Spirituality

                Practically, there is a vast difference between the spiritual person who lives within society and shares his spiritual experience with his fellow beings, and one who lives in solitude. Spirituality fosters development of all kinds of constructive qualities and, in so doing, makes one a complete, person. An individual endowed with such qualities is one who is wanted and needed by society and the nation. He will be wasting his spiritual treasure if he leaves society and goes off to the jungle to live alone in peace and tranquility. In fact, a spiritual person is the most desirable individual when it comes to establishing a better society, which is after all a collection of better persons. And, it is true spirituality that turns one into a better person.

                To create a civilized society and keep it running on course, we need professionally trained people at the helm of affairs. Without such trained people, it is impossible to have a properly structured society. As such the guidance the spiritual person can give is of a superior nature and he is, therefore, qualified to steer the engine of social existence along the right lines. It is such spirituality that we have called ‘applied’ spirituality. In the basic sense, spirituality is a personal asset, but in its expanded sense, it has many applications. And where spirituality is an individualized matter, applied spirituality is a universalized form of it.

                It is not only others who benefit from applied spirituality. The spiritual person himself also benefits. When such a person devotes himself to sharing his spiritual training with others, he adds a whole new dimension to his own spirituality. Experience can be gained only within society. Moreover, experience adds wisdom to one’s spirituality is incomplete. Spirituality plus wisdom gives rise to the emergence of a superior state of being.

                Spirituality, moreover, being an inner quality, has to be applied if its external actualisation is to take place. Applied spirituality means living in society as a spiritual giver. One who has the capacity to apply his spirituality is the giver of such assistance and this will be good intellectual health. Applied spirituality is ostensibly a matter of giving. But, every instance of giving is paralleled by an instance of receiving. The giver is not simply a giver. The giver is also the receiver of many things – appreciation, goodwill, better relations and peace.