What constitutes spirituality? A large number of people in the world confuse spirituality with religiosity. They believe that to observe religious practices such as praying, reading scriptures, fasting, and going on pilgrimage is spirituality. There are also those who are not religiously inclined but think that having good wishes for others, being kind and charitable is what it means to be spiritual.
True spirituality, as the word suggests, has to do with the spirit or soul. The foundation of spirituality is the awareness that we are souls, not bodies. It is not enough to merely know this fact. Millions who have read the Bhagvad Gita know about the soul and its immortality, but how many of them are conscious of being a soul while going about their daily lives? Do they act with the awareness that the soul is performing actions through the body? Do they look at fellow human beings as souls and interact with them with that awareness? That is what it means to be spiritual.
Recognising the fact that one is a soul, and knowing the innate qualities of the soul and the role it plays, completely changes one’s perspective on life. It is the soul, the sentient entity, that feels the happiness and pain we experience. The body is the medium through which the soul has these experiences. As the soul goes through the cycle of birth, death and rebirth, it gets the fruit of the actions it performs, whether good or bad. The soul carries a record of every action performed by it in each birth. Its good deeds may not necessarily be rewarded in the same life, nor may it suffer the consequences of its mistakes immediately. But, as per the law of karma, it surely gets its due at some point of time. This knowledge makes a spiritual person careful about their thoughts, words and actions.
Such a person knows that it is wiser to acquire virtues and the good wishes of others than to amass wealth that one will leave behind at the time of death. Spiritual assets such as honesty, peace, courage, and tolerance remain with the soul life after life, and they come in handy when one is confronted by difficult situations. A spiritual person does not hanker for physical pleasures, which are always short-lived and dependent on sense organs that are subject to decay. Knowing that the soul is immortal, they are also free from the fear of death, which, they understand, is not the end of everything but just a change of roles.
On the other hand, most of what is achieved by someone with a materialistic outlook is transitory. They spend their life acquiring money, status and objects of physical comfort, all of which they leave behind on death. Excessive indulgence in physical pleasures enslaves them to the senses, and this brings misery when the body decays with age. Moreover, a materialist believes that they will lose everything with death, which can occur any time, because of which they live in fear and worry.
Even religious practices do not bring lasting peace of mind to materialists because they seek only worldly things in worship. They ask for wealth, physical health, a good job, a child, a grandchild and so on. Their desires do not subside when they get all that they want; instead, they get more entangled in their relationships and finances.
Without spiritual awareness it is not possible to have a link with God, the Supreme Soul, who is the Father of all souls and the only one who can liberate His children from suffering. He does that by sharing His wisdom, power and virtues with souls who remember Him, so that they can overcome their weaknesses and become pure and whole again.
B.K. Asha is director of the Brahma Kumaris’ Om Shanti Retreat Centre in Gurugram.