What is the Spirit in Life?
Spirituality is related to other life or moksha, not to Prosperity. The idea that Spirit can play a role in life and bring in Prosperity is alien to our tradition, Indian or Hindu. People in domestic life are wary of yoga, Spirit, etc., as they smack of sannyasa. This is meticulously shunned and children are taught accordingly. They are right.
A family in 1934 had a thousand acres of lands in seven villages and the six brothers of the family occupied the entire main street of the village. Suddenly they found an ochre clad samiyar in their house. They were glad of his visit and all of them paid their respects to the saint. He showed an inclination to stay there at night. Everyone felt as if they had received an electric shock. Each of the brothers, under the impression that the sannyasi had been invited there by one of the other brothers, exercised a self-restraint of an extraordinary kind and kept quiet. The sannyasi stayed there that night to the utter dismay of everyone. And he stayed on for thirty days. Finally, it came to light that he had not been invited by anyone. He left the house. It is our true belief that if a sannyasi stays in a house overnight, that family will be ruined. This family soon lost their all. Our traditional belief is valid.
Our being - the embodied being - has a body, a life (vital), a mind and a Spirit. This is one of the four parts of our being which when released from its embodiment by tapas seeks moksha. This is the Spirit which shuns life and is therefore inimical to householders.
The Upanishads have declared, ‘Sarvam Brahman' - all is Brahman. So our bodies, lives and minds, too are Brahman or Spirit. Our Spirit is known as jivatma, the Sakshi Purusha. It has its parts in each of our parts. Thus our minds, lives and bodies too have a Spirit, Purusha. They are called respectively Manomaya Purusha, Pranamaya Purusha and Annamaya Purusha. These too share the characteristic of the jivatma. All of them are immutable, changeless. There is Prakriti. She too has a soul, Spirit or Purusha. It is the evolving Purusha, called the Psychic Being. It carries the essence of the experiences of Prakriti. That too has its representatives in our different parts. They are called mental psychic, vital psychic, and physical psychic.
Our tradition knew of the Psychic Being but never considered it as an evolving being. The evolving psychic being is the Spirit I speak of. It is this I ask to be evoked. As the mind is more powerful than the body, Spirit is more powerful than the mind. This is a benevolent Spirit which enriches the mind or life or body. This is a new concept in yoga, introduced by Sri Aurobindo. At the end of the following hundred articles as an appendix there is an article "How to Invoke the Spirit", where the method of invocation is described in detail. It is this Spirit that
- can overcome karma;
- respond readily to one's deep call;
- solve your daily problems;
- give an Inner Fullness that is richly Spiritual, and
- make life on earth one of marvel.
In the New Indian Express column I am raising various aspects of this Spirit briefly with examples of devotees' experiences. The entire theory of karma or even punctuality cannot be discussed there. Readers write to me raising several questions that need longer treatment. I refer them to the original sources giving in my brief reply the essence of the originals.
In the Express articles I confine myself to the issues of daily life that can be readily solved by the Power of the Spirit. I rarely speak of availing of the opportunities the Spirit brings the readers because of the Invocation.
Karmayogi
Pondicherry
20.3.2003