What is Spirituality?

This is my favourite topic and wants you to read it again and again and get it embedded in your heart and mind. It has a profound effect on our lives if properly understood and practiced with all sincerity and honesty.    

These are the teachings of Renowned Saints in a nutshell:

The saints do not ask you to give up one religion and join another, nor do they ask you to renounce the world or your family, or change your mode of living. They advise you to live with your wife and children as usual, to carry on your profession and perform all other duties. They only enjoin you some time daily, punctually and regularly to the most important of your duties, which is devotion to God.

You are to live in the world, but in a sensible way. Enjoy the world and its objects, but realize their true worth. They are meant to serve you. Take full service from them but do not yourself become their slave. Let not your mind be so entangled in attachment to these objects that, instead of being of service to you, they become your master. Live in the world in the most unconcerned way neither should a most expensive gift elate you, nor loss of possessions depress you. Live in the world, but be of God and not of the world. Without actually renouncing, live like one who has renounced it. This is real `Sanyas' संन्यास  (renunciation of the world) and has nothing to do donning a saffron coloured robe or other religious garb. How aptly a Hindu Mystic has portrayed it in the following lines:   

·         Even when you have renounced the world,

·         And live not in a village or town,

·         Nor possess property or chattel of any kind,

·         But instead roam about in forests and hills,

·         And drink water from brooks and springs,

·         Eat whatever is available in the forest,

·         Put on no clothes,

·         Read scriptures day and night

·         And do repetition of "Om',

·         Yet if there is an iota of desire,

·         Of worldly pleasure in your mind

·         You are still a householder,

·         Through and through.

Both renunciation and attachment pertain to the mind. Outward forms and symbols have nothing to do with them. Enter the garden of the world. Take a walk in it. Enjoy the fragrance of the flowers. Eat fruits and behold the beauties of the nature, but do not entangled in thorns and prickly shrubs, lest you may get abrasions and wounds.

Earn wealth honestly and spend it well. It is meant for you. Attend to your work in the day. Day is for work. But at night give some time to devotion and contemplation. Of all that you do during the day, nothing of it is for yourself. Much that you do is for your family and friends.