SPIRITUAL LIVING

education, meditation is an informal, independent discipline that can lead to spirituality. When people clear their minds of thoughts of the material and try to become one with the spiritual through particular practices, and chants, they experience a feeling that can be likened to ecstasy. This is a form of pleasure that is unknown to them. On the basis of their experience, they begin to associate ecstasy with spirituality. However, ecstasy is only a reduced form of spirituality. We are intellectual beings. We have been given the ability to think and to reason, which is our greatest faculty. It is the possession of this faculty and our independent thinking, which distinguishes us from all other creatures. Real spirituality is that which is achieved by our minds. This is called contemplative spirituality. Any form of spirituality attained at a lesser level is not true spirituality. True spirituality, therefore, is based on contemplation and reflection, which have to do with intellectual activity. True spirituality is the result of giving serious thought to such questions as, ‘who am I?’, ‘what is the purpose of my life?’ and ‘what happens when I die?’. There are many questions, but all the answers lie in a rational understanding of the creation plan of God. By looking for rational answers to such questions, we can achieve spirituality at the intellectual level. The journey towards spirituality begins with the urge to search for the truth. When people discover the truth and learn of the plan of the Creator, their lives enter a new phase, that of building their personalities according to spiritual principles. This journey is purely intellectual in nature. Its quest is two-fold—to solve the riddle of why everyone goes through negative experiences in this world, and to offer positive solutions. It addresses the paradox of our having been given the freedom to make our own moral choices, and our frequent misuse of this freedom—actions which repeatedly present us with situations where people react in anger and incur loss. The journey towards spirituality begins with the urge to search for the truth.