masses.  The problem is that we have so many choices for our discretionary time; we often cannot focus on one area of our lives.  We divide our time between running to events for our children, to movies, travel, and a plethora of other activities competing for our attention and time.  This has resulted in everyone proclaiming to be an expert on spirituality, and the term spirituality has ultimately come to mean that we really cannot commit to a particular path or specific group of teachings.  The result of this process is a consumer obsessed spiritual system, which eventually led to the collapse of the “new age” movement of the late 1990s.  The consumer mentality led to numerous systems such as Tai Chi becoming fads, and quickly disappeared from the social scene and from being practiced at al.  Once something becomes a fad, it is destined to become short lived, as fads come and go rather quickly in a consumer based society.  This has also occurred in yoga, where we have more people practicing physical yoga than ever before, but yoga has become a hollow shell of what it once was; becoming more of an asana (posture) based system, devoid of its deeper spiritual essence.  All of this has resulted in what Ayurveda frequently referred to as a “failure of wisdom”.

Our failure of wisdom is to recognize the 4 universal aims of life: Dharma, Artha, Kama, and Moksha.  Dharma is our personal path of truth that is linked with the universal path of truth.  We have failed to explore and discover our personal path of truth that is rooted in the universal truth.  Instead, we often opt to create a hybrid or mish-mash of conflicting systems into something that we delude ourselves into believing is dharma. 

Artha is success in our work and recognition.  Everyone wants acknowledgement for their knowledge and contributions in their chosen profession.  This has become unbalanced, as most people seek out only artha and base their personal worth on artha.  Artha is important, but it is only a portion of personal journey towards truth. 

Kama is desire.  We all have desires and the fulfillment of the desires can have healing attributes, but it also can be a very destructive process, unchecked.  In our society, artha and kama often become intertwined in a self-destructive process of consumerism and consumption. 

Moksha is liberation.  The process of seeking liberation.  The first three aims should be geared toward the fulfillment of the 4^th aim, which is liberation.  In other words, we should seek to deeply understand the universal truth by study with qualified teachers and experts that are knowledgeable in teaching and technique.  Artha and Dharma should fund our search for truth.  Our desires (kama) should be geared towards things that not only make us happy, but rooted in desires that are healthy and embody wellness.  This is one of the greatest challenges for so many people.  Our desires should be for the manifestation of liberation. 

The modern student of spirituality can enjoy a prosperous life.  But most importantly, they should embrace dharma and making spirituality a priority in their life.  This can be achieved by many simple daily approaches.  The following are simple keys to success on having a good prosperous life and a deep fulfilling spiritual life:

•  Have a qualified teacher.  A strong relationship with a teacher is one of the greatest tools to spiritual growth.  Many people feel they should do it on their own and themselves.  But in reality, no one really follows that philosophy in other areas of their life.  If you have legal issues, you hire an attorney.  No one has the time or money to go to law school, much less the time to develop the experience necessary to practice law.  The same is true with someone such as a dentist.   Spirituality should not be any less important.

• Spend 25 minutes minimum daily in yoga/meditation practice.  For most people, quality of practice and practice time is more important than quantity.  Spending 2 hours a day with poor technique and knowledge is less beneficial than 25 minutes with excellent technique and knowledge. 

• Practice daily.  Most people attend a workshop or go to a class once or twice a week.  These are times to improve technique, but we haven’t seen anyone achieve enlightenment attending a class.  A solid home-based practice is essential for spiritual peace and fulfillment.  Attendance at a workshop or travel to a monastery can be beneficial, but cannot replace sadhana.  Spiritual trips can be beneficial and cultivate the other aims such as dharma, artha and kama. 

• Study quality dharma teachings.  Vedic teachings and books written by teachers trained within the traditional systems offer great insight and understanding, as well as powerful techniques and tools tested over millennia.