The end of spirituality

It is astounding! Many get smitten by this hard fact. Yet this is a fact all will have to swallow. Today we see spirituality packaged in shiny books at books stores, on CD and DVD. In brain – storming fine discourses of spiritual leaders, and to conclude in the teachings and preachings of fundamentalists. Visit a market place you will come upon spots where spirituality is on sale. You can buy it as spirituality is commoditized into economic packages.

Wherever I turn my eyes and move to I come across so many Gurus. If I turn on TV Channels I see so many long – bearded Gurus with tens of thousands of devotees attending them. I see flocks of people swayed by their magnetic, hyperbolic extravaganzas. If I analyze their speeches I find no substances philosophically, religiously and of course spiritually. We get misled or misguided and small children who are defenseless are very likely to go astray.

How do you say it is spiritual when these so called Gurus engage in lustful activities in the background while they appear to deliver speeches that are soothingly goody-goody in the foreground. Remove the veneer and arrive at the bottom of what objectives they have in mind. The shiny fast bucks they focus their minds on in point of fact. Indeed they have no other motives stronger than this urge of making more and more wealth.

I have across Gurus, being a diehard spiritual seeker since my babyhood I vacillated here and there for many years, and in that course I became close to some Gurus, and later seeing the other part of them, full of loopholes in their character I no longer became wooed.

While I see spirituality on the increase today compared with the past on the one hand, as I come across packages of spirituality for sale everywhere, I see a great amount of spiritual disorientation or corrosion all over the world. Some take to this for cheap fame, others for bucks, still others to satisfy their primitive urges.

I may be a little blunt on some people who are truly spiritualists. This is a generic statement and not necessary this applies in all cases. I do not claim at all that the world is totally empty of spiritualists, but in general there is a deterioration of it dreadfully.

I fear, lest the world will end up with spiritual death

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Originally Posted by blazeofglory

It is astounding! Many get smitten by this hard fact. Yet this is a fact all will have to swallow. Today we see spirituality packaged in shiny books at books stores, on CD and DVD. In brain – storming fine discourses of spiritual leaders, and to conclude in the teachings and preachings of fundamentalists. Visit a market place you will come upon spots where spirituality is on sale. You can buy it as spirituality is commoditized into economic packages.

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Yep I agree. New-agey stuff everywhere. On the home-shopping channel at home or in every bloody magazine. You can rely on horoskopes, chrystals, gurus, etc to open up your future for you. It makes me sick. especially when people pick out everything they like from various religions throw in a bit of chrystal gazing and tarot and say that they have found what they have been looking for. Without any basis in facts, theological reason (I know not everyone would put those particular words in the same sentence :) ), or guidance. They blindly believe in everything their guru, or horoscope tells them and live their lives accordingly. I am ranting, but why oh why are people so gullible. I mean they pay a fortune for this stuff, and even worse waste their time.

In today's world, it seems everything is for sale, whether it is so-called philosophy or spirituality. Like take out food, it is fast, convenient, and cheap. And one can throw it away after use, like paper towels or cameras.
Is it not ironic that in a time when the most serious thinking is required, that people gravitate towards precisely the opposite--- some mystical babble, some self-congratulatory catch-phrases, some cud they can chew and spew out on demand?
As if truth or spirituality can be sold for $21.95 at your local bookstore.

Blaze, on other places you have said that we should regard the sinner equally as the saint; but here you are condemning, chastising those whom you regard as false. I regard them as false also, but you are inconsistent with your earlier attitude. ;)

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Originally Posted by NikolaiI

Blaze, on other places you have said that we should regard the sinner equally as the saint; but here you are condemning, chastising those whom you regard as false. I regard them as false also, but you are inconsistent with your earlier attitude. ;)

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Nikolai, you have misunderstood me. This is a totally different context. Here the context is not to compare them and judge. The point here is that how our social systems are shifting and how our values are deteriorating.

All I want accentuate is spirituality is dying today. I can not define spirituality impeccably or it is a quality that can not be defined in words.

I see some disharmonies in society and there are devious activities with so called spiritualists, as they live duel lives. They are arrogant or hypocrites. They are taking charge of spirituality.

Spirituality is an inner quality, something we can not see or express in words and now people claim they are spiritualists or Gurus and and they teach morals and they package spirituality in a way modern business enterprises make them attractively, designing strategically. They price it and people choose to buy at the costs they want.
There is no consistency and coherence between what they exhibit through their behaviors.

At times I think we ordinary people who do not take charge of spirituality and live a simple life are more spiritually advanced or inclined than those who are Incharges of spirituality.
I think the core meaning of spirituality is not found in words, or in any holy books or in spiritual discourses or in temples or churches. It is found in charity.

I do not think India is a holier or more spiritual country than the west. It is often said the east is holier or more sacred. This is absolutely a false assumption. I see more works of charity, philanthropy or social services in the west than in the east.

Here in the east there is craze for wealth and people think they are great if they keep on amassing heaps of money.

Bill Gates' manners are, for instance really praiseworthy, as he voluntarily engaged himself in social works and philanthropies. Here in the east people do not engage in such activities. They donate huge sums to building temples and to Gurus.

That just commissioning idols and building temples people are spiritualists is a wrong concept. Spirituality is very subtle. It is a way of living and patterns of behaviors and attitudinal things, not words.