It's difficult trying to be spiritual. Not religious, mind you, but spiritual. Being religious would be easy -- follow any one of the world's (or even India's) major religions and you have a ready set of rules to rule you and beliefs to believe in. But for any self-respecting young Indian, it's passé to be religious. One must be spiritual, act eclectic and choose the best of varying faiths and secular schools of thought. Which is where the confusion begins. One of the founding blocks of spirituality, most saints say, is abstinence -- a reining in of the senses. Said Prophet Mohammed, “The nearest to me are the abstinent, whoever they are, wherever they are.” The Bhagwad Gita, too, says, “The yogi should constantly discipline himself, remaining in solitude, with mind and body well-restrained, having no desires and without avarice.” Does that mean anything sensuous is conclusively sin? Did our forefathers wrongly put kama in the fourfold scheme of Hindu life? Or is it the fate of all Godward longing to be relegated to a more senile age? Osho Rajneesh confuses matters even further. He kind of guesses that the senses have to be transcended and somehow figures this can be done by satiating them. He says one mustn't try to suppress sex: “Let it drop of its own accord.” Well, to have sex with the aim of dropping it doesn't sound like fun at all. And if “enjoyment is the sound of being centered,” as Rajneesh puts it, why did the Vedic seer say, “The good and the pleasant are not the same?” Guess we'll let modern gurus rest and go right back to tradition. But my study of my own religion does me in. We were taught that the idol of our ishta devta (personal deity) is not the object of foolish idolatry, but a point in time and space that helps focus the mind. So, now, when I sit to pray, I don't know if I'm praying to God in the form I behold or it's just the mind I'm trying to hold. Of course, one could just switch to Vipasana or Transcendental Meditation. But, come Janmashtami, and I yearn to celebrate my God's birthday. Religious fasting is an issue of much dissent amongst my peers in the 'newly married women's' brigade. All I can say is that fasting has been proven good for health; considering the junk we overeat, it's good to give the body a break. But that's not the point. The point is -- for a day or a month -- to sacrifice something for God. One really wouldn't know how pleased God is by this, but fasts do put a brake on the flurry of life and bring increased remembrance of the divine. Now, this is very much in tune with what Sri Ramakrishna urges, “The essence of contemplative discipline is the constant remembrance of the Supreme Reality as the only reality.” Good! Personally speaking, I seem to have got this one worked out! But then, fasts are special occasions. Daily life itself has enough inconsistencies to faze one. Like, they say intellectuality has its limits. Scientists, apparently, go only upto a point with their logical deductions. Then, intuition takes over. But intuition comes only to the silent mind. Which would lead one to conclude that too much thought brings naught. That the feverishly thinking mind is far from wisdom. Is it then, “I think, therefore I am not?” And why does Ayn Rand make so much sense? Besides, if silence is the way of the wise, why are we so charmed by the gift of the gab? The dilemma seeps right down to the basics – food. Milk and fruits are recommended by those who follow the sattvic diet. But milk, says a naturopath uncle, is meant for calves. And, God forbid, if the younger Gandhi daughter-in-law is right, milk is non-vegetarian and therefore against Jainism too. Jainism reminds one of Buddhism and Buddhism of the Bodhisattva paintings I recently saw at Ajanta. The beautiful frescoes of Buddha at Ajanta-Ellora seem, above all, a stream of creative consciousness, bursting free of the austere discipline of the monastic order. We are richer, not because of the penances that salvaged the monks of yesteryear, but for the irresistible urge that compelled them to create this worldly art. But it could be that their act of painting was inadvertently meditative. Ah! The phone is ringing and I am jolted out of my reverie. Reverie might be the stuff of creative visualisation, but it is not the way of the aware mystic… Shirley Singh hopes, some day, to stumble on to the true path of spirituality. Illustration: Dominic Xavier Do tell us what you think of this diary
HOME | NEWS | CRICKET | MONEY | SPORTS | MOVIES | CHAT | BROADBAND | TRAVEL ASTROLOGY | NEWSLINKS | BOOK SHOP | MUSIC SHOP | GIFT SHOP | HOTEL BOOKINGS AIR/RAIL | WEDDING | ROMANCE | WEATHER | WOMEN | E-CARDS | EDUCATION HOMEPAGES | FREE MESSENGER | FREE EMAIL | CONTESTS | FEEDBACK