HARE KRISHNA
Friends. Spiritual
journey of any person in this material world always takes turns, including U-turns. Unless
a person is a sworn atheist or a sworn believer, a person on the Spiritual path
can be misguided by his intellect. Because of confusion or wrong guidance, the
following changes can happen to a person even if he is a sincere sadhak:
1.
being
a believer he can become an atheist,
2.
being
an atheist, he can become an agnostic,
3.
being
an agnostic, he can become a believer or an atheist, and/or
4. being
a believer, he can once again become an atheist or an agnostic.
We will begin with the definition of three important words
used here. This will enable us to understand this particular post better.
Believer:
1.
After
doing Kundalini Yoga he believes in his Soul and does not believe in God. He
may also think that he is God. Or
2.
After
taking to Bhakti Yoga, he starts believing in God and may not know much about
his soul. Therefore he may not believe in his Soul.
Agnostic:
1. A person who holds
the view that any ultimate reality (such as God) is unknown and probably
unknowable. Broadly, one who is not committed to believing in either the
existence or the nonexistence of God.
2. A person who is
unwilling to commit to an opinion about something.
Atheist: A person who disbelieves or lacks
belief in the existence of God and/or his Soul.
I, as an Indian, will share some of my own experiences to
show how opinions or beliefs can change over one’s Spiritual life time. The
cycle is endless, particularly if the person uses his intellect improperly
instead of understanding the true Spiritual goals. In the end a person can land
up in a situation when Spiritual progress can stop abruptly.
As a Hindu child in India, I was denied education about
Hinduism in my school. At home I didn’t find the time because here I spent most
of the time reading my school books or playing. Being a city bred Hindu, there
were no temples or institutions to teach Hindu scriptures near my residence
also. So I never learnt anything about God or my scriptures. My mother would
perform her prayers regularly. But I couldn’t understand much of what she did.
For me what she did was a mere ritual.
Like me there were many students in my school who never understood the
meaning of religion or God.
Therefore when I entered college after schooling, I had no
knowledge about God, religions or my scriptures. At this stage I was only a
blind believer of God without any knowledge about the Soul or God. But I was neither
an atheist nor an agnostic.
At college, because I was not a student of science, economics
became a mandatory subject. I became fascinated by the Marxist or Communist
ideas of economic models and also started reading books relating to Marxism or
communism. As I read books on Marxism, I learnt at a stage that Communists did
not believe in God. After all the founder of Marxism, Karl Marx had said that
religion is the opium of the people. Because I liked the theory of Marxist economy, I too started believing
that religion had to be shunned and that there is no God. From being an
ordinary believer of God I became an atheist without knowing anything about religions,
Hindu scriptures and God. The same belief was developed by my college friends
also. This way the number of non-believers spread rapidly like wild fire among my
college friends. Majority of students who were believers got converted to
atheism or agnosticism. For me and my friends it was a quick and easy change of
religion. We were literally brain washed without much effort into a new
religion.
Yet I had a quest for Spiritual knowledge because I did not
see Spiritualism to be the same as religion or linked to it in any way. But I
did not know how religions like
Christianity and Islam viewed Spiritualism. So after my college days, I took to
meditation.
After doing pranayama regularly, I soon realised that the Spiritual
power called Kundalini got aroused in me. But this Kundalini energy was
confined to merely the spine region of my body, including my mind and feelings.
With my limited cleansing experience, I concluded that there was a Soul or Consciousness
in me. I concluded that I had God in me. This soon got converted to a belief
that I was a God.
The journey didn’t stop here. As nothing more was achieved in
the above journey, I decided to explore the other paths recommended in the
Bhagavad Gita. So, I took recourse to Bhakti Yoga.
From Bhakti Yoga, I learnt that there was another Spiritual
power called Krishna Consciousness that was pouring grace on me. This shattered
my previous belief that I am God. I learnt that God is someone very different
and far more powerful and lasting. Lord Krishna or HIS Consciousness was very
loving and giving me immense joy and happiness.
Hence I started believing that I am not
God but a Soul, and that God is different from me. The transition was
spontaneous and without any doubt.
Soon I realised that the flow of Krishna Consciousness stopped.
This again led me to believe that there is no God or Soul. I had suddenly become
an atheist. To confirm my atheist belief and conclusions, I read a Tibetan book
on Yoga which said that there is nothing like a Soul or God. For some time I
truly believed that there is no Soul or God.
I soon also realised that the confusion arose because we often
forget the very elementary principle and power of Consciousness. Any Yoga that we
do essentially cleanses our body, Soul and the mind. Once our body is Spiritually
cleansed both by the Kundalini energy and Krishna Consciousness, the Consciousness
in our body becomes qualitatively on par with the outside Consciousness. After
the cleansing is over there is nothing more to be done unless our Body, Soul
and Mind are once again corrupted and requires cleansing. Thus I realised that
God and Soul are not imaginary but a reality. I am a Soul and not a God. God exists in our midst and within us in the
form of our Soul. As per the Bhagavad Gita there is Krishna Consciousness inside,
there is Krishna Consciousness outside also. The two are different in volume
and potency though their quality is the same. As this revelation was already made
by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu about 500 years back, I once again became a believer.
Such turmoils do happen to almost all those on any Spiritual
paths. Suffice to say that Lord Krishna has given us the brains and the
intellect to think properly and unless we do that properly we will never
understand the reality of our Soul and Lord Krishna.
I started analysing the reasons as to why such confusions
arose only in the Hindus and not in people of other religions like Christians
or Muslims.
1.
I
soon learnt that the Indian Government had always given a right to teach and
learn the Bible and Quran in all schools across India. But they had banned
study of Hinduism by the Hindus in recognised schools and colleges. Consequently
our generation grew up without knowledge about God, the Bhagavad Gita, etc. All
the Christians and Muslims, from their childhood were grounded firmly in their
belief of God and their scriptures. The ban on study of Hinduism in schools and
colleges continues today also.
2.
The
other point I want to make is that the Indian Government and Universities thought
it fit to promote a globally failed economic and political theory called Marxist
economic theories. But they did not deem it fit to study a very ancient and proven
Indian economic model called Arthashastras. Arthashastra forms part of our ancient
Vedic literatures. No one knows why this step motherly treatment was meted out
to the Hindus and their scriptures Arthashastras? In fact I have not come
across a single student of Indian Arthashastra anywhere in the world.
3.
If
we couldn’t learn Hindu philosophy, we could have learnt at least economics of
our Arthashastra along with the Marxist economics. Shouldn’t someone tell this
to the Indian and state governments? We have to heed lessons from our failures.
Most of our problems are because of two reasons:
i.
We
acted without thinking or
ii.
We
keep thinking without acting.
HARE KRISHNA
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