Barriers To Spiritual Initiation

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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As I continue on my slow progress on the spiritual path, I meet a variety of people who have their own views on spirituality and when, if at all, one should embark on such a path.  I will try and list some of the reasons people give and my explanation and leave it to my readers to make their own judgment.

1. Time is not right.

Most often, when I tell people that I am reading the Bhagwad Gita or Upanishads, they give me a strange look and ask me as to why I am reading these books now. They say I should be reading these post retirement.

What is the point of spirituality? Spirituality is not about chanting or going to temples. Spirituality is about realizing the true self and true meaning of life. If understanding this helps me lead a good life unaffected by daily ups and downs, why on earth would I want to delay knowing this till my old age?  I personally have noticed that ever since I started reading these books, my attitude to life has been changing. Things that used to bother me do not bother me anymore. At the same time, I am as competitive as anyone and can give a “run for their money” to anyone challenging me professionally. So if I can take life easy and at the same time be competitive and good in what I do, is this not a phenomenal benefit of spirituality? I stated into spirituality in my 40’s. If I knew this would be the benefit, I would have started much earlier and enjoyed my 20’s and 30’s much more.

Moreover, just like any branch of knowledge, spiritual knowledge takes time to assimilate. Just because I need to work only in my 20’s, thank God, my parents did not decide to send me to school only then to learn alphabets or numbers.

2. I do not have time

 I hear this often when people tell me that they are so busy in their day to day activity that they do not have time to spare for spirituality. I wonder why people cannot have time for this activity. The same people will get time to gossip endlessly or stay up late at night to see some x rated movie. Of course they may be ignorant of the value of spirituality. But I am sure they know the futility of wasting time in gossiping.

If someone tells that one has to exercise to have a good health, would the response be that I have no time. Yes, many people do give this reason only at a great risk to themselves. If sparing a small amount of time every day for physical exercises can prevent a major disaster later on, why would people not forego some time from other useless activities towards this? This is because the daily discipline is initially painful. In exactly same way, if sparing some amount of time towards spirituality can help improve mental state and bring about peace, I wonder why people can give lack of time as a reason for not starting on spirituality.

3. I am not religious and do not believe all this.

I hear this very often from the so called rationalists or atheists that they do not believe in religion, spirituality and all the mumbo-jumbo. Unfortunately these intellectuals have never even bothered to open a single page of any of these books to try and see whether they are religious. I admit I was one of these type and had never opened the Bhagwad Gita thinking it is a religious book full of do’s and don’ts and all the moral teachings. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I realized that not once is it mentioned in the Gita as to what religious practices to undertake. The book takes a reader to the highest level of awareness of one’s purpose in life and gives full freedom to the user to choose his path. There are no dogmas, no cultish indoctrination.  If I had stuck to my initial stupidity that this is a religious book, I would have been deprived of the greatest knowledge.

There are some concepts of spirituality like reincarnation, karma etc. Very often people tell me that they do not believe in such concepts. Great, I tell them. You need not believe the law of gravitation and jump out of the Manhattan office window. Just as the law of gravity does not care whether one believes in it or not and brings everyone down to ground with a thud, the laws of spirituality like karma, reincarnation etc do not care whether one believes in them or not. They will act as they should. Just as knowledge of centrifugal forces is helpful in avoiding accidents due to high speed driving around curves, knowledge of spiritual laws is helpful in avoiding accidents in one’s journey in life. Knowing a spiritual law will not at the least cause any harm.

If I am not a physics student and cannot understand centrifugal forces, how will people like me avoid accidents? More knowledgeable people who understand impact of such forces have created regulations or laws. There are speed limits on roads to guide the ignorant. If I see a sign saying 25 mph on a curve, I do not need to understand law of centrifugal forces. Similarly, spiritual leaders over centuries have distilled the spiritual laws into easily understandable instructions and this is the basis of religion.

I can ignore the 25 mph speed limit and drive at 100 mph to a certainty of an accident telling I do not believe in speed limits or the laws. In exactly the same way, I can say I do not believe in spiritual laws and religion and ignore the commandments and drive to a sure accident in my life’s journey.

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