Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy And Yoga - Some Aspects

Religion And Spirituality

It is trite to observe that the religion and spirituality are not one and the same though in the minds of many of the present and the utterance of the past generation of spiritual teachers and thinkers they are or were identical. The distinction between these two has been clearly brought out by Sri Aurobindo among the modern spiritual thinkers and writers. According to him, religion is only one of the three approaches to spirituality, the other two being occultism and spiritual philosophy. Each of these three may lead separately or together or in varying collaboration to direct spiritual experience and realisation which constitute real spirituality. "Spirituality", observes Sri Aurobindo in his Life Divine, "is not a high intellectuality, not idealism, not an ethical turn of mind or moral purity and austerity, not religiosity or an ardent and exalted emotional fervour, not even a compound of these excellent things ; . . . Spirituality is in its essence an awakening to the inner reality of our being, to a spirit, self, soul which is other than our mind, life and body ... It is a turning, a conversion, a transformation of our whole being as a result of the aspiration, the contact, the union, a growth or awakening to a new becoming or new being, a new self, a new nature."

Religionists, on the contrary, who count by millions all over the world are satisfied with observation of certain religious rites and ceremonies such as, going to the churches and temples, offering worship to the deities and trying to live a moral and ethical life according to their scriptures. The religious man continues to live

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the same inner and outer life as others only modified by the exigencies of his avocation be it that of a priest, a monk or a nun, a wandering fakir or sadhu or a life in some religious institutions such as a monastery, or math or a mashed. There is no demand on him for a radical change of consciousness or of his inner and outer life as in the case of a spiritual seeker. Spirituality or spiritual life demands utmost concentration of consciousness on the part of the seeker. His is a one-pointed orientation of life towards the Spirit, the object being the utter elimination of the narrow and ignorant ego— complex which culminates in complete union and identity with the Spirit.

While there are myriads and myriads of religious institutions in all the organised and denominational religions of the world, Hindu, Muslim, Christian and others, spiritual institutions on such organised scale are not many. For, at the head of a spiritual institution there must be a self-realised man, the Guru or the Teacher who is very rare and difficult to find. A Ramakrishna-Vivekananda or a Sri Aurobindo appears once in many centuries to lead the benighted humanity to the path of Dharma or righteousness—though we are fortunate that in course of less than a century these Masters appeared on the Indian scene. Their appearance was probably necessitated by the prevailing world conditions where Dharma had fallen into decline with the rise of Adharma or sin or unrighteousness and the promise of Sri Krishna had to be redeemed by the descent of the Avatars for the regeneration of humanity.

Apropos of our subject, it is relevant to quote Swami Vivekananda here. The Swami defines religion in the following terms in his Raja Yoga :

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Each soul is potentially divine.

The goal is to manifest this divine within, by controlling nature, external and internal.

Do this work, or worship, or psychic control or philosophy—by one, or more, or all o£ these—and be free.

This is the whole of religion, Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.

This is the whole of religion, says Vivekananda. In the language of the present generation, we would say, this is the whole of spirituality—this discovery of the soul or the true being, the spirit in us. The last part of his observation pertains to religion. The formalities of religion such as those mentioned above end when spirituality or rather spiritual experience begins. We can thus justly say that spirituality begins when religion ends as it has been rightly said earlier : Religion begins where philosophy ends.

"Our souls can visit in great lonely hours

Still regions of imperishable Light,

All-seeing eagle-peaks of silent Power

And moon-flame oceans of swift fathomless Bliss

And calm immensities of spirit Space."

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