Spirituality and Religiousness (1)
Spirituality and Religiousness (1)It is the continuation of my previous post spirituality and religiousness. Especially regarding some concerns raised by one of our friends (K) about indistinguishability of the spirituality and religiousness.
I was thinking and remembered a story in my mind. Again this situation we can see in many places, I am not generalising- But the point is that to show a contradiction only one example is sufficient.......again a concept from mathematics :-)
There is a story of
Saint Namadeva who was one of the spiritual persons as recognised by Indian people especially in Maharashtra and Punjab. Initially he used to be quite religious. In the sense he was a great devotee of Lord Shiva and without offering prasada (the food offered by devotees to the God) to Lord Shiva he never had his meals. In that sense he was quite orthodox about purity of physical body before going to temple of Lord Shiva to worship. Once he came to the temple to offer prasada and saw that an old man was lying down in the garbhagruha (interior part of the temple where the ShivaLinga is kept) having one of his legs kept on the ShivaLinga. The old man was looking very ill. But by seeing the scene Namdevagot angry and abused the old man for keeping his leg on the ShivaLinga. The old man uttered in a very low sound,"Will you please help me to keep it aside? as I have a terrible weakness". Namdeva immediately bowed forward and tried to put his leg aside. But he was surprised!! He saw another ShivaLinga appeared at that place where he kept the old man's leg. He thought that it was illusion. So he tried to keep the leg at different place. But the scene was amazing as he saw many ShivaLingas appeared in the garbhagruha wherever he kept the old man's leg. Namdeva was looking puzzled and by seeing his face the old man said, "Lord Shiva is everywhere on this earth." Namdeva understood what the old man wanted to emphasis and bowed down to the old man's feet. Thus Namdeva met his Guru and got spiritual knowledge from him. Later after some years when he was walking through the desert of the river Chandrabhaga while returning with the secred ganga water in a kamdal from Kashi saw a donky lying in the desert at noon and appeared to be dying out of sever thurst. People were just looking at that donky and passing away. Namdeva, who was changed after so many years, went nearer to the donky and offered it the secred ganga water in the kamandal which he brought all the way from Kashi and saved the life of the donky.Now this is an example of a person who was only religious before meeting his Guru and afterwards developed the spirituality so that he could feel the empathy for the donky dying in the desert at noon.
I think here we have got the example for the level 2 (initially) and then developed level 3.
but contradction to the above statement.
In fact this is a process of giving proof by contradiction.
Enjoy!!