Ministries & Spirituality

From: Amit Goswami

I started writing this article on Oct 10, 2005. According to the Hindu Calendar this is a very auspicious day of pooja offering to the Goddess Durga, the divine mother. It reminded me of the spiritual culture that was India, a spiritual culture in which I myself grew up. But now India is undergoing deep changes in its socio-cultural fabric. Materialism is coming to India in a major way along with the highly touted economic growth. Can Indian spirituality survive this materialist affront let alone guide the rest of the world in its spiritual future?

My wife, Uma, and I for many years have taken groups of Westerners to spiritual journeys in India. And we have noticed changes, very serious changes in Indian spirituality during this period. When we started, there were many places of India where we could take our group to get a glimpse of what it means to live in a spiritual culture. The biggest change that we have seen in these years is that now there may be only two or three major places left in the entire sub-continent where such a glimpse is available. In most places, temples and ashrams notwithstanding, spirituality has been commercialized, quite unable to thwart the onslaught of tourism and vices of material affluence and global economics. From this perspective, the spiritual future of India, like that of the rest of the world, does not look very bright.

At first sight, it may also seem that we should blame everything on capitalism–American style, globalization and all that. But I submit this would be a short-sighted conclusion. I submit all that is taking place in India and in the West right now is a part of an evolutionary movement of consciousness–East-West integration.

Integrating East and West

In early last century, we would have seen the conflict of science and spirituality as one between West and East. The Western cultures ignored the spiritual and the Eastern cultures ignored the material–the domain of science. The poet Rudyard Kipling wrote:

East is East, and West is West

And the twain shall never meet.

And this was true then. West was already a scientific culture, but the Easterners stubbornly held on to their spiritual cultures and it seemed they would never budge. Of course, many people still believe that this is so. Alas! The East is now also rapidly giving way to a materialist culture.

From: Amit Goswami

Eastern spirituality fundamentally professes oneness of consciousness and spirituality was a way of life for Easterners. But in the Western old science, consciousness is assumed to be brain-based, to be individual by nature, and to be conditioned (via biological and socio-cultural evolution) to operate on the survival of the fittest kind of competitive individual mode.

But rapid change is under way. A brain-based consciousness conflicts in a major unsolvable manner with quantum physics. So science is undergoing a paradigm shift. In this new paradigm, the Eastern model of oneness of consciousness is found to be the right way to think about consciousness. Thus this paradigm is paving the way for an integration of science and spirituality, of modern West and the old East.

There is another subtle conflict between the Eastern and the Western approach to life. Easterners, by and large, consider spirituality as the goal of their lives. It is believed that the individual “soul” (a deeper level of conscious identity beyond the ego of one life) reincarnates many times. Only when the soul learns the secret of its spiritual being of oneness…



By: Jason Wilson

About the Author:

From: Amit Goswami

I started writing this article on Oct 10, 2005. According to the Hindu Calendar this is a very auspicious day of pooja offering to the Goddess Durga, the divine mother. It reminded me of the spiritual culture that was India, a spiritual culture in which I myself grew up. But now India is undergoing deep changes in its socio-cultural fabric. Materialism is coming to India in a major way along with the highly touted economic growth. Can Indian spirituality survive this materialist affront let alone guide the rest of the world in its spiritual future?

My wife, Uma, and I for many years have taken groups of Westerners to spiritual journeys in India. And we have noticed changes, very serious changes in Indian spirituality during this period. When we started, there were many places of India where we could take our group to get a glimpse of what it means to live in a spiritual culture. The biggest change that we have seen in these years is that now there may be only two or three major places left in the entire sub-continent where such a glimpse is available. In most places, temples and ashrams notwithstanding, spirituality has been commercialized, quite unable to thwart the onslaught of tourism and vices of material affluence and global economics. From this perspective, the spiritual future of India, like that of the rest of the world, does not look very bright.

At first sight, it may also seem that we should blame everything on capitalism–American style, globalization and all that. But I submit this would be a short-sighted conclusion. I submit all that is taking place in India and in the West right now is a part of an evolutionary movement of consciousness–East-West integration.

Integrating East and West

In early last century, we would have seen the conflict of science and spirituality as one between West and East. The Western cultures ignored the spiritual and the Eastern cultures ignored the material–the domain of science. The poet Rudyard Kipling wrote:

East is East, and West is West

And the twain shall never meet.

