Does spirituality mean that when a tiger is chasing us, we won’t try to save our lives? Does it mean that if someone is bullying us, we won’t push back? Does it mean that when some bacteria attacks us, we will not take antibiotics? Does it mean being in a vegetative state? I don’t think that can ever be the meaning of spirituality? Going by that logic, the Pandavas should have let go of their claim, and Ram would have let go of his search for Sita. 

Does that mean that we should live an egoistic life, driven by the ego? “I am mine” should be the core theme of life? We should fight the battles to expand our own empires, and exploit others to become more resourceful. Going by that logic, what imperial forces did was also justified. They expanded their rule over poor nations that could not defend themselves and exploited their resources. That was for the benefit of their own people. After all, every country tries to do the same. To protect their national interest. Protecting self-interest and trying to achieve targets: is that the true meaning of spirituality?

We are born into a family that stays in a city or village. As we grow up, we go to school and college and make many friends. We have countless interactions with the people around us, and we constantly exchange views on every matter. “Sharma ji ki to mauj hai, unke bete ki to sarkari naukri lag gayi”. When we hear these kinds of words from almost every elder, we tend to believe that a government job is a kind of lottery. At that stage, we hardly know anything about government jobs, but we make up a lot of stories about them. We rush to conclusions and get so desperate that we conveniently ignore what we know is bad. “Mr Sharma ke ladke ki naukri me kuch problem ho gayi”. We hear these words, and the mind, in a hurry to conclude, rejects them as a one-off incident that will never happen to us.

Why is the mind in a hurry to conclude? Because it has fears. To be a failure. Nobody appreciates failure. If I fail, people will make fun of me. Nobody will respect me, and my words will not carry any value. Basically, as the child grows, he develops two different realisations. First, he is weak and vulnerable. He can’t face this world alone. There are diseases, hunger, dogs on the street, adults to exploit, and fear of darkness. He has not yet developed the capacity to fight these fears. That’s why he feels vulnerable. Second, he realises that he needs some winning formula to handle these insecurities. A few try to find an easy way out. They just somehow exploit their parents emotionally and get what they want. Slowly, they perfect this art of manipulation. They will cry or bully, but get whatever they want by emotionally manipulating others. Most work on their capacity, but not too hard, and they find some “workable winning formula”. Try to “maintain” good relationships with people. Don’t say the truth to anybody’s face just to save the relationship. “kisi tarah se job bachani hai”. A few work really hard to get some powerful degree or position, which they feel will yield them the winning formula to handle these insecurities. 

Of course, once people devise their “winning formulas”, they develop the expertise to use these formulas in different situations. We can see all types of employees in an organisation: the first category, always ready to manipulate emotionally; the second one, somehow trying to manage to save their job and to get the maximum advantage; and the third category, ambitious ones, trying to achieve milestones and having targets always in their minds. As we use our “winning formulas”, we become comfortable at times, and also get sensual pleasure. We relish these moments. The more we enjoy these moments, the more we get attached to our “winning formula”, sometimes so attached that we can even kill others just to guard that “winning formula”. There have been murders in the name of land, job, boyfriend, girlfriend, money, power, politics, and whatnot. 

Does that mean that fundamental thing we started with, i.e. fear, has vanished? Fear has, in fact, grown with the gathering of more and more such winning formulas. Because now we want more, and in order to ensure more, we become very possessive about that “winning formula”. I was hospitalised a few days back, and in the emergency ward, the patient next to me was in the 4th stage of cancer, and his family members were fighting for money. They wanted to protect their “winning formula” and didn’t want to waste it on their father, who was going to leave the world soon anyway. The hospital wants to get more and more money out of the patient because their winning formula is also the same: “money”, and the poor patient who can’t even move must be listening to all this silently, just realising that his “winning formula” of money as well as family, has been demonetised all of a sudden. 

What role does spirituality play in this world? Spirituality isn’t about gathering these “winning formulas”; it’s about examining fear. Of course, fear will have a functional role. But that’s all. A tiger is not chasing us on every corner of the street. Once we decide to lead our lives with reality, rather than mental stories, we see that most of our fears are just mental stories and very few are real. Once we see that, many winning formulas become useless. We get relieved of their burden. That frees up time and energy to do something other than manage our fears. This is where the real test begins. We may be guided by our unconscious instincts: to go to heaven, to become a god man, to run a big NGO, to reform the entire society, or to have a profound experience in meditation- another winning formula in the metaphysical world. Again, driven by fear. On the other hand, we may also be driven by love to explore nature, love for humanity leading to exploring the cause of suffering in humanity, like Buddha, or leading to efforts to free slave minds, like Swami Vivekananda. It’s a path less travelled, with little guidance, and awareness, observation, and discrimination seem to be the only guides.