Is spirituality turning out to be a new form of slavery and subservience to powerful gurus, fathers, rabbis and mullahs?
There is a rise in new age spiritual movements made out of a concoction of ideas and rituals - borrowed or stolen from many mainstream religions. These spiritual movements or cults are often centered around powerful individuals, who can talk enigmatically on anything from food to rebirth. They propagate a semi-liberal semi-religious set of ideas to attract both believers and atheists.
People get attracted to these new age spiritual movements by all the feel good things they experience in the beginning. A distressed person may feel de-stressed. A person suffering from low self-esteem may discover, "I too am worthy of appreciation." For each, it fills a void in their life. Many spiritual institutions that sell their own branded version of spirituality make sure that they mention every benefit people anticipate for. They do a lot of branding and promotion to look awe-inspiring to potential customers. Now it's not that spirituality is a bad concept, the problem is when spiritual movements and their cult leaders start exploiting the term to achieve their own deceptive goals.
The word spirituality comes from the root word 'spirit', and spirit simply means life. So spirituality is all about seeing/sensing life in everything. It is based on the assumption that life is the source of everything. This is opposite to the notion of materialism, which says the earthly matter is the cause of life. Now, whichever is the cause of the other, it's good if people can see life that's spread all around them. It makes them value everything, from objects in nature to all living beings and treat them with the dignity they deserve. It is supposed to be the most unselfish way of seeing everything: "I'm made of spirit, so is another person, or an animal, plant or even an ant or bee."
But what is sold today as spirituality by many new age spirituality cults is selfishness that pumps up people's ego and makes them believe in 'a seductive fantasy of liberation or redemption'. It teaches people to think, "I'm not made for this ordinary life you guys are living. I'm special; one among a rare few. I have no time to waste here. I have to achieve enlightenment in this life itself."
They further teach, "Friends and family are a bondage. Everyday life of working for livelihood is a substandard one. So you must get rid of them if you are serious about spirituality. Spirituality is 'aspiring for more' or 'aspiring for everything'. Don't be a limited self who desires for the less." They just make human greed legitimate by making it look larger than life and branding it 'spiritual'. And people who get carried away by strange doctrines like these, take up 'practicing and preaching them' as their ultimate goal and mission of life.
These movements make them think that what you do within the four walls of a monastery is spiritual and what you do within the four walls of your house is material. So at some point in time, they have to choose between the two. Many young people after getting acquainted with these spiritual institutions for a period of time start thinking, "Now I should leave my house and my family for my own liberation/redemption and for the larger benefit of the society."
Misguided by these ideas, some eventually leave people in their homes, to live with people in an institution. They don't understand that they are just leaving one form of a social institution called 'family' to join another form of 'alienated' social institution called 'monastery'. They give up their jobs, and take up a job in these institutions. But how can leaving one's parents and doing the same/similar job under a different roof, just to fulfill the unlimited desires of leaders who are aspiring for everything become spirituality?
Spiritual aspirants who join these cults do even menial jobs thinking that it's a service that will purify them. Subservience is made to look absolutely normal and the most righteous thing to do. They don't ask their masters, "If spirituality is all about seeing all lives equally then there is no difference between you and me, why should I be subservient to you?"
The spiritual leaders also won't teach them this, because they will lose a potential slave. Instead of teaching self-reliance and freedom, they teach them dependency. And at every given point of time, they say, "There is more. Now is not the time to learn the ultimate wisdom. Keep serving your master, some day when he thinks you are fit for it, he will enlighten you with it."
They teach dependency because they need people to run their cartels. What's more? They even get involved in every mundane economic activity, bottling and packaging them as spirituality.
Where is the 'monastic living' here? When they live a life of flamboyance, why should they ask our children from middle-class families to desert their parents and frugal comforts of their homes? If they are talking about a life of penance then they should do so by setting themselves as an example. They should renounce the comforts of their institutions and renounce the wealth they have accumulated, and move around with minimal or no comfort. They should travel miles by walk in barefoot, sleep on the floor and accept in alms 'just a handful of food', as their only meal of the day and never stay in a place for more than few days or wander in the forests and survive with what they get; like what the ancient texts on monastic living in many religious faiths say. Why settle in large luxurious mansions or man-made resorts built in a jungle?
The halo of spirituality created by these 'artists of deception', mislead many. While some of the leaders themselves are misled people, there are many other who clearly know that they are cheating people outrightly. If spirituality is supposed to liberate us, it should also liberate us from dependency on these spiritual institutions, and the fathers, mullahs, rabbis and gurus who act like guardian angels of planet earth.
It's we who ought to be careful. People may present a million concocted ideas on where one would go after death. Instead of getting carried away by them, why don't we live the present life with some sanity it deserves. Like the popular quote goes, "A careless man's property is a shameless man's property"; if we remain careless some shameless man will appropriate our lives. Perhaps that's the life or spirit they talk about.
