#Being Spiritual

By Arushi Joshi

To best describe it myself I would say a few months ago I had no idea what I was doing in this life, I had no time to pray even though I was idle most of the time. But today I am at the peak of positivity. I feel a connection, what do you want the most right now? Money? Success? Love? Nope. I want more of that positivity.

This incredible sense of confidence that whatever happens, I can deal with it, even if my mind subconsciously goes out of control, an inner power brings me back on the right path. This is my description of spirituality because, to be honest, it is an energy that you feel. If you are lucky it will be constant with you.

That’s why I pray to god “to be with me like this all the time”. My spirituality makes me feel good about myself, about my life, and suddenly I want to pray to, not in order to wish for something. I am trying to maintain a selfless relation with my soul. I don’t expect anything from anyone, I do what I can, however, that doesn’t give me any power to hurt anyway or to judge anyone.

Being a human being is a whole another story, I picture myself many times talking to the supreme god, I ask a lot of questions, but I always ask this one, “how can you be a human without minding your own business?” “is there a special talent to it” Most of the problems arise in this world due to selfish needs, wants, competition, I want to be the best, Why can’t I be rich? I must look more beautiful than anyone, I shall be the one who sets the example. I personally haven’t seen people who are too genuine and humble being a huge personality. I commit such crime myself too. I call it a crime. Because it is the start of destruction.

I went through a lot of changes in life. I am quite young still so hoping that even more changes are on the way, but the earlier you understand life, the better chances you have to deal with the future self. Because many times you ponder upon a past scenario thinking if only you knew that this is what’s gonna happen you would have dealt with it differently, right?

For the sake of being religious you do a lot of things, like fasting but not really fasting you know what I mean, as there is a lot of variety of food invented when you are fasting, which means nothing but not eating your regular spicy food and just eating a little boring yet delicious food for a change. Also, like pilgrimages, or doing “seva” or “selfless deeds” like washing utensils in the temple, cleaning the temple, etc. But when you are a human at the same time, you cannot be spiritually inclined.

A lot of people even doing selfless deeds are often the ones who go through a lot of problems, they always still keep asking “what’s wrong in my life”, you know why? because it was after all not selfless. Do you think it actually can be true, that there are no selfless deeds? Because once you take the credit for it in whatever way, you lose it all. For me, spirituality is a private relation with my god. Where I don’t talk about my problems or I don’t offer service in order to get rid of my problems. I do service but in that service, I create a moment of mindfulness. I can create a space in my spiritual sense where I would dive deep into my own thinking to realize it all very well without even asking for it.

People say that God can solve all your problems, I was finding something difficult and somebody suggested, start reading this scripture or start chanting and your problem will be solved. The power of chanting or reading scripture is not that you are offering a service but you are creating an aura of your life, you are in that space where you will find the solutions, you will focus. It brings a lot of attention to you. It is not as simple as it may sound. It needs a lot of hard work to achieve such mindfulness.

When you open the doors in your mind through channelizing your energy through spirituality you are actually letting things pass. You aren’t holding up there anything, you can feel the change, you can breathe.

When I was a little kid, my grandmother told me the story of Lord Hanuman. She told me that reading Hanuman Chalisa will solve all your problems. I was so young, that I hardly had any real problems in my life, I am sure my problem at that time would have been something really silly, so I started reading Hanuman Challis at a very young age. I actually misunderstood the word-“sat” in “Jo sat baar paath kar koi Chutti bandi mahasukh hoi” as in number 7 but it was in Sanskrit and it means 100 times. It meant, ” whoever reads and chants Hanuman Chalisa for 100 times, will get freed from worldly bondage and will get great happiness”. I finished doing 7 times, then some years later I actually decided to start understanding the scriptures, Vedanta and such devotional hymns. I came to know the meaning of each and every word in Hanuman Chalisa. But that’s how most of us are like, we can do things for the sake of doing it, but it is important to understand the meaning of it, to apply it in this real life. I want to be like Lord Hanuman, “serve as many as you can”.