It’s a known fact that religion is deeply rooted in man and from time immemorial it has beenadominating factor in man and his ways of thinking and behaviour. In its earliest stage, every religion has inner strength of morals and spirituality, its followers have more genuine devotion, sincerity, simplicity and renunciation of creature comforts. They have inner power to face heavy odds without giving up their principles and values. But, as time passes and the number of followers increases and the community passes through some fire tests, it begins to give up certain morals and principles for certain mundane considerations because its inner strength of Tyaag, Tapasya, and Seva weakens a bit. So, from its earliest stage that was spiritually powerful and had practice of meditation and spiritual experiences as its backbone, it now comes down to the next stage.

 

This naturally happens and has been happening with every religion, as we know them today, during the last 2500 years or so. So, the utmost degeneration of moral and spiritual values, that is quite visible today, is because all religions, without a single exception, are now at the end of their Iron Age. Every religion has become more a faith today than practice of meditation, self-abnegation and purity of mind, word and deed. It is more a set of rituals and less a practice of withdrawal from the sense-organs and body. As a result of this, the followers or the disciples lose the power of self-control, mental concentration, inner silence and tolerance. They also have very little power to obey faithfully the commandments of their founders and to maintain purity of mind, speech and action. Again and again they wish and resolve that they will give up anger, hatred, ego, etc., but again and again they fail, defeated by Maya or satanic forces. They come to believe that, as long as their spirit is in human flesh, it will be subject to temptations.

 

They think that only the merciful, or the founder of their respective religion can, by His grace, extricate them out from the wired web of Maya.Adeep reflection on this will lead us to the conclusion that though Almighty, or whosoever else, will guide us and help us, we, on our part also, will have to make sincere efforts, for that will determine our future as distinguished from others and, in our own efforts, would we feel great joy of our achievement. The effort will have to be for spiritual empowerment because it is our moral and spiritual weakness, as has been explained earlier, that has resulted in our present predicament. If we were to put it briefly, spiritual power comes from, and in the form of, five main achievements—purity and divine virtues, spiritual meditation based on soul-consciousness, tyaga –vairaga, unconditional service (seva) and good wishes for all and surrender self to Supreme and lead life as HIS instrument or as a trustee. Purity and divinity are the essence of spirituality, as they enable the soul to stabilise its original nature and stature. Purity comes when one realises fully the consequences of sinful actions and tendencies such as anger, hatred, arrogance, etc., observes self-restraint and inculcation of divine qualities as against each vice, avoids bad company and bad reading or visual material and eats sattvic food.

 

Spiritual Meditation gives one the experience of withdrawal from the body, peace and bliss and these, naturally, make the foundations and the edifice of purity and divine qualities strong. It is through Meditation that one's spiritual battery is charged and one gets guidance and help from Almighty. Meditation also builds the spirit of renunciation, dispassion, etc., and creates and sustains the attitude of good wishes and service. Similarly, the spirit of service enables one to get the blessings of all. Now, to achieve all these, one has to make little efforts to understand the true knowledge, inculcate divine qualities and vicelessness and practise soulconsciousness and meditation, have good wishes for all and do seva through mind, speech and action and then rest will be done by the Merciful Almighty. It’s not that difficult as it sounds to be, nor does it take long to experience the self and supreme if one sincerely practises what He has revealed and asked us to practise.