Swami Tejomayananda

What is spirituality? People visualise spirituality with the image of a person renouncing home and family, besmearing himself with ashes and chanting incantations or meditating in the Himalayas. At the outset I would like to dispel the notion of spirituality as any special or particular action. Spirituality is performing every action in a

special way. Spirituality lies not in doing something special but in doing everything with a vision. Spirituality is a vision or an understanding of life and is indeed a great adventure.
There is an inherent difference between the vision of a spiritual person and a materialist person. The thinking of worldly people is always fragmented, not holistic but incomplete. Faced with problems, they focus on particular aspects arriving at solutions without taking the totality of a situation/issue into account; hence their solution is also partial and works only for a short time.
Most people would agree with a worldly man’s thinking that “might is right”. A spiritual person would say the very opposite — for him it would be, “right is might”. With which one do you agree? Commonly, he who has the might — physical, financial or political — wields power and therefore his word is final. Most people would go with the tide, but there are a few brave ones who have the courage to stand by their convictions.
There is another point to be considered here. Nowadays we only hear of people fighting for their rights. Spirituality gives you a different perspective — in spiritual life we only have duties and one who remains steadfast in the performance of duties, automatically gains rights and the authority that comes as a result. He does not have to fight for his rights. Those who constantly fight and struggle only end up creating more friction.
All over the world, many are failing in their duties. They are busy fighting for their rights. They follow the policy of — I fight for my right and you fight for yours. Now, if people were to respect the rights of others and concentrate on the performance of their own duties, they would grow in stature, spiritually and otherwise. So more than our rights let us remember our duties and see what changes this brings about.
Whenever people speak of spiritual life they entertain ideas of renunciation, dispassion (vairagya), sacrifice and sanyasa. People do not like the word “renunciation”. But is there anything we can achieve in this world without renunciation? We may not like the word but no growth or accomplishment is possible without renunciation or sacrifice. If you hold onto your childhood, will you become a youth? To gain maturity you have to renounce your childishness.
Life offers no choices on whether or not to renounce. The only decision is, what to renounce! If a seeker of knowledge, education and learning is also constantly wanting pleasure and comfort, he or she cannot be successful. Let us consider the vast difference between compromise and sacrifice. To give up higher values and ideals for lower gains is a compromise and to renounce lower gains for higher goals is a sacrifice. These parameters of respect hold true in all societies of the world. Everywhere, it is only men and women of sacrifice and never those of compromise who become ideals.
Please, never think that spirituality is running away from life or that it is very difficult. Spirituality is a complete vision of life. It is not a particular activity done specially, but every action done in a special way. We must act with the understanding of the totality of life, keeping in mind the long-term consequences of our actions. The actions will then be more responsible and not ad-hoc or impulsive. In this spiritual adventure, true importance lies in gaining a total vision of life and undertaking every action keeping that in mind. Swami Vivekananda said that just by doing one great action, a man does not become great. A great man is one who is great in every little action.

— Swami Tejomayananda, head of Chinmaya
Mission Worldwide, is an orator, poet, singer, composer and storyteller. To find out more about Chinmaya Mission and Swamiji, visit www.chinmayamission.com.
© Central Chinmaya Mission Trust.at drvenganoor@yahoo.co.in