Towards transcendence: Inspiration from the Bhagavad Gita

Pages: 718-724
Sangeeta Trama (Department of Psychology, Punjabi University, Patiala, Punjab)

Spirituality is concerned more with being than doing. The seeker’s whole effort is to be oneself. Spirituality is not an experience. You cannot experience it. If you experience it, it is something of the mind. How can you experience yourself? When there is nothing to be seen, when all experiences disappear, when there is no object to be observed but only awareness not obstructed by any experience, then you have become spiritual. You are the seer. Spirituality is not performance-oriented. It is to be lived as naturally as we breathe. Spirituality is a quality of being actually; it is awareness of the divine reality. As an Indian mystic Sri Kunal Krishna says, “spiritual journey is not filling yourself with other people’s knowledge, it is essential for the inner journey to drop all borrowed knowledge and start as though you know absolutely nothing. Spirituality is direct and simple, now and there, it is living moment-to-moment without any greed, fear, guilt, confusion and dissatisfaction. Spirituality is not business which sells the crutches of comfort, consolation and conclusion. It is a process of deep quest and deep questioning which evokes the awareness to see the false as the false, to see the true as true, and to weed out the false from the true. In the endless music of spirituality, meaning, Samadhi and enlightenment are only changing notes of the rhythm……there is no wall of separation. One of the vital, though sometimes, overlooked role of spirituality is that of transcendence. Transcendence refers to a state of being which acknowledges a reality beyond the self or beyond personal experience. It is a state that moves beyond the physical and logical norms, and can be attained through an individual’s intuitive perceptions rather than the dictates of established religious or scientific thought. Transcendence is an emergent quality that can become stabilized in mature spirituality. Transcendence has a variety of meanings in different religions. Generally, it refers to a state of spiritual attainment that exists beyond the physical being. Some religions believe that God is a transcendent being in terms of physical transcendence. Other religions believe in immanence, which is the opposite of transcendence. Immanence means within, or in terms of God, that he exists completely in the physical. Within Hinduism, transcendence carries different meanings with different scriptures and traditions. For the most part however, it describes a state of spiritual attainment. In this state, a person is no long controlled by basic human desires, such as greed and material goods. Indian ethics emphasizes that the spiritual aspect of human nature is very divine; it is eternality, perfection, infinite existence, infinite consciousness, and infinite bliss. The Bhagavad Gita occupies a very prominent place in the ethical literature of India. It stands out as the gospel of truth, setting up inspiring ideal for the conduct of life. Many in the stresses and strains of their life look into this veritable reservoir of ethical norms for practical guidance.