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Spiritual Insight: Not easy to assess people with this gift
Many times an average individual is confused while assessing people with spiritual insight; people with genuine spiritual potencies that set them apart from him. In this piece, we shall discuss the nuances of spiritual insight in relation to spiritual experiences, hunches, abilities, realizations, etc which trigger confusion among the common folk in categorizing such gifted individuals.
This article is not an attempt to downplay an average individual or promote the spiritual capabilities of certain types of people. It is wholly based on understanding Vedic Scriptures in the proper light and some years of concentrated spiritual practice.
It may not be entirely incorrect to bucket this piece as an outcome of sheer grace.
What is Spiritual Insight?
Spiritual insight is a result of realization. Realization transcends spiritual understanding, hunches, intuition, or even spiritual capabilities of being able to predict the future, to be able to read people, to affect and effect outcomes within the material world and so on.
When spiritual realization happens, insight into the nature of things, is born. This insight transcends all spiritual potencies. This insight is the ability to “see” things as they are without distortion or desire.
This “seeing” represents higher life; that transcends all greed and expectations out of this material world of names and forms. A person with spiritual insight, according to Vedic scriptures, is one with the highest attainment, who cannot be compared with other people who seem to demonstrate exceptional powers or “other-worldly” capabilities.
Spiritual Insight: A blessed seer who looks beyond the apparent
Thus the “seer” or the person with immaculate spiritual insight is a “sage”, who does not expect, who does not hope, who does not will and one who does not affect or effect anything of “this world”.
Only such a person can be a true sage. Such a person does not find the need to influence anything around him or even pray. He is free in the truest sense of the word. He has gone beyond enlightenment and has attained the source of all creation. This is the position of the seer, the sage, the perfected one.
Spiritual Insight: The confusion among common men
Now when people categorize “seers” in their own minds, they create a whole lot of confusion resulting from their heavily opinionated and incorrect understanding.
Many would argue that someone has a deep spiritual experience and has discovered many powers within oneself, which one is able to demonstrate. Does that not qualify as “having” spiritual understanding and insight?. The answer is “Not exactly”.
It is important to understand that spiritual insight is attained only through grace, grace attained from the Absolute. Only when such grace is conferred on the person, can that person truly “see”. Then what about spiritual experiences, one may ask. To this we shall scientifically understand the experiences.
Spiritual Insight: The Veil of three types of Maya
To understand this, we need to understand a little bit about what Vedic scriptures say. The Absolute is said to have three expressions of power. They are “Jiva Maya”, “Yoga Maya” and “Maha Maya”. The third one “Maha Maya” exists in a subtler plane of existence where the Devatas or personalities wielding the fundamental powers of this earth plane, exist, in a relative physical form. Hence we may not consider “Maha maya”.
The other two namely “Jiva Maya” and “Yog maya” are important to consider in the earth plane. People who exist as average people, normal people doing their normal routine and living their entire life by eating, mating, sleeping, and defending fall under this category.
However, people who have “spiritual” experiences, people who have some extraordinary capabilities, beyond the physical, are people who are relatively blessed.
Spiritual Insight: The Journey Beyond the Physical
These are beings who have consciously or unconsciously tapped into the aspect of “Yog maya” wherein the physical world and the subtle world open up revealing deep secrets of the other world.
Experiences of the spiritual kind usually happen to these individuals. But most of these individuals are just on a “new” journey beyond the physical.
They are yet, on a relative discovery mode and ignorance has not been removed in its entirety. Many so-called enlightened people also assuredly fall under this category.
Experiences of even the spiritual kind is an opening and entry but does not necessarily qualify someone as a seer. This is because there are several layers of ignorance that still lie deep in the hearts of such spiritually powerful people.
When the shield of “Yog maya” is removed in its entirety, only then can “seeing” happen.
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Spiritual Insight: Towards the Stage of Perfection
Spiritual insight is a stage of perfection that is attained only through Grace. Spiritual practice definitely readies an individual for higher attainment but does not guarantee spiritual perfection in the here and now.
However, when the surrender of the individual is ripe and perfected, Grace of the highest kind enters the heart of the individual and washes away the final traces of impurity from the heart of the “sage” in the making.
No experience can guarantee spiritual insight. It should be understood that spiritual experiences are also “impurities”, although, of a higher kind.
Spiritual Insight: It is beyond the ken of Spiritual Experiences
One may be happy to get these experiences, but one should not hold on to these experiences, because they can slow down progress and even shunt one’s spiritual growth because of the “spiritual ego” that can easily develop, as a result of spiritual practice as well as haunting spiritual experiences.
Spiritual Insight: Realization is the Doorway
The key to spiritual insight is realization alone and not spiritual experiences. Realization about the nature of the spirit is all important and is the preliminary step towards insight. On the other hand, spiritual experiences may not be even considered as major milestones.
However, they may serve well as inspiration to carry out spiritual practice or sadhana and nothing more.
When Spiritual Experiences lose their grip on the person inching toward the final goal of Absolute Realization, Insight of the inexplicable higher kind expresses itself through the Individual. The individual’s final traces of Me and mine, dissolve entirely without a trace, where even the vision of his deity, holds little value.
Only at this stage can it be said that perfection has been reached.
This is when the realization of absolute smallness and unexplained humility dawns on the sadhaka who has attained perfect spiritual insight.
Such an individual does not want to know anything, but yet knows through higher agencies or made known, by them.