Aeronautics of spirituality

DR Satish K Kapoor

Spirituality has no boundaries, barriers or set routes for one who wishes to undertake an inward journey and soar to the firmament of higher consciousness. No passport is required from a priest certifying one’s caste or identity; no security check is made by the orthodoxy; no runway is needed to take off or land in the El Dorado of bliss.

Credentials for spiritual journey

The valid documents to be shown at the terminal of inner airport are purity of mind and heart, and a quest for spiritual wisdom. Lighter the baggage of bad karma, the better for spiritual itinerary. Security check is the restraint of passions and desires, of attachment and aversion to the objects of the world. Technology of aircraft is self-knowledge. What propels it is prana or vital power within. The pilot in the cockpit is the individual self; air hostesses are sense-organs; the radar, one’s conscience. Runway is the chosen one of realized souls; destination, the terra firma of Infinity. The passenger has to travel alone, but not feel lonely. The guru can guide but cannot go beyond the take-off stage.

One can operate at an altitude and at a speed in accordance with one’s spiritual clock (the circadian rhythm at metaphysical level) which functions in tune with the levels of inner awareness. When one flies past the clouds of ignorance and the mist of egoism, the Infinite is seen in the universe and the universe in the Infinite. All become one in the Indivisible whole called God.

Ignorance and knowledge

Patanjali says (II. 5): ‘To regard the non-eternal as eternal, the impure as pure, the painful as pleasant and the non-Atman as the Atman- this is ignorance.’ As the mind turns inwards, one awakens to the knowledge of the Self, and realizes that the divine is not outside but within everyone. Since the Infinite has infinite dimensions, spiritual experiences are expressed in multiple ways, each claiming that his/her version is true, and that of the other wrong. Yet no experience can be disparaged or disputed as it is subjective in nature. Science has not as yet created a device to prove or reject the explanation of mystics about the cartography of the soul, the channels of subtle energy fields in the physical body, the seven layers of the human aura, the dormant kundalini energy at the perineum which should be awakened for gaining higher consciousness. And so on.

A spiritual voyage can only be made in the laboratory of the Self. Swami Vivekananda exhorted: ‘Bring your own lotus to blossom; the bees will come of themselves. Believe first in yourself, and then in God….

(Dr Kapoor is a noted educationist, historian and spiritualist.)