It is difficult to see the role of a spiritual person in the modern world. Everyone seems to contribute something in this world. A teacher imparts knowledge to the people, a scientist invents new knowledge, a technologist put into use the technical knowledge, a king rules, a soldier fights and so on. Everyone seems to have some role in the world.
What does a spiritual person do?
A spiritual person is a person who is not indulged in the worldly pursuits. He may live the life of a saint, a monk or a priest who depends on the alms and charity of others. He gets what the world gives him. In Buddhist traditions, monk is not supposed to work or to acquire any wealth. He has to live on the alms given by the people. Brahmins in Hinduism too were required to live only on alms and not to have any wealth.
The situation has not changed much even now in the modern world. Most of the spiritual activities are conducted by the charities, who essentially survive on charities by the "worldly" people. Thought, there are some charities like The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which are supported by rich people, yet in reality, these charities hardly imparts spiritually to the people. These charities have social objectives and in many ways they try to do the jobs which the governments are required to do in the ordinary course of time.
Most of the spiritual people find it difficult to attract charity from the worldly people, as most people fail to understand the true role of a spiritual person who does not seem to produce any tangible befit to the society. Hence most charities ultimately start doing something tangible to attract funds.
Some people find the spiritual person like Monk, Fakirs, Saints, Rishis like parasite as they can't survive o their own and they are dependent on the alms or charities.
Yet in every society, there are always spiritual people who plays very important role in the society.
They are like a soul of the world.
The Role of Soul in Body
In order to understand the role of a spiritual person, let us take the analogy of the body as the world and each person representing a cell. The combination of many cells make a part of the body and the combination of the parts of the body make an individual.
Each part of the body seems to perform some function. The hands are for writing and doing manual work, legs help a person walk and perform useful labor, mind does the thinking, eyes see the world and so on. The role of each part of the body is known today to the medical science. Every single cell plays an important role in keeping the body healthy and happy.
Yet it is not possible to know the role of the soul. The soul is not visible hence unknown to the medical science. No one knows where it exists or what it does. All we know is that without the soul the man is dead. All parts of the body and each of the billion cells stop performing its function, the moment the soul departs from the body. In the words of Hermann Joseph Muller, the U. S. geneticist who won the Nobel prize for medicine 1946.
"To say that a man is made up of certain chemical elements is a satisfactory description only for those who intend to use him as a fertilizer. "
In scriptures, Soul is also considered to be the part of God that resides in every living being. Lord Krishna explains this in Gita (VII: 4-7) as following
"Earth, water, flame, air, ether, life, and mind, And Ego - those eight are My Physical Manifestation (Prakriti). These are my lower Nature. Know My others aspect, the higher-which is Soul by which the World is sustained. Know that these two compose the source from which all beings springs. I am the origin and the end of the entire universe. There is nothing higher than I. All this is strung on Me as a rows of gems upon a thread."
Thus the Soul is the source of all cells of the body. Its role is like a thread which connects many beads, flowers or gems to make a beautiful garland. If the thread is broken, then all the beads get scattered.
A spiritual person too is similar to a thread that connects different people in the society with a common thread. He is like a gum that joins diverse objects or a bold that that connects different parts of a machine with each other.
The world would scatter into pieces if the spiritual people disappear from this world.
A World without Spirituality
Spirituality is not a natural instinct in man. If a person is born in an isolated place and does not get the company of other human beings, he is likely to grow just like any other animal. It has taken millions of years for man to discover and understand the common reality that joins all living beings.
Even scientists, who believe only on the material world that can be seen and measured, can not understand the purpose of "compassion" while they would have no difficulty in understanding "competition". The Darwinian theory of evolution only deals with half the truth, viz. competition in its theory of the "Survival of the Fittest".
A scientist or a material person sees the world full of conflict as everyone is competing against everyone else in the battle of survival. In the job, you compete with your colleagues on one hand, your subordinate on other and your superior on the yet other area. Every organization is competing with every other organization. Politicians, press, judiciary, business, people, criminals all seems to be competing with each other in the battle of survival.