And this was true then. West was already a scientific culture, but the Easterners stubbornly held on to their spiritual cultures and it seemed they would never budge. Of course, many people still believe that this is so. Alas! The East is now also rapidly giving way to a materialist culture.

From: Amit Goswami

Eastern spirituality fundamentally professes oneness of consciousness and spirituality was a way of life for Easterners. But in the Western old science, consciousness is assumed to be brain-based, to be individual by nature, and to be conditioned (via biological and socio-cultural evolution) to operate on the survival of the fittest kind of competitive individual mode.

But rapid change is under way. A brain-based consciousness conflicts in a major unsolvable manner with quantum physics. So science is undergoing a paradigm shift. In this new paradigm, the Eastern model of oneness of consciousness is found to be the right way to think about consciousness. Thus this paradigm is paving the way for an integration of science and spirituality, of modern West and the old East.

There is another subtle conflict between the Eastern and the Western approach to life. Easterners, by and large, consider spirituality as the goal of their lives. It is believed that the individual “soul” (a deeper level of conscious identity beyond the ego of one life) reincarnates many times. Only when the soul learns the secret of its spiritual being of oneness…



By: Jason Wilson

About the Author:

Spirituality is a weapon; a human heart that has realized its own nature and cultivated his or her heart has a weapon that is at hand wherever he or she goes. What ever life throws at them they are safe; they know how to utilize the force of spiritually cultivated heart. Regardless of the spiritual path one has chosen in this journey, spiritual feelings in a human heart is a weapon it is universal, it is loving, it is compassionate it is kind and all the good morals, that a human being can possess.

Spiritual hearts are like a garden where by you can grow all the beautiful desired morals, spirituality is like water, which is offered to a lost thirsty person who is wondering in endless hot desert. It is like a pot of endless wealth which rids all poverty. It is like a mother who protects all her offspring’s. It is like a magical lamp where you get your souls, most inner desires fulfilled. Spiritual hearts are like a rose which puts out its eternally beautiful scented fragrance. Spirituality is like a lighthouse to bring in lost ships back to the shores of love and compassion.

Spirituality is like a wish fulfilling star. Spirituality is like weapon in your heart to conquer the enemy called doubts. Spirituality is like protecting armor to shield a human from suffering. It is a weapon to slice all kind s of attacks of wrong thoughts. It is like a gardeners hand which pulls out the weeds of arrogance. It is like a life buoy to grab when lost in stormy oceans. Spirituality is a temple of love which by everyone is welcomed and invited. Spirituality doesn’t give much importance of persons outside shell rather the inside where your spirit resides. Spirit which is within you is like a giant that wants to be awakened to swim to the shores of eternal love. Spirituality is like food for our souls, it nourishes all the good qualities we might obtain. Awakened heart is like a fruit on the tree of life. Spirituality is like a musical instrument which plays the tunes of heavenly melodies right here on earth. Spirituality is an axe which cuts the tree called doubt.

Spirituality is a weapon of choice for spiritual hearts all over the world. Spiritually minded hearts know the importance of spirituality. It unites everyone; it binds all living beings in unbreakable chain called love and respect. No doubt we are fortunate to have been given the gift of life, where we get to feel love, where we get to share our souls with others by caring for the welfare of others.

Every human being has the ability also option, to follow the path of spirituality. When we look at our history we come to realize all the spiritual masters of our history reminded us to place importance of spirituality. Time and time again all over the world throughout history there were those who brought forth teachings of highest order. There is no point to judge the path of fellow human friends. Because it doesn’t matter which road we take to climb the mountain of life, on top the view will be the same. And which ever teachings it may be that is brought before mankind, never in any ancient scriptures does it mention to wrong fellow human friends of other faiths or spiritual beliefs, (study carefully and you will realize this fact)

Spiritually cultivated hearts know the oneness of us humans, and they have a weapon at will, to call upon when ever life overwhelms them. Being spiritual is a need for many human beings to give meaning to the universe we find ourselves wondering about. In the kingdom called thinking where reason and logic interact, if they interact enough then this interaction gives birth to wisdom, and the wisdom will know to love and respect eternity.



By: tolga savas

About the Author: