Why Do We Need Spirituality For Our Overall Well-Being?
Do we know the purpose of our life? We are born, but one day, we will be gone! We did not decide our birth nor is our death in our hands. Therefore, till we are alive, we must not live just going round and round on the merry-go-round of life; we must not just experience pleasure and pain, loss and gain, sun and rain, over and over again, till we die, but rather realize the true purpose of our life. Otherwise, we will be reborn, again and again. Our purpose is to discover the truth about us which is known as Self-realization, and then, to move to God-realization – our life’s ultimate goal.
We human beings must pay attention to Spirituality. Human beings are not meant to live in this material world just to exist. What is the reason we are given such a unique sophisticated human machine? It is to realize who we are and ultimately realize God, the Creator. Therefore, if we want to escape from this material world, be liberated, and be united with the Divine, it is a must for us to live a Spiritual life. We must be enlightened with the truth that we are neither this body that we appear to be nor are we the mind, which we cannot find - we are the Divine Soul. We are nothing but a manifestation of the Divine. We must realize that though we may appear as waves, in reality, we are the Divine ocean. We are just effects. The Divine is the cause. We must attain liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth and become one with the Divine. Else we will come back to earth in rebirth and suffer the triple suffering - the pain of the body, misery of the mind, and agony of the ego.
This realization not only helps us in attaining liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth but also helps us live our lives on earth in peace and bliss. We attain Spiritual indifference which means we live with acceptance and surrender and this helps us in regaining our mental well-being. We no longer wonder; we don’t hope, we just surrender. We realize the truth about who we are, about who the Supreme Immortal Power we call God, is. It is about connecting to that Power. It is about living with faith, trust, meaning, and purpose. Of course, to attain spiritual wellness, we need to be spiritual. But once we attain spiritual wellbeing, everything else falls in place. Wherever we are, whatever we do, regardless, we attain true and complete wellness.
The first step towards spiritual wellness is to realize who we are. Are we this body that dies? When the body dies, people say that we passed away. The body is burnt or buried. It turns to dust. Who passes away? Would our loved ones burn us if we were the body? No, of course not. Clearly, we are not the body.
If we are not the body, are we the mind? Unlike the popular belief that the mind is king, the mind is our biggest enemy. It constantly bombards us with thoughts, creating fear, stress, and anxiety. We have to make the mind still, by observing it. We must tame the ‘monkey mind’, and bring down the number of thoughts it produces. How can we tame it? If we look at the word MONKEY, it has a tail, the EY. We have to cut the EY. The EY is Ever-Yelling and Ever-Yearning. When we tame the monkey mind, when we cut its tail, it becomes a MONK. Then, we achieve peace of mind. Otherwise, the mind itself robs us of our peace. However, if we go a step further, we will realize that the mind doesn’t even exist. Where is the mind? We can never find. Therefore, neither are we the body, nor the mind. We are That, the power within. We are the Spirit, the Atman which is nothing but the SOUL – the Spark of Unique Life which gives us life and departs at death and merges with SIP -– the Supreme Immortal Power.
The purpose of life, our goal, is to realize that we are the Soul. The realization of the truth creates spiritual wellness. We realize we are not the body and mind and therefore, are free from the pain and misery that comes with it. We drop the ego. Realization not only liberates us from all suffering while we are alive but also from the Karmic cycle of death and rebirth. We realize that whatever happens in our life, is the result of our own Karma. We become aware that nothing is permanent, that this world is a drama, and that we are actors who come and go. Therefore, we do not get disturbed or distressed by what happens around us. We live with acceptance, and surrender to the Divine will. Because we realize that we are all one, the same Divine Soul, we reach out to everyone with acceptance, love, and compassion. Why would our left leg hit our right leg?
Spiritual wellness has a direct bearing on our life. We move from a life of chaos to clarity, we move from ignorance to enlightenment, from darkness to light. Our priorities become different. Because we transcend the body, mind, and ego, we are free from all misery, negativity, and toxicity. We remain calm. We learn to respond, not react. Practising silence helps us achieve peace. Neither are we in the rat race nor do we seek name, fame or money. Our interactions with our colleagues and peers, consequently change. We live as instrument of the Divine. This keeps us in constant union with the Divine. Then we drop all our good or bad Karma which will bring us to earth in a rebirth to bear the rewards or sufferings from previous Karma we created. We live in a state of Yoga, ever-connected with the Divine. We live with contentment and fulfillment, with everlasting peace and eternal bliss – this is called SatChitAnanada. Sat means Truth, Chit means – Consciousness, Ananada - Bliss. When we live as an instrument of the Divine in surrender, we become an observer of this Leela, the Divine drama on the earth stage – and realize that Consciousness of the Truth is Bliss.
