Keeping it Real

Through our brief stint here on the last pilgrimage weblog, we have always tried and find ways to live life in a wholesome manner. We have always exhorted seekers to try new and innovative ways to ensure that they stay creative and productive in their way of life. Ultimately spirituality is nothing but an ideology that promotes and propagates an ideal lifestyle; at least that is what it accomplishes at the basic level. Going beyond, the realms of advanced spirituality know no boundaries. A fully evolved spiritual master indeed possesses more power and knowledge than what we can even imagine with our puny intellects.

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Thus looking at the entire scope of spirituality, at times it indeed becomes hard to segregate it into packages that can be sustainably delivered to an engaging audience. Simply put, one indeed finds it to be an arduous task trying to decide what to show and indeed what to hide. Owing to this the realm of spiritual teaching has always been somewhat of a misguided tour into the journey of life. Point of the matter is that spiritual teachings of any sort are not essentially something that can be dispensed over the counter as a proprietary medication. No; it’s a more complex method that involves meticulous teaching and ceaseless dedication. In the absence of both, spirituality ends up becoming naught but the target for social ridicule at the hands of ignorant imbeciles.

Now given the absence of a good delivery method, any ideology runs the risk of being deprecated at the hands of the world. That is essentially what has happened to modern day spirituality. Upon looking at the way that spiritual teachings have evolved over time, it indeed seems to be of little surprise that in the current day they hold little appeal to general public. The reason for the same being that human beings have almost reached the zenith of their worldly evolution; the fact that man has indeed accomplished much is indeed an understatement. Hence in the frenzy of that accomplishment, man essentially forgets his true identity and his true nature, let alone the true purpose of his very existence. Man’s psychological identity is molded into existence by the illusions that he lives with; and hence wrapped in this pseudo-existence of his own illusory dream, man indeed forgets all that is ‘real’ in his life.

Through the years, when such events have occurred in the world; when humanity has indeed been endangered by the darkness of ignorance, saints have walked these lands to ignite in the hearts of men the passion and yearning for knowledge and realization. However those times have since passed us by and we are left with naught but worthless imitations of a species that has long since become obsolete. Why did such a thing happen? How did it come to this? Where are the saviors of the current generation? Where are the saints of today?

Point of the matter is that spirituality is all about evolution; it is about adapting to the changing times and rolling with the punches as they fall in line. It is no surprise indeed that in the bid to evolve the estranged seeker, even the ideology has to evolve; and with it the way in which it is propagated indeed needs to evolve. Many times people ask me; why did the west not see a single messiah after the passing of Jesus? However the point of the matter is that there was always a messiah on the face of this earth, who was keeping in check the delicate balance within the cosmos. However the fact that the messiah never appeared as one is indeed corroboratory to the observation that yes; even spirituality has evolved and with it so have its messengers. A new era is indeed upon us; wherein the son of God would not be the one wearing a bloody loincloth but would indeed be someone porting a suave Armani jacket. However the fact that he would be bleeding the same is indeed of little relevance to us; for we would still be content in calling ourselves the most evolved species on the face of this earth; content in our illusions and warped in our pseudo-reality as we condemn our fellow spiritualists asking them to keep it REAL…

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Being Divine

Throughout our time, here on the last Pilgrimage weblog, we have discussed about spirituality as a means to reach out to the divine. We have discussed about spirituality as a means to reclaim the lost divinity within each and every one of us. However in the course of this entire journey, not once had we ever touched base on what divinity truly accomplishes. We never answered the question. What next? How would a seeker’s life be after being touched by divinity? Indeed how would a seeker’s life be once he made the transition from being simply human to being divine?

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The answer to that question is indeed surprising. Believe it or not, the transition from being human to being divine is what constitutes the entire struggle of the redundant and repetitive human existence. That transition in itself is a journey that is driven by an incessant desire and an innate craving of the divine. That desire in turn takes the seeker ever closer to achieving that state of divinity within his own self. It takes the seeker ever closer to completely evolving in the end. It is that very desire that finally unites a seeker with his eternal soulmate; himself.

Throughout this journey, as a seeker starts to progress on the path that leads to self-realization and enlightenment, he starts to observe the subtle changes that happen within himself. The spiritual path completely transforms and transfigures an individual both intrinsically and from the worldly perspective. It affects the very constitution of an individual, redefining his traits and characteristics, as the individual himself starts to experience the present of an alternate consciousness within himself; as he starts to experience and feel God within the confines of his own mind.

Extrinsically, the individual starts to feel a difference in the way that the world perceives him. There is a certain amount of prejudice veiled underneath a snide demeanor of falsified curiosity in the eyes that behold him. This happens owing to the fact that the subtle intrinsic changes affect the seekers behavioral patterns, thus making others around him conspicuous of the change. People don’t like change for it makes them feel uncomfortable; and the degree of change that any phenomena brings in depends on the ingenuity of that specific idea. Spirituality in itself is the single most ingenious and revolutionary ideology that an individual can imbibe in his life. The changes that the spiritual revolution brings about in an individual are indeed varied and beyond comprehension. Hence the silent rebuke from the society.

However a true spiritualist never really cares about the opinions of the others; for he knows in his heart that the path he treads is a path known to few; for indeed few have the courage to stage the spiritual revolution against lifetime’s worth of oppression that they have suffered at their own hands. Few have the drive to renunciate the worldly rot for the kingdom of joy that reigns within; and no matter what you do this is certain for a fact. Once touched by divinity; your life will never be the same again. At one point it will happen that you will renounce the world; or the world will end up renouncing you. However in both cases; you would be well off.

The renunciation that I speak of here is the renunciation that comes from within. It is the feeling of supreme happiness that accompanies the knowledge that there is indeed nothing in the world that can truly make you feel aggrieved; the knowledge that you are truly and completely free of all the bonds that bind you to this existence; the bonds that make you suffer. In such ways the silent and yet incredibly effective spiritual revolution reinstates the power to its rightful owner; the soul. Thus ends the journey from being simply human to being divine…

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Loneliness

The journey of life is often an arduous undertaking in itself. While walking on the destined path of life, often it so happens that man starts to feel as if he is all alone; walking on a broken road that indeed leads him to nowhere. Every individual at one point or the other feels sad and dejected owing to the fact that he is all alone in this world; every individual on some level feels that there should be someone with whom he can share his life; with whom he can share his world; someone special with whom he can share his joy and his sorrow.

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Loneliness often drives the best of individuals to commit the most heinous of crimes; why? For the simple reason that loneliness can indeed drive a person utterly paranoid. Man is a social animal and hence to thrive and grow in his life, he needs the company of fellow humans. Often so it happens that even in the company of friends and family, man feels the need for someone special; someone close to his heart; someone with whom he can share the most personal and intimate secrets that are known to no one else but him. In the absence of that very person, man often starts to feel that his life indeed has little meaning left to it; that even in the midst of a rollicking crowd; he is ultimately cold and lonely.

Why does this situation arise? What is it that drives a human being to search for peace and satisfaction outside the realm of his own consciousness? I stress vehemently on this question, for that dependency and the neediness in itself is highly injurious to a person’s overall growth. The fact that your happiness and your satisfaction depends on someone other than yourself is something that can prove to be highly detrimental for personal success.

I have thought long and hard on these matters and from what I derived through introspection was that every person essentially is complete within himself. If a person truly attains realization and enlightenment, he realizes that there is no one else who can be his soul mate but for his own self. Through the process of the spiritual evolution, man realizes that such attachments and illusory dependencies only end up making him vulnerable and weak. They hardly ever give him strength and resolve. As man evolves through the spiritual path, he realizes that there is indeed no such thing as loneliness. One realizes that everyone comes into this world on their own accord; and they leave it on their own. When you are born alone and when you die alone; don’t you think that god would have had the better sense to give you the capabilities to live alone?

I have often posed this question to myself in endless hours of introspection; and the answer that I received was this. Alone never means lonely; you can be alone without being lonely and you can be lonely without being all alone. Aloneness is a state of oneness; it is all-one; that is what makes up the word alone. The spiritual path in itself is a path that enriches and embellishes an individual with gifts and powers far beyond the scope of mortal men. As an individual progresses on the spiritual path; he indeed realizes that he is alone in this world, for he discovers his true nature. In that very discovery, he realizes his own soul and that realization takes him beyond all yearning and all incompleteness. That in itself symbolizes the true form of the spirit. When you are one with your soul; when your are one with yourself; being alone no longer means being lonely.

