Practical Dimensions of Spirituality in Modern Times

Osho Shivo is an enlightened mystic, who works on variety of subjects impacting the life in modern times, hence helping people to cope with evolving consciousness. You can add him on his facebook profile by name Osho Shivo. You can also email him at thirdeyeastrology@gmail.com

You are also most welcome to join him for an interactive chat on the same subject on facebook on Saturday 9th October, 10PM, IST.

Interview

Sarvesh:  Generally, when it comes to spirituality, people think of God, religion, rituals etc. Modern generation however feel that ‘practicality’ and ‘spirituality’ do not go hand in hand. Whereas you use the phrase ‘practical spirituality’. So, what do you think about these generalized perceptions and what is your own approach towards spirituality?

Osho Shivo:  It is true that Spirituality has often been misunderstood. It simply means, discovering your own spirit. We all know our own existence as body and mind, but we also exist as spirit. So spirituality means, discovering our own existence as spirit.

Sarvesh:  Why is it important at all to discover our own existence as a spirit? What purpose does it serve?

Osho Shivo:  Spirit has existed eternally, even before the whole creation began. It is the source of all the creation and hence contains all the qualities one wants to cultivate within oneself, like intelligence, creativity, courage, peace, bliss, intuition, connectivity etc. When one discovers his own spirit, he begins to access these qualities.

Sarvesh:  Shivoji, if we see the modern day personality development workshops, most of them focus on outer personality. They don’t speak of spirituality but yet claim to help the participants to develop a long list of qualities, some of which you just mentioned. Why should youngsters move towards spirituality then? A short example is most welcome.

Osho Shivo:  Most of the personality development work is based on trying to change OUR MENTAL PATTERNS. Our readers must have experienced that such efforts produce results only in the short term and one gets back to the old patterns very quickly. Why does this happen? Because our sub conscious and unconscious mind is 10 times stronger than the conscious mind. So even if you make efforts to change through your conscious mind, the conditioning of sub conscious and unconscious will negate the change very quickly and hence one will be back to the square one. Hence such patterns must be broken to release our full potential. Once such conditioning is broken, we start to get near to our spirit as blocks on the path to the spirit are removed and one begins to have more direct experience of spirit, and hence access all the qualities, which are the source of this creation itself.

Sarvesh:  Shivoji, we notice that youngsters are really intimidated by fear of failure. Its really painful to hear about very young boys and girls committing suicide over some petty failures. Can Spirituality help such youngsters? In what way ?

Osho Shivo:  One commits suicides, when one loses all the hopes of getting joy from life. If there is any hope, one would keep struggling to achieve. However, once such hope is shattered, one is left with no other option, but suicide. The only way to experience the joy of life is to access the joyous state of spirit. Joy of spirit exists eternally and it does not need favorable outer circumstances to sustain itself, it has no reason and hence it is available all the time. Our readers must have noticed that the happiness derived from outer success does not last long and the crisis always follow the achievement. And such a vicious circle can really dis hearten a person and impair his capacity to go through the failures as learning experiences. However, when one is in touch with the joy of spirit, every failure appears to be a learning experiences and hence it doesn’t make him disheartened. Rather, one learns and moves on in life with enthusiasm.

We can look at the spate of suicides committed by few models in recent past. Why did they commit suicide? Because love is one of the important need in life and when one loses all hope of getting love, she is shattered. But a person on spiritual path, will have the access to inner joy and love and hence no outer crisis can prompt her to commit suicide, as one is lovingly nourished from within.

Sarvesh:  That was a beautiful explanation. Shivoji, if we just look around , we notice that its the ‘sex, money and power’ that rule the world. Recently, I invited one of my friends for the the meditation camp I attended and he refused saying – ‘Oh come on, this is the age to earn wealth and power, lets talk of meditation after 50.’ … Young people often face this dilemma. They think they need to give up many things before thinking of spirituality. Please throw some light on this.

Osho Shivo:  It is true that so many people are trying hard to attain wealth and power, yet the fact is that so few reach there. Not only those who fail, get depressed, but even those who got success also feel the despair, as they had thought that they will be happy after getting success, but they realize that it was just a mirage. We must know that it is the character of mind, not to be happy. It does not matter, whether you are success or failure, mind is always unhappy.

One may wonder, why the rate of suicide is much higher among the rich and powerful. But it is very natural, as the one who is not yet a success, lives in the hope that once he is rich and powerful, he will attain happiness. On the contrary, the rich and powerful tend to get extreme depression, as even after attaining success he is not happy and hence his all hopes of ever being happy in life, are shattered.

If you are in touch with your spirit, you will not only live in the state of deep joy, but there are much higher chances of attaining worldly success with much lesser stress and agony.

Sarvesh:  You often use this phrase ‘getting in touch with the spirit’. Can you in brief explain the actual method to do that, so that our readers who may be new to such concepts get at least a basic idea?

Osho Shivo:  There are two basic ways to get in touch with the spirit. First is by way of unraveling of conditioning of mind, acquired since childhood (by way of ontology- the science of being and hypnosis) as well as during past lives (by way of past life regression therapy). Second is awakening of chakra awareness by way of pranayam, meditation and samadhi.

Sarvesh:  One important question that is often asked is that considering the busy lifestyle in big cities ,is it really possible to include these spiritual techniques in your schedule, on a consistent basis? Considering so many temptations around, how would you motivate our readers to stick to them?

Osho Shivo:  When I hear such reasons, I  remember the story of a woodcutter, who was driven by doing maximum work and earning max money by way of chopping trees in forest. So when he started, he cut a lot of wood on first day and earned good money and he was happy. He did a lot of work and earned good money, but by the seventh day, he realized that he can only chop much lesser wood, in spite of making similar effort. Why? Because his saw had become blunt. Someone suggested him to sharpen the saw, so that he can again be efficient at this work. But he refused, saying that he doesnt want to waste his time in sharpening the saw.

This story expresses the state of those, who say that because of tight schedules, they cant find time for spiritual practices. But such practices can only enhance their effectiveness to much higher level. People are so much stressed, that their inherent qualities and talents become blunt and they cant be as effective. Hence they must sharpen their saws and the only way for that, is to access the spirit.

Sarvesh:  That’s it from my side Shivoji. I think you have explained the practical approach towards spirituality in our life in a very clear manner and one which could be easily understood by a layman. Would you like to give any final comments?

Osho Shivo:  I would like to invite the readers to experience a whole different approach towards accomplishments. Most of the people try harder and harder to get success, but by practicing spirituality, they can access their inherent talents and cultivate intuition and hence attain much bigger success with lesser stress in their lives.

Sarvesh:  Success with lesser stress. That’s what we all desire. Thank you Shivoji for your extremely insightful yet simple answers to the complex issues of life.

Osho Shivo:  Thank you so much Sarvesh for your insightful questioning. You raised questions, which may be there in the mind of many readers and I hope that this will open a whole new possibility in the lives of readers.