RE: Spiritual growth: a comment

[Guest guest]

Namaste.

 

I am new here and just a beginning seeker. I don't mean to be flippant but

the general answer of "yes" to most all of these questions will come quite

without great effort as we age.

I am so new that I don't even read Sanskrit but I do understand the concepts

below. Certainly, these attributes will come and grow within us as we

proactively strive to spiritual growth. But in some ways, just asking "am I

growing spiritually" smacks of some ego investment. If this is asked of some

teacher or guru, I could quite easily imagine him sending the aspirate back

into a cave for another few years.

All such personal answers can be supplied instantly anyway. I say don't

worry. It will come to all those on the path or not, only the degree will be

different.

 

Min

 

 

Gummuluru Murthy [gmurthy]

Thursday, June 12, 2003 7:41 PM

advaitin

Re: Re: Spiritual growth: a contribution

 

 

namaste.

 

I think we can devise ourselves some simple tests to know

whether we are growing spiritually. Some questions which we

can ask ourselves objectively:

 

1. Are we still at the mercy of the six great enemies kAma

(desire), krodha (anger), lobha (miserliness), moha (passion),

mada (pride), and mAtsarya (jealousy) ? Or, have we noticed

improvement in ourselves in tackling these wretched enemies ?

 

2. All these six great enemies have their root in desire. Have

our desires subsided ?

 

3. shamam, damam deal with control of our inner and outer sense

organs. Are our senses and particularly the manas (mind)

wandering off as before, or are we seeing a mind which is

much more tame ?

 

4. Is our ego keeping continuously rising its head at every

opportunity ? Here I mean by ego, not only the AtmAbhimAnam

(the meaning of ego in common english usage) but also the

ego, that I am the doer and I am the enjoyer concept. Has

that feeling subsided compared to previous years ?

 

5. Is there santuShTi (the correct translation of the word

santuShTi is internal contentment) in us ? Without that

internal contentment, we cannot elevate ourselves spiritually.

Do we have that santuShTi ?

 

6. Spiritual growth is increasing the purity of our heart so that

jnAnam can dawn on us without obstacles and settle in us.

A good indicator of the pure heart are the sat-guNA-s like

ahimsa (non-violence), satyam (truth), karuNa (compassion),

etc. Have we seen a positive increase in these sat-guNA-s in us?

 

7. Along with spiritual growth, there will be an increase in the

sAttwicity of the human. Have we seen this in ourselves ?

 

8. Another indicator of spiritual growth is the liking for

sat-sAngatyam. Although sat-sAngatyam can be interpreted

as company of the wise, it can also be seen as comfortable

with oneself [sat is existence nature of brahman, and

sAngatyam is being comfortable with that SELF]. Are we

comfortable with ourselves, or is our mind comfortable

with itself, without any fluctuations ?

 

 

We can see such simple tests as indicators of our spiritual

growth or otherwise. If we answer yes to most of those questions,

we can say that we are growing spiritually.

 

 

Regards

Gummuluru Murthy

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Discussion of Shankara's Advaita Vedanta Philosophy of nonseparablity of

Atman and Brahman.

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