‘Why was all this not told to me when I was in my high
school?!’ demanded a ‘young angry man’ after listening to a talk by a monk on
control of mind and giving a spiritual orientation to life.
‘If only I had known’, he lamented,’ how to handle my mind,
my thoughts and emotions, my life would have been much happier and I would have
avoided all those depressions and frustrations that I had to undergo.’
Wasn’t the young man pointing out to something deeper? If
so, was it to the need to understand and train one’s senses and mind as basic
to avoiding human suffering? To the right to know eternal spiritual laws that
govern the human mind? Or, what may be called, his ‘right to spirituality’?
The Gita (8.3) calls the whole field of spiritual practices
as adhyatma or ‘that which dwells in everybody’. In other words, to know the
workings of human mind, and training it to know the highest truths is the true
meanings of spirituality. And no one can have lasting happiness without knowing
the highest truth.
Source – Editorial of Vedanta Kesari Magazine April 2011
published by Chennai Ramakrishna Math.