When we hear certain words, it evokes certain feelings
within us. 'Snake' may evoke fear for most people, 'Football' may evoke
excitement etc. What is the feeling that 'Enlightenment', 'Spirituality' etc. evoke
in us? What is it like to hear these
words? There may a host of mixed feelings, but here I want to focus on one, the
one that is the problem — the feeling of
'difficult', or 'impossibility'. And this has several reasons behind it. The following
is a primary one.
“Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa had throat cancer and he didn’t care the pain. Ramana Maharshi sat
in a cave in bliss amidst insects and scorpion bites for days. And look at us,
we can’t even stand a mosquito bite or a common cold…” — this is how some
spiritual discourses go. They are all facts, and they may have their own
relevance; but are they relevant to me now? Especially the way it is being
presented? It is being presented as a comparison, to evaluate where we are, and
to say that we are no good. Is this going to help me in any way? In fact, it is
turning out to be detrimental. It may invoke some wonder for the moment, but
the immediately subsequent feeling is that of impossibility. It is with this
feeling that the listener goes home. “Spirituality is so difficult. I can't
do this”. For in his mind he has equated spirituality to “taking cobra
bites and enduring the pain of cancer”. Unconsciously, spirituality has been equated to pain-withstanding stamina.
First of all, this should not be the focal point of the seeker. The extraordinary incidents in the life of masters is only a by-product of the state they are in. It is not that they intended to withstand pain. Bearing the pain was not their practice. Once their true nature beyond the body and the mind was a living reality to them, the affairs of the body and mind got trivialized, and such things happened. Those are not the aim per se.
Secondly, I only want to know "How should I begin from where I am?" Is there nothing between the state I am in, and the state the masters are in? Tell me things about them that would fire me up, so that I also begin to long for the ultimate just like they did before they realized; tell me things that instigate a sense of possibility and a sense of urgency in me. And even if we talk about their miracles, they need not be presented as an impossibility.
First of all, this should not be the focal point of the seeker. The extraordinary incidents in the life of masters is only a by-product of the state they are in. It is not that they intended to withstand pain. Bearing the pain was not their practice. Once their true nature beyond the body and the mind was a living reality to them, the affairs of the body and mind got trivialized, and such things happened. Those are not the aim per se.
Secondly, I only want to know "How should I begin from where I am?" Is there nothing between the state I am in, and the state the masters are in? Tell me things about them that would fire me up, so that I also begin to long for the ultimate just like they did before they realized; tell me things that instigate a sense of possibility and a sense of urgency in me. And even if we talk about their miracles, they need not be presented as an impossibility.
Besides this specific point of bearing physical hardship, even generally there is this label of "difficult" attached to spiritual pursuit and sadhana. But what is our common experience of life? When it comes to major undertakings in our life, is it because something is easy or difficult that we decide to do or not do it? No. We do things because we want to do them, and that is it. It is not that you learn
engineering because it is easy, and reject medical because it is difficult.
That would be a ridiculous life. I just have this longing within me to
transcend the limitations of body and mind. Whether it is easy or difficult is
simply irrelevant to me.
There is something more to this philosophy of labeling spirituality as 'difficult'. If we question that label and ask "If it is so difficult, how did they succeed?" the general reply is "They are divine
incarnations". If such things are said out of devotion then it is a
different matter. But mostly it is said out of indolence; it is to take away
credit from all those great beings by saying "They had VIP tags; that is why they could do it; we cannot do all that as we do not have any special status". All the masters have repeatedly said, “I am
not special, all can attain realization, you alone are responsible for it,
follow these steps…” But every time we promptly ignore those statements. We conveniently overlook all the struggle and effort that they went
through. This is deception, not devotion!
"All the religions of the world have been built upon that one universal and adamantine foundation of all our knowledge — direct experience. The teachers all saw God; they all saw their own souls, they saw their eternity, they saw their future, and they saw what they preached. Only there is this difference, that in most of these religions, especially in modern times, a peculiar claim is put before us, and that claim is that these experiences are impossible at the present day; they were only possible with a few men, who were the first founders of the religions that subsequently bore their names; at the present time these experiences have become obsolete, and therefore we have now to take religion on belief. This I entirely deny. If there has been one case of experience in this world in any particular branch of knowledge it absolutely follows that this experience has been possible millions of times before, and will be repeated eternally. Uniformity is the rigorous law of nature; what once happened can happen always. The teachers of the science of Yoga, therefore, declare that religion is not only based upon the experiences of ancient times, but that no man can be religious until he has had the same perceptions himself." (Swami Vivekananda in Raja Yoga, Chapter 1)
"All the religions of the world have been built upon that one universal and adamantine foundation of all our knowledge — direct experience. The teachers all saw God; they all saw their own souls, they saw their eternity, they saw their future, and they saw what they preached. Only there is this difference, that in most of these religions, especially in modern times, a peculiar claim is put before us, and that claim is that these experiences are impossible at the present day; they were only possible with a few men, who were the first founders of the religions that subsequently bore their names; at the present time these experiences have become obsolete, and therefore we have now to take religion on belief. This I entirely deny. If there has been one case of experience in this world in any particular branch of knowledge it absolutely follows that this experience has been possible millions of times before, and will be repeated eternally. Uniformity is the rigorous law of nature; what once happened can happen always. The teachers of the science of Yoga, therefore, declare that religion is not only based upon the experiences of ancient times, but that no man can be religious until he has had the same perceptions himself." (Swami Vivekananda in Raja Yoga, Chapter 1)
Let us therefore not philosophise the impossibility of
realization. Let us shatter this mental block, and look at how we can begin.
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