We have all heard the phrase that every cloud has a silver lining. That is definitely true about the fast and competitive pace of current times. Every-day stress and pressure make us more conscious about our physical, mental and spiritual health to balance our personal and professional lives and that is our silver lining! Yoga classes, meditation classes, naturopathy, body cleanses, etc. are very much in demand and in fact, there is a thriving industry supporting and providing many choices across various platforms, online and in-person.

So, two out of three are relatively easy to address. Spiritual health and progress fall into a slightly tougher category though. There is a misconception in the world today that we MUST maintain our physical and mental health whereas spiritual health is optional, to be addressed after retirement. Spirituality is also often confused with Religion, thus leading to such erroneous conclusion.

We learn to differentiate between the good and the bad through Religion; it encourages us to discard the bad and adopt the good. Indeed, throughout our countless previous life cycles, we earned many merit and demerit karma with our good and bad deeds, hence continuing that cycle of rebirth. We attempt to align our mind and body through meditation or chanting but even then, we find the resulting peace and happiness to be temporary only while in meditative state. Once we come out of that state, we lose that calming feeling at the first hint of conflict. We try to adopt positivity and discard negativity but we find that it is easier said than done.

In times of Bhagwan Shri Ram (Satyug), things were simpler. There was unity in mind, speech and action. One’s actions matched his/her thoughts and speech. Hence, meditation helped in achieving permanent peace and happiness, even ultimate liberation during the era of Satyug. However, we are now in Kalyug where our thoughts, speech and actions are more often out of sync than in sync. The constant disharmony within one’s self makes it impossible to achieve lasting peace and happiness.

Can Spirituality be the answer then? Sometimes changing times require change in approach. So, let us shift our focus to Spirituality and explore beyond what religion teaches us. In this period of Kalyug where disparity between mind, speech and action will continue to get worse, a non-sectarian spiritual path has emerged to lead us to our goal of permanent happiness! By the grace of Gnani Purush, Akram Science leads us to realization of the Self and address the question: “Who am I?”.

This one simple question takes us beyond the good and the bad by realizing that everything in this world is temporary and thus resulting happiness is also temporary. By the grace of the Gnani Purush we can now really understand who we really are, what is our permanent state, who is the real doer. Once we learn the answers to these questions, we learn to separate our real Self from our mind, body and action.

However, remember that we are in the era of Kalyug. There will be times when force of our karma is so strong that it is impossible to keep the separation and the awareness. We become mired in our emotions, suffering and frustrations and it seems impossible to break the cycle. Practice of Self awareness seems very challenging at those times. Good news is that Akram science gives us simple yet very effective ways to reestablish our Self awareness, to acknowledge and atone for our misdeeds through practice of Pratikraman and Samayik. With that awareness, practice of Pratikraman (repentence) and with Gnani’s blessings, we can break the cycle of binding new karma and thus breaking cycle of rebirth. That is the beginning of a beautiful journey toward achieving permanent happiness, the first stage of Moksh in this life while still experiencing results of our past karmas!

In conclusion, I would argue that it is most important to focus on improving our spiritual health. Improved mental and physical health is then the side benefits of stress-free, peaceful existence resulting from spiritual practice of Self-realization.

To know more please visit: https://www.dadabhagwan.org/self-realization/

Author's Bio: 

Ambalal M. Patel was a civil contractor by profession. In June 1958, spontaneous Self-Realization occurred within Ambalal M. Patel. From this point on, Ambalal became a Gnani Purush, and the Lord that manifest within him became known as Dada Bhagwan. A Gnani Purush is One who has realized the Self and is able help others do the same. Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan used to go from town to town and country-to-country to give satsang (spiritual discourse) and impart the knowledge of the Self, as well as knowledge of harmonious worldly interactions to everyone who came to meet him. This spiritual science, known as Akram Vignan, is the step-less path to Self-realization