Continued from, Our Spiritual Journey—Understanding the Big Picture.
Spirit is the unchanging, permanent and real essence behind the ever-changing, impermanent and illusory matter aspects of creation. Human beings are part of creation and hence also made up of spirit and matter.
Spirit and matter are the play of the ultimate cause of creation called Brahman in the language of Sanskrit.
The impermanent matter aspects of a human being are:
- Physical body
- Emotional aspect of the personality (Feeling mind)
- Intellectual aspects of the personality (Rational, thinking mind)
All these three aspects are constantly changing.
For example, the body changes from childhood, youth to old age, the emotions change throughout the day and the thoughts change from second to second.
Spirit, the permanent aspect of a human being
Spirit is the changeless, enlivening, conscious factor that pervades the body, emotions and thoughts and gives these aspects of matter the appearance of life.
Human beings appear to be alive and functioning because of the presence of Spirit within.
In fact…
Spirit is the truth of who we really are. It is our intrinsic Reality.
The changing body and mind is not who we are. These are simply made up of gross and subtle matter.
If we are conscious and aware of the changes in the body and mind, we cannot be the changes. We must be something other that what we are experiencing.
We are unchanging, eternal Spirit expressing in human form.
Spiritual Amnesia
Now, a strange phenomenon occurred when we were born – our essential nature as the one changeless, eternal, blissful presence called spirit was veiled from us. We didn’t see or experience it at all. Instead, all we could see and experience were the matter aspects – the physical body and mind.
Tragically, we began to think ourselves to be the limited body and the mind. We began to feel different and separated from every thing and everybody else.
This notion of separation is an illusion. There is only one Spirit.
Spirit expressing in my body and mind is me, spirit expressing in your body and mind is you.
The differences that we experience between us are apparent and illusory – they are not intrinsically real.
Maya—the cosmic Illusion
Now, how does this spiritual amnesia occur? How are we made to forget our essential nature as Pure Spirit?
This cosmic illusion is created by the inscrutable power inherent in Brahman called Maya.
Maya makes us believe that we are what we are not – i.e. finite and limited human beings.
Now, how does this spiritual amnesia occur? How are we made to forget our essential nature as Pure Spirit?
This cosmic illusion is created by the inscrutable power inherent in Brahman called Maya.
Maya makes us believe that we are what we are not – i.e. finite and limited human beings.
The word ‘Maya’ itself means ‘ that which is not’ in Sanskrit.
Maya is what veils the Truth from us and Maya is what causes us to see the illusion and limitations of matter instead.
Why, Why, Why?
Now, why , you ask, would this occur? Why would we want to forget who we really are?
It may be that the Absolute Brahman had a desire to know and experience Itself and all its potentialities as something other than Itself. Since It exists as the Absolute, One-without-a-second, there is no reality, thing or being aside from It.
The only way was to create the illusion of separation, duality and impermanence. It caused Itself to not know or forget Its true absolute nature and in its place, took on the notion of limited-ness and separation.
Purpose and goal of life
The challenge and purpose of our life is to rediscover our true nature as pure Spirit. This is the ultimate goal of all human pursuits.
By re-gaining and abiding in our essential divine spiritual nature, we will finally achieve permanent happiness and fulfillment.
The spiritual journey is like playing a game of hide-and-seek. Spirit ‘hides’ while we seek it.
It’s tough and you never guess that Spirit is right under your nose. You search everywhere outside of yourself for years on end, until totally exhausted, you decide to try a different strategy and search for it within yourself.
When you finally find it, you realize a strange thing – the personality ‘you’ never existed and Spirit was essentially the only player.
To understand what is Spiritual Growth and How to achieve it, please click here.
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