At even higher level, we can see nations fighting against each other in their battle of survival. At the lowest level every person in a family is fighting with each other to earn their share of pie in the family.
No wonder, for every logical person, the world is nothing but a battleground, where millions of battles are being fought every day. The interest of every human being seems to conflict with the interest of every other human being.
The loss of human life in the two world wars and hundreds of other wars proves this point.
Yet amidst the conflict and confrontation, there is something in human race that always joins millions and even billions of people together in a single thread.
Who sows the seeds of such thoughts in the human race?
The Role of Spiritual Person
A spiritual person does not work for the body. He only works for the soul which is the source of life and emotions. A person can live his life happily only if his soul is satisfied. It is futile to satisfy the desire of the body, which automatically seek more and more in life.
The needs of the body are material and all material things are limited in number. The number of atoms of each matter is limited. Hence if one has to give some material benefit to other, there is no way that he can do it without taking it from another person. Hence every person, who tries to help a person in fulfilling his physical needs ends up taking equal amount of (material) thing from other people as no one can create matter from vacuum. Material distribution of wealth is always a zero-sum game.
Hence every attempt to help a person satisfying his physical needs always leads to conflict and create disturbance in the society.
On the contrary, the spirit or soul needs no material things to satisfy itself as Soul being part of God is eternal and infinite. There is no scope of any conflict, if the soul of the person is awakened and enlightened.
Once the person is enlightened from the energy of the soul, he searches his path himself without the help of any other human being. This is the role of a real Teacher that is performed by the spiritual person.
A spiritually awakened person connects to the soul of another person through his soul and makes every person aware that every human being is connected to each other.
This leads to the wisdom and conviction that a man can realize happiness only if he makes every other person happy. It is very similar to the different parts or cells of a body.
Can the hand of a person feel happy, if a leg of the person has suffered an accident?
Buddha, Christ and Gandhi in the modern time, has helped the people discover themselves and awaken their soul. Such people are there in every society and indeed in every family. They bring compassion and love in this world and helped men in thinking beyond the material body and discovering their soul.
The Sins of Materialism
Just like every living being is made of body and soul, so is every action of a balanced person must have a proper balance of worldly needs and spiritual needs. A man who merely looks after his material needs feels unhappy. Scriptures calls material accomplishments without spiritual content as "sin".
Mahatma Gandhi identified seven deadly sins as following:-
- Wealth Without Work
- Pleasure Without Conscience
- Knowledge Without Character
- Commerce (Business) Without Morality (Ethics)
- Science Without Humanity
- Religion Without Sacrifice
- Politics Without Principle
It is evident that the first part of each sin represents the material reality while the later part is spiritual.
While, there are many to teach the worldly knowledge, only a spiritual person can impart the second part of the knowledge or one can discover it within himself by self-discovery. Only if a person has both, he can achieve happiness and wisdom.
The Necessity of Spirituality
Since a spiritual person deals with soul, his material accomplishments are often not great. Most of these people become famous only after their departure from this world. In other words, those who are quite famous and known in the world are rarely spiritual. Hence, it is not easy to find a spiritual person as they never advertise themselves. Yet they can be found everywhere and anywhere, if the seeker has a sincere desire. He can be identified only by the soul. Thus a deep desire and quest of soul is necessary for the search of a spiritual person as they are as invisible and unknown to the material world. Discover such an spiritual person to discover happiness in this world.
A Brief Profile of Dr Awdhesh K Singh
I am an Engineer by education, a public officer by profession and a spiritual person by intuition.
I hold my PhD degree in the field of E-Governance.
I am a founding member of The Aatmic Science Foundation (The Science of Soul Foundation) that is working for the synthesis between all religions, spirituality and sciences.
The website of the foundation is http://www.scienceofsoul.com
My main area of study and research is to use religions, spirituality and scientific methods of investigations to understand and solve the real life problems of human beings.
I have published hundreds of articles and research papers on this topic on various websites and journals.
Please contact me on my email aksinghirs [a] yahoo.com for any help, suggestions or feedback.
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