It is often argued that spirituality is a post-retirement pursuit. How will people get motivated to work if they do not have greed towards material objects, powers, and fame? If somebody is not attached to his family and kids, what will motivate him to work hard? After all, we work hard either to satisfy our senses which are always greedy for one or the other pleasure, or we extend our ego to our family or friends and work hard to placate people who form part of our extended self. The path of spirituality is the path of detachment and as we move ahead on the path of spirituality there would be no motivation left to work hard.
I think that this widespread notion is based on a completely misplaced understanding of the spiritual path. On the contrary, spirituality is all about inner connection. As we regain awareness of the inner self, we realize that all the pleasures and attachments are the result of ignorance. Since we are not aware of the whole, we get stuck on what we are aware of. We enter a tourist place and for the first time see some local artifacts in a showroom and get tempted to buy them. The shopkeeper reads our eyes and bargains a heavy price for the artifact. As we move around the city, we see that every shop in the city has the same artifact available at one-fourth of the price. We look at the decision to buy the artifact in the absence of complete information. We got fixated and restless to buy. Similarly, we get attached to few people in our lives or make the pursuit of wealth, power, or position the mission of our lives, just like getting restless to buy that artifact.
On the other hand, as we move along the spiritual path, we connect to the "whole" and that brings greater awareness. We see the right place of the things around us. We see that money has a limited utility. The powerful is the most powerless and dancing to the tune of his boss. All the positions have two faces, one beautiful face, as it appears to the people and the other ugly face that is hidden from the people. Every person is insecure within because of limited awareness and until he becomes aware it is very difficult to have unconditional love and compassion.
The awareness of the "whole" brings love and compassion to all. We understand that there are two poles of existence: the first one is awareness and the other is ignorance. People nearer to the pole of ignorance tend to behave selfishly out of insecurities. The people near the other pole of awareness behave selflessly and with love and compassion. The aware people do not develop hatred against the people living with ignorance because they understand that with the grace of God, they have been able to get rid of the fixations with the ignorance and now they have to become messengers of the light to help others also move from the pole of ignorance to towards the pole of light. In fact, this entire world has to move. That's a cyclical movement from light to darkness, and again darkness to light, and in the process wave is also traveling a certain distance which represents the evolution of the life forms. When love and compassion become the driving force behind actions, rather than greed and attachment, nothing in this world can match the energy. The words of Gautama inspire the entire world even after more than 2,000 years. Rama has inspired generation after generation. Bhagwad Geeta has shown the path to millions in this world. Christ and Nanaka have filled the hearts of millions with love and compassion.
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