Blunders In Spirituality

This is one of the articles in a book I have written on spirituality. The book is available on Amazon.com.


The Spirit Of Spirituality

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I have been studying or have been exposed to spirituality for the past nearly 6 years. In this period, I have either read about spiritual blunders done by seekers, have done spiritual mistakes or have directly engaged with people who have done mistakes. I thought of listing some of these blunders so that we as spiritual seekers learn from them and not repeat the mistakes which can derail our spiritual journey.

1. The spiritual ego

Amongst all the blunders, I would rate this as the biggest blunder. We live in a material world where every day we try to prove to others that we are better than them. It might take the form of, my house is bigger than yours, my car is better than yours, and my child is better than yours and so on. Many of us, as we embark on the spiritual journey, tend to develop an inflated spiritual view of ourselves. We read a couple of chapters of a book or go to a couple of lectures, learn some key words and suddenly we consider ourselves experts. We look at people who are not into any form of spirituality and get a kick that we are better. With our limited knowledge and high ignorance, we argue for or against spirituality.

We should be able to look back and ask ourselves, why we are into spirituality. As discussed earlier, man – ego = God. The whole purpose of spirituality is to get rid of the physical, mental and intellectual ego. So, if in the process of studying spirituality, we develop a spiritual ego, what is the use?

2. The reason for spirituality

Many of us begin on the path of spirituality due to a calamity in the house (my mother’s illness in my case), an intellectual curiosity about the meaning of life, a pure professional reason to earn money off spirituality etc. We know of so many so called spiritual teachers running a huge business empire in the name of spirituality. Again, the whole purpose of spirituality is to get rid of attachments to physical, emotional or intellectual objects. So, if we end up getting on to spirituality to use it as a tool to acquire worldly objects, what did we achieve?

I go to weekly lectures to a superb teacher. One of my co-students told me about a man who comes to the lectures. His reason is that my teacher at such a young age is fantastic and he is sure to be among the top spiritual people in years to come. When that happens, this co-student wants to be close to him so that he can tell others that he is close to one of the greatest spiritual teachers!

3. Living a life of desires in the pursuit of spirituality

We have read stories in our mythology about various sages having succumbed to the charms of material life. We know of sage Viswamitra who was smitten by the lovely Menaka and even fathered a child. I know of a case, where a person became a sanyasi (renouncer of all material objects). For several years, he was a sanyasi till a woman disciple started coming frequently to him. As her visits increased, his interest in her grew stronger, till one point, he renounced his sanyaas state and married her. The whole purpose of sanyaas was to be able to get away from the bindings of the world and be able to focus on the true experience of achieving unity with Brahman. Here is a situation, where a person after several years had reached a state of sanyaas, only to throw it all away and got back to the world. This is what happens, when one takes to spirituality without fully understanding its meaning.

4. Superiority of a spiritual path

An important aspect of spirituality is that, even though the Absolute Truth is the same for all, the paths to realize it can vary. Spirituality is something that has to be experienced and felt. A path that can appeal to a seeker may not appeal to another. But this does not mean that the other spiritual path is wrong.

I have been in discussions with spiritual seekers where several times, the discussion moves to the 3 broad paths of spirituality in India: Dvaita or duality, Advaita or non-duality and Vishista Advaita or special non-duality. I have heard spiritual seekers openly say that Shankaracharya was wrong or the other Acharyas were wrong. I have even heard seekers comment about Buddha.

We are at the beginning of our spiritual journey and I wonder what gives us the temerity to challenge the masters? Each of these masters was a trail-blazer and influenced the thinking of millions across centuries globally. When whatever we say does not even influence our own spouses, how can we challenge the thinking of the great spiritual masters?

I am of the opinion that in our spiritual journey, we need the humility to accept that we know nothing. We need the elevated intellect to decide that rather than being a meaningless cog in this material world, we are better off understanding the purpose of life. We need the internal conviction that we are on the right path and need to guard our restless mind against falling a prey once again to the alluring objects of the world. Finally, we need to realize that like us, there are several seekers each with their own determined paths and we have no right to comment on their path or criticize it.

As readers may be aware, 3 of my books on spirituality are available on Amazon.com.

I invite readers of my blog to try any of the books and give me feedback so that I can make changes in the next edition.


1. My Humble Understanding  Of Spirituality


My Humble Understanding Of Spirituality

2. Attain Infinite Bliss

Attain Infinite Bliss - A Spiritual Guide

3. The Spirit Of Spirituality

The Spirit Of Spirituality