The Need for Spirituality

by Annemarie Ruthenberg

Spirituality, mostly confounded with intellectual thoughts or religious considerations, can only be had by a True Living Master. It is the Highest Gift from One, Who is competent to give it to His True Devotees. And it is the only celestial gift, which we should strive for during this earthly life. If we don’t gain it, this life is in vain.

Spirituality is Self-knowledge and God-knowledge. Without Spirituality, all wealth and riches of this world cannot help us. No one and nothing can give us the right knowledge of our soul and of God; if we don’t seek and find the True Master – Satguru – Who alone can instruct and initiate us into the Science of the Beyond, and can contact our souls with the Holy Light and the Sound Current of the Word.

The Master teaches us that Spirituality is another name of Surat Shabd Yoga, that is, the reunion of the Surat – the individual consciousness or soul – with Shabd – the Holy Sound Current or the Word. Spirituality lies and leads far beyond all creeds and religions. It does not depend on our blind personal religious faith or creed, for it is a science, as any other science, and gives with mathematical precision results which one may experience, if one follows the teachings and commandments of his True Master Who shows him how to lead a True Spiritual Life.

No success or progress in this world can lead us nearer to God or can give us Inner Peace and salvation. Without leading a really Spiritual Life, a human being fails in the purpose of his earthly existence. We are not able to free ourselves from our karmic debts and the bondage of mind and matter, of world and senses. We must try to find the Master Who alone can show us the way-out and can lead us to the Path Godward. As long as we have not found Him, our search for God remains on the plane of senses and our prayers remain only in our mind and intellect.

Spirituality is an actual practical experience of God and can, therefore, not be preached in churches or temples, as the various religions have lost the basic original ideas in course of time and have become merely a code of social conduct or ethical principles. It also cannot be found in books. True religion or True Spirituality means linking the soul with God within and the teachings of the true Master tell us that both – God and soul – reside in the same temple, the human body. But they are so apart from each other that they cannot come together as man is full of ego and his own will and, therefore, he is not inclined to seek God and to act according to His will. Most of the common religions teach that salvation will come after death. They do not know that salvation is unthinkable without Spirituality. They take religious feelings for Spirituality as they do not know that the latter is nothing of this world and is only to be had through a True Living Master. Spirituality is also not be had through bodily exercises as many persons would believe, for it is far beyond the body and the plane of senses. Striving for Spirituality begins, therefore, with the search for the True Master, Who alone can give it.

Spirituality cannot be taught or learned but the True Master would bestow it on those who earnestly seek God-realisation. He imparts His instructions to the Spiritual Aspirants and – at the time of initiation – He infects them with His Life-Impulse and makes manifest the Holy Light within and the Holy Sound Current audible, and then contacts the spirit of the disciple with the Master-Soul or God-Power in Himself.

Spirituality can only be caught up like an infection of a disease from the One, Who is completely filled and infected with or embedded in it and is authorised to give it: the Master Himself. He is the only veritable treasure-house of Spirituality and contributes it to all those who earnestly search for it as it is the only way-out from their difficulties and the only path to their salvation and liberation.

Only the True Master, the Guru, Who has come into the world with the Divine Commission to instruct and lead home the searching and erring human souls, can mediate spirituality. We must open our heart and soul widely to receive His celestial gift. He alone can open the door to God of which Christ said:

I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

St John 10:9

And He alone can again shut this door, if necessary.

Thus, we see, that the need for Spirituality is the same as the need for finding a True Master as the one is unthinkable without the other. No one should believe that he might win spirituality without absolute obedience to his Master. It is quite useless to assure again and again: ‘Master, I love You,’ if one does not obey Him on all points. Certainly, we may and must rely on and trust in His unending Grace and compassion, but we can attract His grace only by complete humble self-surrender and devoted obedience. We have to tune our will to His will, for then we shall draw His Grace and pleasure in full measure and shall gain Spirituality – God-Knowledge-and salvation.

The Master says :

If you love me, keep my commandments.

The earnest seekers for Spirituality must, therefore, try to act according to the Master’s instructions. They are to keep to the purely vegetarian diet and to the seeing and hearing exercises as instructed by the Master. They have to maintain a diary about the time spent for their meditation and about the failures made in ahimsa – non-violence –, truthfulness, chastity, love for all, diet and selfless service. This diary is to be sent to the Master for further guidance. The more the disciple tries to follow the Master’s instructions, the more he will develop in True Devotion to the Master. The disciple must learn to give up his own will – the will of his little ego – and to surrender himself completely to the will of the Master. The more he succeeds in doing so the more he will develop right receptivity for the Grace and the Inner and outer help of his Master. The Master has so many ways to lead us and we should always strengthen our faith in Him and should gather our full attention at the point behind and between the two eyebrows where He waits for meeting us every moment.

We can accept His Grace and His Inner Directions and Blessings only in the same measure as we develop our Love for Him and our Inner Devotion and Receptivity. As long as our attention plays in the outer world, we cannot listen to the voice of the Master and cannot gain Spirituality. But the more we succeed in contacting the Holy Light and the Sound Current, the Word, the more will grow our devotion, our Love and receptivity and – not to forget – our deep thankfulness towards the Beloved Master, Who leads us back to our True Home in God.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing.

St John 15:4,5