Makara Sankranti (3)

This is not spirituality. What is really meant is to enter one step inward into your life rather than move outwardly, diametrically. It is not a horizontal movement but an inward gesture of the soul towards its own centre. It is difficult to understand what spirituality is, however much you may read philosophy. Spirituality is not one kind of life that you lead. It is the inner meaning of all kinds of life in the world. It is not isolated from other types of life. It is the meaning and significance behind every kind of life whatever is your profession or the duties you perform in the world. There are people who imagine that spirituality is for the later period of one's life. It has nothing to do with doing. As I mentioned to you, it is the significance behind what you are and what you do.

So you cannot fix it for a period of time, tomorrow or the day after, no such thing is possible in spirituality. Because the spiritual is the meaning behind things. How can you fix the meaning to a distant future, as if you do not want to live today. The meaning behind existence and activity is what you mean by the spiritual. If there is any worth in what you are and what you do, that is spirituality. So this is what the Upanishads and other scriptures like the Bhagavadgita speak of. They speak of the interpretation of God in the world such as the Sun whose northern movement commences today, and on account of which you regard this day as auspicious Makara Sankranti.

So, you should take this all seriously to your heart on this auspicious day and contemplate for a moment the deeper truths of our own personal lives, the deeper truths of nature outside and the deeper truths implied in the relationship between ourselves and also the nature outside. There are three implications, three meanings, three significances or three hidden realities-the one, within ourselves; another, in nature outside; the third, that which is implied in the relation between ourselves and the nature outside, which is called God, invisible to our physical perception.

Those who are Brahmacharis may do more of Gayatri Mantra Japa, which is presided over by the Sun, from today onwards. Those who have other Mantras as their Ishta-Mantra may do more Japa of that Mantra from today onwards. Those who are advanced enough to take to pure contemplation and meditation will do well to bring the true God into their lives, not the visible God or the imagined God, but the real God into their own lives, in the sense of what spirituality is, as the meaning and the significance behind what anything is and anything can be in this world.

The spiritual reality, finally, is the significance behind what anything is and anything does, whatever we are and whatever we do, which means to say there is no life without spirituality. Because life without spirituality is a misnomer, it is meaningless, it is absurd.

This is the kind of life that every individual being has to endeavour to live and one should utilise this opportunity as another happy occasion to contemplate God in His real nature, thus accelerating the speed of our movement towards Him, approximating ourselves more and more nearer to that Supreme Absolute and making our life blessed by living it practically in our day-to-day existence and thus also to assist the atmosphere around so that we and our brothers in the world may become fit for the supreme union with that ideal Godhead, the Absolute. May, by this influence we exert in the world, loving solidarity and peace prevail everywhere, be our prayer.