There are always some questions for which nobody has answers. People then delve deeper into spirituality. By doing so, they not only get away from their stressful and cumbersome lives, they also begin a search for their real selves. With so many TV channels bombarding us with so many things, including motley of programmes on spirituality, it is a safe guess to take that there are still many people these days choosing the spiritual path.


During a recent discussion on importance of academic excellence, this very popular yoga guru was referred to as an example. What was said was that without proper academic qualifications, this guru was famous and made big by guiding people into proper health practices, normally by ways which would not have been otherwise possible. Some weeks after the same conversation, it was surprising to see the same guru holding a fast and then escaping, clad in women’s attire, for various political motives. He is just an example.


Thinking hard as an audience, it makes no sense to me why spiritualists and the gurus want to get involved in politics or for that matter anything outside their area of relevance.


Hearing elders around me talk, I have always been asked to see these spiritualists from a very bright side. They guide meek individuals into religious paths, very commonly referred to as divine. An individual for some unknown reasons is full of himself and these people help him weave his way out of self indulgence. Not a very religious and a spiritual person myself, this usually does not make sense to me. I guess religion, no matter which, guides an individual into being a good human himself and binds him with certain moral norms. It is really amazing to know that religion demands a person to be indifferent to conscience and all other emotions considered natural biologically. Moreover, this needs to be achieved with the help of some great spiritualists, who claim to be faultless themselves.


Not that I have met and talked to many spiritualists and religious healers, but I can still make sense out of what I see in my normal life. People are mostly attracted to finding ways to be closer to God. This desperation to godliness is what helps spiritualists exploit them. Not all spiritualists have good motives. Not all are experts at what they do. On the other hand, all may not be frauds.  And like always it is a matter of faith and reverence. But if you see from where I see, you will find none.


As far as I know, spiritualists are said to be divine themselves. Moreover, they need to be away from all temptations and the material world. Then why is it that they are tempted to be famous? Why is it that they refuse to live in a normal shack like their predecessors did? Most importantly, why do they speak their hearts out on national television, and not meditate somewhere alone in the cave of the Himalayas? The answer is very simple. They ain’t no saints!


Believing to be self-accomplished and unnecessarily confident in what they say and do, again they violate their own teachings. I remember being taken to one such event long back where this renowned lady was speaking all highs of her own leader. Nobody there even for once thought how unrequitedly she was talking about some third person most of us there did not know. Also, instead of doing what she was supposed to, she proved that she was not to a large extent what she should have become after all these years of preaching and practising what she herself had been saying.


It is indeed very difficult to recognise whom to believe and whom not to. Religion does till date has a huge impact on us, however, has that impact receded over time? We have found ways around religion. With each passing year, we evolve only to become more normal humans. Every instinct is natural. Why then should we find ways to become less humane by letting go off our natural reactions and emotions?  And if it is salvation and peace we are looking for, there are better ways. If these spiritualists themselves are not what they are supposed to be like, how can they guide us on the right track? This is where we need to let natural biology do the job, and react to each stimulus like we are supposed to. That does not, in any religion, count as sinful as long as it is ethical and moral.