That is what true spirituality finally accomplishes. Granted that it’s a hard path in itself for it hardly provides any answers in the short haul. On the contrary it yields the seeker great pain and seeks of him great sacrifices. However one thing is for certain; the fires in which the seeker burns, only turn his spirit to gold; the trials and tribulations that a seeker faces on this path only embellish and enrich his spirit; for it is but a single step in the journey of spiritual evolution known as life…

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Regret & Repentance

I have often said that life is a series of events that happen to an individual. Life is a series of occurrences or happenings that are simply related to each other. How this occurrences are laid out in each of our lives is a mystery that none of us can indeed fathom. In reality, however this very mystery helps us to live life with a renewed sense of hope and vigor with every breath that pumps our heart. Imagine indeed if there was no mystery left in life; how boring and monotonous it would truly be. Even greatness would lose all its sheen for indeed there would be nothing-great left about it.

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These various events that span out in an individual’s lifetime often induce some emotion in him; be it anger or happiness; be it ecstasy or depression; the varied moods of life never fail to influence the flow of our destinies. Through the many emotive phases that an individual goes through in his life, I have often noticed that there is one emotion that lasts the longest; that there is one emotion that stays forever with an individual; that is regret.

I have often said that the only lasting emotion in life is regret; that every individual at every point in his life feels regret in one form or another. Regret that he did something; or regret that he did not do something. The very nature of human life is such that an individual naturally regresses and goes into a state of mind where he feels completely lost and hopeless. This situation essentially arises owing to an individual’s unwillingness to accept the burden of his own choices.

Life is a journey in which we have to work with what has been ordained to us. We have to work with what fate we bring with us to these wretched lands. This essentially means that we have to work towards progression and no towards regression. What we have at the end of this life should be something that is far greater than what we had at end of the last one. That is the basic crux of human evolution. In the end we find that the only that stays with us through life and death is our spiritual wealth; it is only the spiritual wealth that we carry when we move on from our physical bodies; and this wealth is something that can be inculcated only through conscious acts of goodness.

Regret is an emotion that comes from deep within our hearts; it is when life disappoints us beyond count that we experience regret. So essentially what this means is that regret being a perpetual emotion, our entire lives end up being but a fallacy of endless disappointments. These arise primarily from our desires. So the basic reason as to why an individual experiences regret and repentance in his life is that he realizes that every single one of his desires ultimately lead to him losing his entire spiritual wealth. In every way, he starts to know that his desires have a heavy price indeed; that his desires are ultimately the cause for his spiritual downfall. The reason being that he hopes to derive lasting joy from the satiation of his desires; something that can never be accomplished; and hence regret forms an eternal part of his existence; simply owing to the fact that he desires happiness from desire itself. Desire in the end purges an individual of all his spiritual wealth.

So how can man truly live his life? Can he simply go about denying his desires? No that would indeed be horrific. But the simple realization and a situational awareness would indeed go a long way. When man realizes that his desires cannot indeed yield him lasting joy, he would cease to expect that from them; when man understands that desires are only meant to satiate shallow pleasures; he would take them for what they are work through them for a better future; for a more evolved future. But until the day dawns and man realizes that desires are not the source of all the goodness in this world, he would forever be plagued by the bane of this physical existence that we call regret.

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Episode 13: Meditation Demystified

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In the last episode of the second season of The Mysteries of Life, we discuss about the spectacular journey of self-realization; the journey towards enlightenment. Meditation has always been an issue that is often discussed upon by seekers and enthusiasts alike. Through the varied forms of meditation practiced by seekers over the world, we try and get a concise overview of what meditation is all about. How can we lead the ideal spiritual life? Listen to the following audio snippet to know the answers.

Episode 12: Destiny Demystified

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Destiny is indeed a queer thing. At times we equate it with fate and still we know that it is something that is still a mystery. As a seeker moves further on in the spiritual journey of life, he starts to question his own destiny incessantly. Are the choices that he makes truly the factors that determine the scope of his life? Or is his life simply a charted streak of random occurrings that he can but experience and not alter? Whatever it may be, the true scope of his destiny always eludes a seeker. In today’s episode of the mysteries of life, we try to elucidate on what our destiny truly represents.

