A student or a seeker of spirituality would necessarily be confused with the question – What is spirituality? Some people speak of spirituality as being intuitive, becoming psychic in seeing the future, reading people’s minds etc. Some would call performing a miracle and producing objects as spirituality. So, what exactly is spirituality? If you look at what is available in the Indian spiritual supermarket, we will find a variety of things touted as spirituality.
Broadly speaking anything that enhances the human spirit is spirituality. But that is too broad and big a definition. In the ancient Indian context if one looks to the Vedas including the Upanishads then the whole picture is different. India has always been recognized to be deeply spiritual not only by Indians themselves but by many foreign travelers who came into this country. According to ancient Vedic literature the message is quite clear – knowing and realising the truth of the individual, the world and if there is a common source that is Ishvara/God, would be considered being truly spiritual. We recognized spirituality as a life goal for all human beings. We called it moksha or fulfilment in life achieved by knowing the reality of you, world and God.
The Vedas are knowledge revealed to the Rishis who were the first human beings who taught this wisdom. It was a tradition of knowledge not of blind belief and practices. The spiritual tradition was a guru-shishya tradition. Clear thinking and a questioning mind was encouraged. The seeker always approached a guru. Therefore, the ultimate spiritual principle was always cognitive – to know the truth. For preparing the mind there were a lot of practices and meditations that varied from individual to individual, from teacher to teacher, from tradition to tradition. All that was meant for preparing the mind to know the truth. Like an old saying goes, ’ I searched for God and found only myself. I searched for myself and found only God’. Understanding this and making this a fact of one’s life truly makes one spiritual according to the ancient Indian traditions.
(The writer is the founder of Aarsha Vidya Foundation. You can write to him at aarshavidyaf@gmail.com)
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