31 - Spirituality in Real Life

What do we mean by spirituality in real life? "The discovery of any individual on the planet is the discovery of the whole humanity." (Pir-o-Murshid) There is no doubt that, using the word spirituality, we are referring to a whole other dimension than to the usual commonplace dimension. But are we really talking about something other than a way of thinking? If so, it must be substantiated by a level of experience beyond the ordinary and be verifiable and repeatable, according to the scientist. Certainly, the verifiability is in whether it makes a person luminous, joyous, alert and noble. If something is real, it must have tangible effects. Its repeatability is observed in the fact that most of the authentic mystics in the know of our human heritage refer to identical experiences. If real, spirituality must have its implications in our way of handling problems. It must govern our whole value system, determine our priorities: what we strive for, what we shun.

Those caught up in the "here and now" get easily burnt out, disenchanted, even sardonic, or alternatively if under a lucky star, selfish, arrogant, bumptious. Those hankering after the "everywhere and always beyond the beyond" tend to get out of touch with the nitty gritty, shun responsibility, and alienate themselves through fantasy.

We are in search of a healthy and invigorating spirituality at the dimension of the realization that humanity as a whole has attained in our day and age. This spirituality is at the leading edge that pioneering thinkers are feeling out.

A number of those who were deeply imbued in spirituality have been put off by the abuses of some gurus. Others find that they have less leisure or interest for such flights of fantasy owing to their family and job commitments and feel that any connection with spirituality alienates them from their co-workers, even puts their credibility in jeopardy. Yet if spirituality has far-reaching implications in our understanding and our determination of our objectives and achievements, then by neglecting spirituality, one would be missing out on dealing with prevailing concerns that eventually affect the personality, the family, and the job.

Suppose by inference that a being only capable of interpolating two dimensions should occasionally have uncanny hunches of being part of a three dimensional world. He/she would strive awkwardly to infer what a three dimensional world would be like from the way the two dimensional world looks. This example shows why our inferences about the higher spheres or the nature of the soul are full of conjectures so disconcerting for the practical man or woman. On the other hand, if our two dimensional being followed up his/her hunches about other dimensions of being, he/she would hoist him/herself into an incommensurably different level of realization and achievement.

How would this simile apply to the mundane need of dealing with human problems? It would mean dealing with the implications of the problem rather than the symptoms. Here we are not talking about a further dimension of space/time, but of understanding. Grasping what are the factors that caused the events is a first further dimension of understanding that is not limited by a linear time-sequence, admittedly more difficult to cull. What are the qualities in me or in the persons involved in the problem that are at stake? How does my decision or way of handling things affect the higher counterparts of my being which must, by resonance, affect the higher counterparts of those in contact with me? These higher counterparts must eventually sprout through in my personality and of necessity, affect others by osmosis. What does our reciprocal interaction involve in the larger scheme of things?

The challenge may prove insuperable. For example: reconciling strength with kindness; the need for personal fulfillment and that of service, reconciling: freedom with involvement, joy with solidarity for suffering, the divine with the human; giving to Caesar what belongs to Caesar; not paying your soul for the goodies of the world. What is your real motivation? The more all encompassing one's perspective, the more socially altruistic and less personal will be the objective, a reconciliation of the way of the master with the way of the saint. The new perspective is a matter of bringing the divine desire into the human will, the "everywhere and always" in the here and now.

This is where spirituality, awakening to the higher dimensions of one's being, does affect the nitty gritty of our lives. Failing to give it the attention it deserves spells a failure to become "what we could be if we would be what we might be."
