Conversion

Dear Vijiakka,

Thank you for your blessings and for responding to this thread. Frankly, all I say in my threads are secondary knowledge of what other realized souls taught us already.

 

Dear Balajee,

Thank you for responding to this thread and I always enjoy listening to your perspective. Whether something is selfless or selfish is dependent upon the prism through which we look at things. If we perceive the world through our mind, everything is driven from the body consciousness and if we begin perceiving the world through our absolute consciounsess, we see the oneness of everyone and selfishness ceases to exist and become selfless. This is what I understand from the ancient teachings.

 

Dear Smt. Jayasala:

Your final conclusion explains it all. But I believe there is an urge in every life to realize its innate divinity and that urge only drives one to get knowledge, perform actions and achieve happiness. Only the intensity varies based on how much each person pursue to explore the innate divinity.

Frankly, I believe spirituality can't be separated from our actual life. Pursuharthas are recommended for the transformation of humanity by climbing the ladder of life. How much one practices the right living determines how spiritual one is. Spirituality is intertwined in day to day life. If one performs his duty with all sincerity, perform the action with a sense of fulfillment and with the attitude of sacrifice, that act becomes a meditation. I feel spiritual sadhanas are not separate from real actions but changing the actions we perform day to day into an act performed for spiritual development. That is transformation. As you say, it is not one simple action but a series of actions complying with the right living. It may be in one life or many lives but the progress we make remains with us forever.

 

You are right about religious conversions. It doesn't change people much. It might be done with a specific intention to account for how many are converted in a time frame and more for the purpose of grants. Religious conversions are not done with the intention to make one's spiritual advancement. Religious extremism has contributed more to the tribulations than happiness in the world.

 

Good morning Kamala:

Good questions help me to further develop and therefore I welcome it. However, I have to qualify, my answers will be limited to the level of knowledge I have and may not be complete.

Divine existence is the pure and unsullied Atma that resides in us and when we remove the casings such as body, mind, intellect, and encryption (residues), what remains is divine existence. When those casings are eliminated, the divine existence will reveal itself. We truly become free from the dependency of this world when it occurs. Life is gifted to us to uncover this potential and we have to open the gift, remove the packaging to see the gift.

Verse 5, Chapter 18 of Bhagavad Gita says,

"yajna-dana-tapah-karma
na tyajyam karyam eva tat
yajno danam tapas caiva
pavanani manisinam"

meaning "Acts of sacrifice, charity and penance are not to be given up but should be performed. Indeed, sacrifice, charity and penance purify even the great souls".

In my personal opinion, the acts that are performed without the attitude of sacrifice and with the expectation of the fruits (with selfishness) strengthens the encryption. If our life's purpose is to liberate our divine existence, we need to perform the actions unattached to the fruits and that could be done only when we develop an attitude of sacrifice.

All these esoteric terms are the analysis of the mind. For whom it is a tall order? It is the mind that tells us that it is difficult for us to move from desires and attachments to limited desires and trusteeship. The mind is nothing but a cauldron of thoughts and its existence diminishes once thoughts don't exist. It is impermanent but powerful. It needs to be analyzed, understood and comprehended. Knowing our mind and how it gets influenced by our senses is the first step towards spiritual growth.

A hard rock can't be broken by a single stroke. These steps such as Yagna, Dana and Tapa are steps to weaken the hard rock. But every stroke weakens the hard rock.