Episode 11: Fate Demystified

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In the eleventh episode of the mysteries of life, we shed light on one of the most misunderstood concepts pertaining to the human existence. We shed light on fate. Many times we see a person cursing his stars; or effectively cursing his fate when he encounters failure in life. However both success and failure that a person receives in his life is the outcome of his own deeds; and so is fate. What is fate? How is it instrumental in shaping our destiny? How can we come to an understanding where we no longer blame someone else for our failures? Listen to the following audio snippet to find the answers.

Thought and Action

Man as an entity has evolved through thousands of years. The journey from once being a single-celled organism, to now being perhaps the most evolved race on the face of this earth has indeed been an eventful one. As man has evolved through time, with him, his thoughts have evolved as well. His thoughts have matured and grown to encompass a broader sense of existence. As the times change, we observe paradigm shift in the way man thinks and acts in his life. If we but self-introspect, we realize that in the journey of his own evolution, man indeed lives through the duality of his own life; the duality that exists between his own thoughts and actions.

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People often say that our actions are an expression of our thoughts, but from what I have seen and observed about most people (and from myself for that matter!) is that often our thoughts and our actions go in completely different directions. At times it so happens that a certain individual think in a very idealistic way. His thoughts are always centered around the principals of ethics and morality; yet we see that in acting he is not quite idealistic. It often happens that people love to bear idealistic thoughts in their minds; they love to think and discuss on wonderful intellectual topics; but at the end of the day when they get out of that zone and get down to being comfortable, they in the end keep on acting like they always have. Essentially, their thoughts have no discernable effects on their actions.

Thoughts are indeed a very powerful medium of expression. Your thoughts can change your life; indeed they can change someone else’s life as well. However thoughts on their own accord can indeed accomplish little in life. It takes a great deal of hard work to translate these thoughts into actions; prudent and deliberate actions that reflect the philosophy that has been willfully established by the thoughts can indeed go a long way in this world. I often say that a great philosophy can make someone else’s day; the realization that it brings in can put a momentary smile on somebody’s face; but great creativity can make someone else’s life. When you translate those powerful thoughts into action, you can indeed accomplish great things.

But to do that your thoughts and actions need to go hand in hand. Many times it so happens that I think good but I act bad. In such cases I try and offset the guilt of acting bad by thinking even more ‘good thoughts’. This in a way creates a delusion within myself, wherein I am content to only remain aware of my good thoughts. The memory of my bad deeds is always something that shames me and hence is kept away until it absolutely necessary to acknowledge it. Such is the way in which many people lead their lives. In thoughts they are pure and in acts they are vile; there can be no retribution for such individuals until they come to the point where they realize the mistake that they are committing in their own lives.

At times it also happens that our thoughts are vile and yet our acts are good. However in general these are rare cases; they usually are a sign of sudden change. Maybe a sinner of the past that takes the path to sainthood… Nonetheless, in order to make the journey ahead easier and more enjoyable it is always prudent to bear a semblance between our thoughts and actions. In that way there would be no conflict and no resulting despondency; as in no way would we be denying ourselves the satiation of our thirst.
Ultimately, no matter what choice we make, we have to bear it to the end, but in parting I would say naught but this, that in thoughts be passionate, in act be chaste, in fact be prudent and in tact be fast.

That’s all the ‘gyan’ for today. Lol see you around guys…

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Episode 9: Saint and Sinner

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In the ninth episode of this season of The Mysteries of Life, we start the discussion where we had last left it off. People often think of karma as being either good or bad. But this perception of karma is often based upon our own ideas and upbringing. Thus what we may deem as either good or bad, may not necessarily be so. What is karma? Is there indeed anything such as good or bad karma? How can man willfully navigate his boat through the treacherous seas of life?
Listen to the following audio snippet to find the answers.

Episode 8: Karma Demystified

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Today in the eighth episode of the second season of the mysteries of life, we touch base on what is perhaps the most important aspect related to true spirituality and the journey of life. Karma or action has always been a great mystery for humankind. Few people truly cognize the scope of their karmic actions. What is karma? Why is it so potent in shaping our destinies? How can we proactively ensure that we remain centered in life irrespective of our myriad karmic ties? In the coming weeks we would be discussing on all these questions; unraveling this spellbinding mystery of life…