Spirituality and pursuit of harmony

Often, spiritual seekers have a strong inclination to bring harmony. Harmony appears to be a synonym of spirituality. However, if we analyze closely, the distinction between the two becomes clearer. Harmony operates in the world of form, while spirituality is about the realization of the temporariness of all the forms.

Most of us would have read the book "Man's Search for Meaning" by Victor Frankl. He was caught in the Nazi concentration camp and he has written his experiences during the camp. After getting released from the camp, he became a psychologist and designed a technique called Logotherapy to treat patients undergoing depression. A reading of the book helps us understand why some could survive the inhumane tortures of the camps while some collapsed. 

I feel that the crucial factor is the understanding of the nature of all the material forms in our lives. The material form includes not only the physical objects such as land, property, furniture, etc but also the intangibles such as our relationships, friendships, positions, knowledge, etc. Most of us are fixated on one or the other tangible or intangible almost the whole of our lives. There are seekers of wealth called businessmen, seekers of knowledge called scientists, seekers of positions called bureaucrats, seekers of power called politicians, seekers of influence called Gurus, and so on. There are few who are not seeking anything in particular and rather enjoying in bits and pieces all of these in smaller doses like an ordinary human being. 

All these tangible and intangible possessions and seeking have one common factor. The more we seek them the more we get fixated on them. Each fixation has a consequence. The more we enjoy food, the more we get fixated on seeking tasty food which reflects in the form of obesity. The more we enjoy wealth, the more time we spend to earn money which results in the deterioration of the health. Further, maintenance of the wealth takes away almost all the time that we could have used to explore the world. The more we get fixated on the power, the more fearful we become. We can not survive the feeling of being powerless having being fixated on power. If we become fixated on positions, retirement becomes a pain point. If we get fixated on relationships, we start dancing to the tune of their desires and wishlists. The moment we see them unhappy, we become sad.

Spirituality is not about preferring one of these tangible or intangible material seeking or possession over the others. Rather spirituality is all about realizing the temporariness of all these material tangibles and intangibles. It's about living life with freedom. Some of the seekers, including myself, often develop this illusion that spirituality is about harmony. We need to remind ourselves that harmony also operates in the world of these tangible and intangible possessions. Since the entire material world is temporary, harmony is also a temporary phenomenon. 

The only measure of spiritual growth can be the percentage of time we are rested in that oneness. The moment we get fixated on any of the seeking of the material world, we move away from the oneness. We start operating in a world of divisions: good and bad, right and wrong, desirable and undesirable. So long as we operate in the material world with an underlying awareness of the temporariness of all the tangible and intangible phenomena, we remain connected to the spirit and do not get trapped in this world. The moment that awareness is gone, we are trapped. So, the key for any spiritual seeker is that awareness of the reality. Even if that awareness is lost for some time, we need not get disturbed. We just need to sit in meditation and regain that awareness. That's a continuous process.