The basic fundamental of atman could be comprehended well. Basically it seemed logical to understand and its explanation could not only fit in conceptually but also appeal philosophically. Amidst the debates and the discussions we generally have over spirituality we try to find out what is all this philosophy of life trying to make out of us. What is the ideal that we all have to reach to ?
Having comprehended the idea of atman, the life principle, the most important question that remains is, what next ? What is the next course of action ? We human beings are used to follow a set of instructions perfectly well, we believe in accepting assignments, performing tasks and accomplishing them. Everything is tangible and as long as it is tangible we don’t have any confusion or complaint what so ever. Now here is the concept of atman, well understood so what next ?
The next course of action may not be a physical action as we know it, but it may be adopting a thought process that will guide all your further actions. One needs to set a criterion which will justify each action thenceforth and literally each action however small or big, silly or serious. If one observes the quality of the peace of mind will now be directly proportional to the number of actions performed under the criterion. So the internal happiness will entirely depend on the actions that fall under the set criterion. The criteria set here absolutely depends upon each individual but also remember that one can never defy his seat of intelligence. everyone If this is clear lets go ahead.
Most of the population like us comprise of well meaning and good people and the society, its nurturing already sets a few criteria for our course of actions for living at large. Here we are not talking about judiciary laws which the citizens have to abide to, we are at a different level of thought.
At a personal level which is one level within the society each one of us have a little liberal set of criteria to abide to. Here the society has shrunk into all members of our family. At a level within this family of all the members is a level which comprises of say you and your life partner, at this level the criteria are still more liberal. Within this level emerges a level of self, the most pampered level. It is at this level that one has to be as critical of self as he is of others.
Unless you start doing or rather start living for someone else you will probably not comprehend the idea of abiding to a certain criterion. Because we take care of ourselves and are aware of what is affecting us to what extent we believe that minimising the damage is the correct way to act and a perfect self control for eg. I can stop smoking whenever I want to and i even demonstrate it satisfying myself..... so i don’t quit smoking and also don’t pay any heed to anyone telling me to do so. Now extrapolate this idea to spirituality ... since I judge that I am doing good in my pursuit i don’t listen to others and try to make my own meaning of what i am listening to. Now lets just think about this. ... Why will I not smoke in front of my son ... it is because I don’t want to be responsible for any bad influence on him. So I avoid smoking in his presence, if it comes to quitting smoking for him I am ready to do it, because I consider him to be a part me, my family, my circle of influence etc. etc. See I don’t quit for me but I do it for my son, so if there is someone else who is benefiting from your action then you are willing to do it .... but it seems we have forgotten about it. Now if you widen your circle of influence don’t you think that you will do a lot many things or perform lot many actions under a different criteria than what you have been doing so far. I think it because of this Hindu scriptures advocate a family, the element of sacrifice seeps in setting up different criteria for different members of the family.
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