SUBJECT : What kind of approach should we have to the practise of spiritual teaching?

Let us look at our spiritual endeavours objectively, and what better than to set the highest standard, that which those who have realised the Self would set for us. Our efforts, seen from the standpoint of the Enlightened Ones, would show themselves to be capable of review and improvement.
All the great mystics and Holy Ones concur that our interest in the world and its pleasures should be replaced (though naturally and gradually) by an ever increasing interest in the realisation of our own True Self.
WARNING --- This approach should not be imposed in a way which causes too much strain.

Note: - The use of the word 'God' by the mystics is equivalent to True Self; and can be read as such. For the enlightened there was an inner identity of the Self and the Creator.

Swami Virajananda
"What almost all of us seek is to realise the True Self easily, without much toil and trouble, and without sacrificing anything; we want a compromise between God and the world. -'. He went further and said '- We want to enjoy all the pleasures of the world to the full and have the realisation of God at one and the same time; -- Vain dream, it cannot he done."

Thomas A Kempis - Imitation of Christ ch.12
"Man draws the nearer to God as he withdraws further from he consolations of this world."

Richard Rolle - The form of living
"But oftimes it befalleth that ever the more joy and admiration they have without of the praising of men, ever the less joy they have within of the Love of God."

An unknown English mystic
"Thou thinkest peradventure, that thou art full far from God, because this cloud of unknowing is betwixt thee and thy God, but surely, if it be well conceived, thou art full further from Him when thou hast no cloud of forgetting betwixt thee and all the creatures that be made."

Jesus Christ - John 12/25
"He that loveth his life (in this world) shall loose It (the Self) and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it (the Self) unto life eternal."

Meister Eckhart
"For whosoever loves God for anything else does not abide in Him, but abides in the thing that he is loving Him for. If, therefore, you want to abide in Him, you must love Him for nothing but Himself."

The Lord Shri Krishna -Bhagavad Gita Ch.7
"Verily, this Divine Illusion of phenomenon (the world) manifesting itself in the Qualities, is difficult to surmount. Only they who devote themselves to Me (the True Self) and to Me alone, can accomplish it The sinner (lover of the world), the ignorant, (those who ignore), the vile, deprived of spiritual perception by the glamour of illusion, and he who pursues a Godless life - none of them shall find Me."

St.John of the Cross - Living a Passionate Life
"The less strongly one fixes the will on God, and the more it is dependent on creatures, the more these four passions (Joy, Hope, Sorrow & Fear) combat the soul and reign in it. It then very easily finds joy in what deserves no rejoicing, hope in what brings no profit; sorrow over what perhaps should cause rejoicing and fear where there is no fear."

The Holy Mother Shri Ma Anandamayi
"Whatever leads you to God that is religion all else is not religion."

The Buddha
"He who seeks religious truth, which is the highest treasure of all, must leave behind all that can concern him or draw away his attention, and must be bent an that one goal alone."

Rabia al Adawiyya - Woman Sufi Mystic
"I have fled from the world and all that is within it. My hope is for union with Thyself, for that is the goal of my desire."

Hadith of Muhammed
"Renounce the world and God will love you."

Mevlana Jalal Ud Din Rumi
"We are aware of other than God (consequently), unaware of God and so many warners -(Holy Ones) - when you remain away from created beings, you are in solitude; for intimacy with God, the heart must be free, (from the world)."

It is of course a high standard of one-pointedness which these Great Ones have set for us, it can only serve to show us that we always have further to go. However the necessary condition has been clearly set. (i.e.We cannot have the penny and the bun.) Why else is our meditation at times filled with thoughts of the world instead of our spiritual goal? Those of us who truly begin to sense that there is no end to seeking lasting joy in the world where it does not lie, will take to heart as much of these sayings of the mystics and Holy Ones as their capacity will allow; and that can only serve as profit on the path to Self Realisation.

It must not be misunderstood that this requires a physical turning away from our loved ones or our duty in the world, it is not that, but it is an inner (mental) attitude to all these things, of detachment. We must be "in the world but not of the world" or as the Lord Shri Krishna said "As the water lily is not wetted by the water in which it dwells."

Mevlana Jalal ud Din Rumi sums up this topic for us.
"The spirits which have escaped from their cages are the prophets (Holy Ones), worthy guides.
From without comes their voice, of religion, crying, "This, this is the way of escape for thee.
By this we escaped from this narrow cage (the world); there is no means of escape from this cage but this way,."

Anyone wishing to continue dialogue further on this, please contact the Saraswati Society

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