Spirituality for the growth of the Nation

By Gita Krishna Raj

I had the blessed privilege of directing a 52 part television series on the life of Swami Vivekananda in 2014. During the course of research for the same, I chanced upon so many little incidents that are awe inspiring. On one occasion, Swami Vivekananda gathered his disciples and asked them – ‘If I asked you to live in the Himalayas without any one else with you, how long can you live alone?’ The disciples replies ranged from a few hours to a few days. Swamiji looked deep into their eyes to say ‘If you cannot even be with yourself, how do you expect the world to put up with you?’

This is my understanding of spirituality – the journey of knowing oneself; to become so intimate with yourself that you can watch yourself, your thoughts, your physicality, your emotions, desires, aspirations, values – everything that passes through you! The journey of not being a stranger unto oneself!

To the uninitiated this may sound very selfish – is spirituality all about oneself? In reality it is not – because during the process of self introspection, the inner cleansing begins, leading you through the “Neti Neti” process where you begin to experientially realise “I am not this body! I am not these thoughts! I am not this emotion! This isn’t me!” You begin to realise you are much more than all that you perceive, leading you to get in touch with the transcendent that so many of us are trying to define.

In reality though, spirituality cannot be defined because it is the most intimate private part of you that cannot be labelled and generalised into something common for all. How could we express the taste of an orange to someone who has never tasted it? If such is the innate quality of spirituality how do we use such a principle for Nation building?

Blessed am I to share how my guru Mahatria Ra, diviner of the path infinitheism, puts it in a nutshell – spirituality is the quality you bring in to everything in your life. All of us aspire to be healthy, wealthy, loving and blissful. What if we could be spiritually healthy, spiritually wealthy, spiritually loving and spiritually blissful? What if we could bring in our relationship with the transcendent in everything that we do?

Spiritually Healthy? Get in touch with your body for it is the most magnificent thing created. Learn to treat it with the dignity it deserves.

Spiritually Wealthy: Money is just a standardised medium of exchange. At some point people no longer wanted two goats in exchange for three bags of rice and so a standard medium of exchange called money was developed by humanity. Actual wealth is creation of value – what one does should add value to society, should contribute to the larger world. Can we bring in spirituality to wealth creation?

Spiritually Loving: Can we look beyond I, me, myself, my family, my community, my nation to begin loving humanity and the world at large – loving the world irrespective of who they are and what they may or may not bring to the table?

Spiritually Blissful, where we don’t go into any relationship waiting for them to fulfil our expectations and make us happy, but rather participate in anything out of our immense happiness to spread our inner joy.

These are the qualities of spirituality that as and when you get introverted, get in touch with yourself and keep witnessing your own self, you begin to percolate them into every aspect of what you do, living life with greater awareness. So now the question is, how do we implant this in the process of nation building for the growth of humanity?

Deepak Chopra beautifully states ‘Religion is belief in other people’s experiences. Spirituality is having your own experience’. Are we ready to give our nation that experience of Spirituality? Just as how money is a medium of exchange of property, religion is a medium of exchange of other’s thoughts. Unlike religion, where a community of people believe in a common premise, can we ensure every individual gets to experience spirituality – each individual to him or herself? How do we bring such an individualised concept into a common platform for the growth of the nation?

We normally think about policies, law enforcement, governance, defence as what nation building is all about. But all those are social aspects that depend on other’s contributions, on collective efforts. What can each individual do in his or her individual capacity? After all, the collective consciousness can evolve only if each individual is willing to evolve. If each of us can work on these four ‘E’s – Education, Employment, Economy and Environment by bringing in spirituality into these four Es, each individual can contribute to the growth of the Nation.

Spirituality in education: Today’s children have a lot of questions and are unwilling to follow an archaic theory. I have written a book ‘When Science met God’ that is in the form of a dialogue between scientific facts and philosophical ideas. Similar efforts can be made to include spiritual inquiry into the curriculum in schools. Most importantly we need to teach children faith – that there is something much beyond human comprehension, by whatever name and form you choose to call it, that can be a guiding polestar for each individual. The quality of faith will determine the depth of the journey.

Spirituality in Employment: My guru Mahatria would always say ‘Faith is not a substitute for competence’. Can we bring in spirituality into the work place so that every individual becomes more and more competent to actually create wealth? Where each individual is not merely pushing paper but adding value in what ever capacity he or she works?

Spirituality in Economy: As Mahatria would say ‘It is the moral responsibility of every individual to be wealthy!’ Wealth in the hands of a good person will help build society. The same wealth in the hands of bad people will go towards destructive activities. Can we inspire people to aspire greater wealth utilising their competence in creating value to society?

Spirituality in Environment: Sustainability is not just about the trees, weather and animal life. In a much deeper level, it is communion with everything else knowing we are made of the same stuff. Can we teach everyone spiritual sustainability – the inside-out approach to communion with the world? Your right hand will never poke your right eye? Communion will lay the foundation for a more inclusive society.

Basically can we teach each individual to take responsibility for who they are, what they believe in, how competent they need to be, what they can contribute and how they commune with life – et all?

I would like to conclude with a story again from the life of Swami Vivekananda. The swamiji was visiting a saint who requested the swamiji to read aloud the forecast for rainfall printed in the morning newspaper. When the swamiji read the report, the saint urged swami Vivekananda to squeeze the paper. Bewildered the swami performed the task and looked on for an explanation. The saint replied ‘Ah! No water falls! This is just a report!’ Same it is with spirituality. We can read, share, present, ponder, argue, debate – but ultimately if you want to get wet no point reading the report. You will have to step outside and dive into the waters.

* The above was presented as a talk by Gita Krishnaraj at the 12th World confluence of Humanity, Power and Spirituality held on December 27th 2019 at Kolkota.