The Break of a Rosy Dawn-III

Sri Ramakrishna

oi-Staff

By Staff

Friday, July 31, 2009, 14:43

Spiritual awakening brings about a sense of holiness or sanctity in life. When a person sets on a journey to the Holy One, called by various names in different religions, he naturally begins to lose all that is unholy. 'As a man moves towards the east,' says Sri Ramakrishna, 'the west is left behind.' Just as one cannot travel towards east and west simultaneously, holiness and unholiness cannot coexist in the same person. An unholy man cannot be holy at the same time and vice versa.

By holiness is meant the sense of oneness with God as exhibited in one's life. The more one feels nearer to God, the farther one goes away from his basal instincts of greed, lust, anger, jealousy and so on. When the mind is thus freed from these bondages, a sense of light pervades one's whole being, a sense of being one with the inherent divinity comes; holiness is what it is generally called.

One does not wake up to spiritual life as long as one has not exhausted one's desire for pleasures of the senses. Desires cast a veil of darkness over the mind, stealing away its ability to perceive the spiritual reality. Just as at night, the existence of sun looks false and unappealing, similarly when desires cloud the mind, the existence of a spiritual reality looks false and unappealing.

To a man, who is awakened, one need not tell him to do spiritual practices. Sri Ramakrishna illustrates this through a parable: a child was going to bed, and said, 'Mummy, if I feel hungry, please wake me up', and the mother said, 'I need not do that. Your hunger itself will wake you up.'2 Having broken his slumber, the awakened man naturally feels the importance of spiritual striving. The night of laziness and indifference to spiritual illumination has come to an end for him.

The Gita (2.69) speaks of the man who has reached the ideal of spiritual life thus: 'That which is night to all beings, in that the self-controlled man awakes. That in which all beings are awake, is night to the Self-seeing muni.' Spiritual awakening is the first step towards this supreme state of being awakened. This marks the beginning of spiritual journey.

Why do people, generally, not wake up to spiritual life? As stated earlier, until one has 'tasted' the enjoyments the world offers, one does not feel any inclination towards God. When one has gone through the promise of happiness which senses offer, and seen through their futility, one begins one's search for a higher experience. One has to get conclusively convinced that what one is looking for or is ultimately working for is not to be found in the 'world' but in the state of consciousness that experiences everything in the world.

About the author

Swami Atmashraddananda

Swami Atmashraddhananda is a monk of the Ramakrishna Order and editor of The Vedanta Kesari from the year 2004 .

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