Typically, in a Pracar class or Dharma Shastra, we might talk about the Atma and its unification with Brahma. We might discuss the ideas of Brahma Chakra, the Cycle of Creation, as the manifest world revolves around to ultimately merge in Cosmic Consciousness and Infinite Love. These ideas can be helpful. They also sound good and conform nicely to an idea of what people expect spirituality to be. But more often than not, these are theoretical ideas that are distant from the domain of our actual experience. Our actual existence as sadhakas is also the dilemma of being born into the world with no experiential grasp on who we are or where we came from.
only through translating spiritual philosophy and the scriptures into the language of experience will spirituality have any real significance for the 21st century
The experience of sadhana itself can be bewildering and difficult to fit into any clear-cut understanding. What is often not addressed in Pracar is the domain of our actual experience and the way in which our existence is also shaped by such forces as anxiety, confusion or the struggle for human intimacy. Speaking for myself, I often feel more ‘the little, the meagre’ than that ‘the Great is with me’. So how does this square with Pracar? What does it say about the way we are promoting and even experiencing ‘spirituality’? How does this silence in Pracar regarding our actual human existence impact on the way the human society receives our message?
We become impoverished if we fall in to a certainty that we already have all the answers
Turning our attention to our own confusing unruly existence, riddled as it is with unknowns, isn’t less spiritual than holding beliefs about Brahma or God. This is because our existence, whatever shape it’s in, is where it all happens. In a sense, spirituality is the feeling of existence and the transformations in this felt existence through the processes of sadhana. I believe that only through translating spiritual philosophy and the scriptures into the language of experience will spirituality have any real significance for the 21st century. Are we able to frame spirituality in terms of the transformation of our own sense of existence, rather than in terms of spiritual philosophy or beliefs about God? For example, secular materialism doesn’t provide human beings with any possibility of surrender at an existential or psycho-spiritual level. This is because there is no contact with anything existentially real. Peoples minds exist only in terms of thoughts and feelings, and because of this they have no option but to continually tread water, avoiding suffering or managing boredom through entertainment. But as sadhana matures and develops resonance at an existential level, our consciousness can rest rather than always have to prop itself up by its own efforts. Our consciousness can rest, because existentially, there is something real that it can surrender into. This surrender is the discovery of our own existence, no longer structured as a subject-object relationship, but as a dwelling that is a flowing from a hidden source, ecstatic in its promise. Brahma won’t be found by telling ourselves or others that we believe in God, but by dwelling in our own existence in deeper and more subtle ways through Tantric sadhana. Can we begin to understand and describe these transformations and offer this understanding to society?
everything Baba said regarding the essence of spirituality, is a metaphor for something that cannot be spoken.
Beyond this, relying on unquestioned certainty about our ideas and beliefs is a kind of religious absolutism that can actually hinder the complex possibility of spiritual experience. We become impoverished if we fall in to a certainty that we already have all the answers, that they are told to us by Baba and are absolutely true and if the collection of these ideas is what we mean by ‘spirituality’. This is because spiritual experience means feeling into our existence by remaining open to the unknown and the unknowable, through the techniques of sadhana. Spiritual philosophy is a helpful guide to making sense of things. But Certainty can become a kind of closed intellectual system that limits the unknown and the rich unpredictability that ultimately gives birth to spiritual experience. It is helpful in this regard to remember that everything Baba said regarding the essence of spirituality, is a metaphor for something that cannot be spoken. As Baba says-
Under this circumstance the preceptor becomes dumb and the disciple becomes deaf.”1
“The Guru tries to say something about the Supreme Entity but cannot because the moment he tries to explain the Supreme he comes within the scope of verbal expression. The disciple has the capacity to hear a discourse about the Supreme Entity, yet cannot because the discourse comes within the temporal factor. That’s why I say that the absolute cannot come within the scope of relativity. Under this circumstance the preceptor becomes dumb and the disciple becomes deaf.”1
Relying on a set of ideas to define spirituality also sets up a false conflict between Ananda Marga and Materialism. I think that we tend to believe that holding a set of beliefs about Brahma and Baba lifts us out of materialism. However secular Materialism can’t just be ignored or condescended to with a story about Brahma. This is because anyone born in the last 250 years is enmeshed in Modernity’s collective samskaras. We don’t sit outside Materialism simply because we are Margiis. We are confronted with Modernity and Secular Materialism within the contours of our own existence. However, it is also within the contours of our own existence that we will eventually find Brahma. We need to engage deeply with our existential or psycho-spiritual state, in order to confront and discover our way through Materialism. Perhaps only through doing this will we discover new modes of being that can then be offered authentically to the world. Maintaining some sort of superiority complex because we have ‘spirituality’ while the Materialistic main-stream does not, mistakes spirituality for a set of beliefs and fails to acknowledge that our own existential state, riddled with Modernity, is the domain of spirituality.
Only through each of us working out our own relationship with the foundations of our existence can we truly begin to discover what the word ‘Brahma’ actually means.
We don’t have all the answers. And paradoxically, acknowledging this may allow more people to hear what we are trying to say. We don’t have all the answers partly because we are a young spiritual community. But we also don’t have all the answers because the answers can’t be read or spoken, but are only part of a lived life, which resits religio-theoretical certainty and remains open to the unknown. Only through each of us working out our own relationship with the foundations of our existence can we truly begin to discover what the word ‘Brahma’ actually means.
1 Subháśita Saḿgraha Part 9
