Hindu Article-Spiritual experience

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Spiritual experience

 

CHENNAI: : It is often reiterated in the spiritual tradition that he

who turns to God has already been chosen by Him. The descent of

divine grace in the spiritual evolution of a bonded soul is a turning

point when devotion takes root and all worldly interests diminish.

The ardour for spiritual experience increases and with it starts the

slow process of cleansing of the impurities that are responsible for

its ignorance and bondage. The Saiva saint, Manikkavasagar, portrays

the process of purification of the soul in the Anubhogasuddhi section

of the Tiruvasagam. One may wonder why such a great saint whose soul

is already pure speaks of purification.

 

In his discourse, Sri T.V.Venkataraman said, such humility was a mark

of the total annihilation of ego but even a mystic who has

experienced God desired further refinement for experiencing the bliss

of spiritual union. The instruments of knowledge — the senses and the

mind— which are products of Maya, cannot understand that which is

beyond Maya (God). God is omniscient and the soul's knowledge is

limited and so to the soul, which is ready to experience Him, He

extends His helping hand in the form of His feet. The soul must then

take refuge in God.

 

The devotee understands his limitations and materiality when the

divine grace intercedes to help him and he surrenders to His

omniscience. Duality is then transcended and the finite merges into

the incandescent expanse of the infinite. As the soul is by nature

consciousness it is able to dissolve in the infinite consciousness.

The life of Manikkavasagar reveals that after the incident at

Tiruperundurai when God revealed Himself and made him His own, the

saint started craving for more and more spiritual experience; yet,

there were moments of self- reproof and doubt.

 

In a verse he bursts out, "I am a low cur and know not what I should

do; I but deserve to secure the very deserts of the liars who cannot

behold Your golden flower-feet; having witnessed and heard about the

true ones who remained unflawed by falsity and thus gained Your

fragrant flower-feet, I, the false one, abide here feeding and

clothing me." Saints, like Manikkavasagar, denounce themselves due to

their humility though they have realised God.

 

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