Religion and Spirituality

Divine Life Society Publication: The Meaning of Religion and the Spiritual Attitude in Life by Sri Swami Krishnananda

In religion the spirit within summons the spirit without, and it becomes an endeavor which is wholly spiritual. We can't ultimately distinguish between religion and spirituality. Spirituality is the basic character and religion is the outward mode of it, the form which it takes. A non-temporal asking by the spirit of man is the religious aspiration of man. It is not an asking for anything that is temporal. Thus it requires self-control, self-restraint, control of the senses and the mind, which are all clamorous about fulfillment of things, fulfillment of desires with respect of their own objects outside. The clamour of the senses of the mind has to be subdued so that the voice of the spirit can be heard from within. As it has sometimes been said, religion is what you do when you are absolutely alone – that is your religion. Religion is not what you do in the presence of other people. What you do when you are absolutely alone – that is your religion. Also it is said that religion is the adoption of an aloneness in one's life, a recognition that you are absolutely alone here, without any kind of external relationship – a fact which will be known when things reveal their true natures. You are even now alone. You have no relationships. But that there is an external relationship pampering you is a misconception in the mind. They can open up their true, real nature at any time, and you will stand alone once again, in the wilderness of things.

So the aloneness of the spirit asks for the aloneness of perfection – 'the flight of the alone to the alone', as philosophers will tell you. Alone you stand in this world! Namutra hi sahayartham pita mata ca tisthatah. Na putradarah na jnatih dharmas tisthati kevalah (Manu Smriti 4.238), the great codifier of law, Manu, tells us in his smriti. Namutra hi sahayartham pita mata ca tisthatah: Your mother and father will not come to help you in the other world. Na putradarah: Your children, your family – they are not going to help you when the hour for departing comes. What comes with you? You will go in the same way as you came to this world. You did not bring even a piece of cloth when you came, you did not bring a broken needle when you came, and when you go you will not take anything – so how is it that you have accumulated so much in the middle? The property does not belong to you. Dharmas tisthati kevalah: Dharma will come with you. What you have thought, what you have felt, what you have done – the impact of that will come with you, not anything else.

It is this awakening that is necessary before we adopt a truly religious life and become God-conscious. A psychological cleansing of the cobwebs of life is necessary before we begin to become really spiritual in our life. Spirituality is a very advanced state of affairs, and before that attainment is aspired for, it is necessary that we should prepare ourselves for this attainment – that is, the purification of the personality by freedom from desires that are temporal, transient, binding, and not helpful in the life to come. The life to come is not that which will come after fifty years or hundred years; it is a thing that can come after one minute, or even few minutes.

Therefore, an eternal vigilance on the part of the human being is called for so that we are perpetually religious. This mood of watchfulness, inwardly in the spirit, divesting ourselves of all physical associations, bodily attachments and psychological pride – freeing ourselves from all these accretions that have grown upon our true nature – we stand independent and resplendent in our own spiritual character and endeavour to commune this true spark of spirit that we are with the conflagration of spirit that is in the cosmos, which is the Supreme Being, the God of the universe. That is the aim of religion ultimate.

Excerpts from: Religion and Spirituality - The Meaning of Religion and the Spiritual Attitude in Life by Sri Swami Krishnananda