There is a rise in new age spiritual movements made out of a concoction of ideas and rituals - borrowed or stolen from many mainstream religions. These spiritual movements or cults are often centered around powerful individuals, who can talk enigmatically on anything from food to rebirth. They propagate a semi-liberal semi-religious set of ideas to attract both believers and atheists.
People get attracted to these new age spiritual movements by all the feel good things they experience in the beginning. A distressed person may feel de-stressed. A person suffering from low self-esteem may discover, "I too am worthy of appreciation." For each, it fills a void in their life. Many spiritual institutions that sell their own branded version of spirituality make sure that they mention every benefit people anticipate for. They do a lot of branding and promotion to look awe-inspiring to potential customers. Now it's not that spirituality is a bad concept, the problem is when spiritual movements and their cult leaders start exploiting the term to achieve their own deceptive goals.
The word spirituality comes from the root word 'spirit', and spirit simply means life. So spirituality is all about seeing/sensing life in everything. It is based on the assumption that life is the source of everything. This is opposite to the notion of materialism, which says the earthly matter is the cause of life. Now, whichever is the cause of the other, it's good if people can see life that's spread all around them. It makes them value everything, from objects in nature to all living beings and treat them with the dignity they deserve. It is supposed to be the most unselfish way of seeing everything: "I'm made of spirit, so is another person, or an animal, plant or even an ant or bee."
But what is sold today as spirituality by many new age spirituality cults is selfishness that pumps up people's ego and makes them believe in 'a seductive fantasy of liberation or redemption'. It teaches people to think, "I'm not made for this ordinary life you guys are living. I'm special; one among a rare few. I have no time to waste here. I have to achieve enlightenment in this life itself."
They further teach, "Friends and family are a bondage. Everyday life of working for livelihood is a substandard one. So you must get rid of them if you are serious about spirituality. Spirituality is 'aspiring for more' or 'aspiring for everything'. Don't be a limited self who desires for the less." They just make human greed legitimate by making it look larger than life and branding it 'spiritual'. And people who get carried away by strange doctrines like these, take up 'practicing and preaching them' as their ultimate goal and mission of life.
These movements make them think that what you do within the four walls of a monastery is spiritual and what you do within the four walls of your house is material. So at some point in time, they have to choose between the two. Many young people after getting acquainted with these spiritual institutions for a period of time start thinking, "Now I should leave my house and my family for my own liberation/redemption and for the larger benefit of the society."
Misguided by these ideas, some eventually leave people in their homes, to live with people in an institution. They don't understand that they are just leaving one form of a social institution called 'family' to join another form of 'alienated' social institution called 'monastery'. They give up their jobs, and take up a job in these institutions. But how can leaving one's parents and doing the same/similar job under a different roof, just to fulfill the unlimited desires of leaders who are aspiring for everything become spirituality?
Spiritual aspirants who join these cults do even menial jobs thinking that it's a service that will purify them. Subservience is made to look absolutely normal and the most righteous thing to do. They don't ask their masters, "If spirituality is all about seeing all lives equally then there is no difference between you and me, why should I be subservient to you?"
The spiritual leaders also won't teach them this, because they will lose a potential slave. Instead of teaching self-reliance and freedom, they teach them dependency. And at every given point of time, they say, "There is more. Now is not the time to learn the ultimate wisdom. Keep serving your master, some day when he thinks you are fit for it, he will enlighten you with it."
They teach dependency because they need people to run their cartels. What's more? They even get involved in every mundane economic activity, bottling and packaging them as spirituality.
Where is the 'monastic living' here? When they live a life of flamboyance, why should they ask our children from middle-class families to desert their parents and frugal comforts of their homes? If they are talking about a life of penance then they should do so by setting themselves as an example. They should renounce the comforts of their institutions and renounce the wealth they have accumulated, and move around with minimal or no comfort. They should travel miles by walk in barefoot, sleep on the floor and accept in alms 'just a handful of food', as their only meal of the day and never stay in a place for more than few days or wander in the forests and survive with what they get; like what the ancient texts on monastic living in many religious faiths say. Why settle in large luxurious mansions or man-made resorts built in a jungle?
The halo of spirituality created by these 'artists of deception', mislead many. While some of the leaders themselves are misled people, there are many other who clearly know that they are cheating people outrightly. If spirituality is supposed to liberate us, it should also liberate us from dependency on these spiritual institutions, and the fathers, mullahs, rabbis and gurus who act like guardian angels of planet earth.
It's we who ought to be careful. People may present a million concocted ideas on where one would go after death. Instead of getting carried away by them, why don't we live the present life with some sanity it deserves. Like the popular quote goes, "A careless man's property is a shameless man's property"; if we remain careless some shameless man will appropriate our lives. Perhaps that's the life or spirit they talk about.