Tracing the roots of Sahaj Marg: History
"Spirituality is the science and the art of remembrance" -Chariji
It is the remembrance of our original home, from which we have come. We have become so focused on material life that we no longer remember that divine home. The soul is the traveller on its way back home. The journey is the life we adopt on the way home. It is life itself. The vehicle is the body in which the soul travels through life. Our spiritual goal is to achieve that original condition and the spiritual path is the way we travel to reach that goal.
According to Babuji Maharaj, “Spirituality really begins where religion ends.” Spirituality is easily identifiable with mysticism. The mystic or spiritual journey is an inner journey of the heart. One of the great tenets or principles of all religions has been that God resides in the heart of the human being. Spirituality focuses attention on the divine effulgence created by the presence of divinity in the heart. Spirituality is the need for an inner existence. (Why spirituality?)
Spirituality invokes no names, confers no attributes, demands no subservience to any artificially created gods of the human mind, and focuses our attention on the infinite, ultimate source of all beings, which is nameless, formless and attribute-less. This approach to the Ultimate can bring together people of all cultures and all religions. If widely practiced, spirituality is perhaps the most potent force for bringing about human integration.(When should spirituality start?).
"As a bird needs two wings to fly, so a human being needs the two wings of existence, the spiritual and the material, to lead a natural and harmonious life. If either is neglected for the other, such a life becomes unnatural and the result cannot be what we desire it to be. Spirituality provides the way to restore this balance within our self."
“Highest Bliss is located in one’s own Self.” - Mandukya Upanishad. Material life may be fulfilling to a certain extent, but it often leaves us with a feeling of emptiness, an indefinable lack of something, even if we do not know what. Most of us want joy, happiness and peace. Spirituality teaches us that real joy, happiness and peace come from within.
Spirituality brings lasting and meaningful change to our lives through inner transformation. As we change, the universe changes around us. With this change, there is a nurturing of the inner qualities of the heart, such as courage, hope, faith, wonder, compassion, tolerance, and most of all, love.