When it is hardly any justice to classify books like this, how is it fair to classify people? The most complex of beings created - who have a spectrum of personalities in them. Yes, not one or two, but a spectrum. And the condition called multiple personality disorder.. Humbug! It is the natural order, not an academic disorder. We are happy, we are sad, we are emotional and hard, we are soft at times but harsh mostly, we are good we are bad. We are what we are.
But then, it is hard to name a spectrum. A spectrum has no beginning or end. The colours in a rainbow seem to have boundaries from a distance. But when you look close, where exactly does blue end and indigo begin? No one can say. They merge, become one and this is the natural state of being. You can not draw lines in a rainbow. You can not create boxes and place people there.
I have been thinking a lot lately about stereotypes and buckets. One of the most annoying one that I have come across is the stereotype of a spiritual person. Spirituality - what does that mean? White clothes or saffron robes? A cap or a turban? Books in your hand or rosaries? When I ask people their idea of a spiritual person, they tell me different things, moulded by their perception and religion. A common image is that of someone who has given up wordly pleasures in search of Truth. Someone who dresses up plain, chants the name of God and is 'moral'.
Rubbish! That is probably religious but is it truly spiritual? Religion lies, it again places people in buckets. You are this or that depending on who you follow, what you believe and what book you read. There is empasis in classification, not unification. But aren't we all truly one? We - you, me, the trees outside, the birds that sing, the dog on the streets, this table, the laptop and the tiny little electrons that jump with each stroke of the keyboard are all One - Divine. True spirituality seeks the Truth from within for that is where it lies. Look inside and you will find heaven and hell. Look inside and you will see the Divine - whatever name you may want to call it.
True spirituality is One, it sees one. When you realise that you are no different from your neighbor, you are no different from a rock or a tree or a piece of entwined wire you realise that all is actually One. Then you fall in love. You fall in love with yourself, with the rock and the tree and the wire that you saw as yourself. How can spirituality be abstinence? When everything is you and everything is divine, how can you call something or someone holy and the other unholy? Spirituality arises not out of abstinence but out of embracing everything. Everything is holy and pure..everything is spiritual and worthy of love.
Everything Is Love.
Every form of love is pure and divine. When you see divinity in yourself, in your dog, in your education, in your mother, in your lover - every form of love is pure. The very fact that you are capable of love is a step towards divinity. When you can love without judgement, when you can love everything and everyone without conditions, when there is a general feeling of Love all around to, there is peace within you - Inner Peace and immense joy and bliss. After all this is the bliss that Buddha talks about - a general feeling of oneness and of love. Of Universal Love.
