post # 19 for reference:
The effects of some types of addiction - drugs, smoking, alcohol - are visible to those near and dear, while the addiction to spirituality may not be so obvious. But it is quite dangerous nevertheless. It is also wrong to say that we are never addicted. In fact we are all addicted to one thing or the other. It may be even "addictive behaviour not to get addicted to anything" ! Every addiction has its effects; we only need to understand the consequenses and indulge moderately.
If addiction to spirituality is not obvious, how some people are able to find/identify it and comment about it? Any special detecting ability needed for this? Where/how do we get it?
When they say it is dangerous, it needs elaboration. What is the danger which is not there in other addictions and is special to this "addiction" that makes it "dangerous"?
If "the behaviour not to get addicted to anything" can be called an addiction by playing with words, shall we call our life itself an addiction? The question that would beg an answer then would be this:
If normal life (normal in the sense in which it is universally understood) can be an addiction what would be an addiction free life? Or is it that addiction is always good. More of it the more good it is for a full life--Is it?
How far can one go in indulgence to keep it within the "moderate" level? Would it not be like a "coitus interruptus" then? If indulgence is for pleasure, indulgence without the fruits of pleasure is just a waste of time and effort. Is it not so?
Answers please.
If we were to take the case of spirituality, it means many things, different and similar, to different people. The end result may also be different. But broadly it conditions people to lean on something that is not rational. Something that is illogical. When human beings can invest their mind into something ridiculous such as "God", "Heaven", "Saayujyam", "Karma", "Punyam/papam", "Maya" etc., it is indicative of the degeneration of the mind. This leads them to inane conclusions. Believe me - even ordinary family life would be affected by such religious absurdities. It takes a very heavy toll on the mind. As such, it is the first addiction that should be wiped out.
Love is irrational and illogical. But human beings can indulge in it endlessly. Hundreds of films are made and exhibited and millions view them wasting money and time. It is different to different people and similar in some aspects to different people. Is it not so? And human minds invest a lot--in fact even their career and lives in that like the killer of Swathi-- in that and go mad over it. So a world free of love will be really heaven--conclusion. But is it true?
When we grapple with so many imponderable, mysterious, beyond- the- knowledge- horizon, deeply intertwined with out daily lives here, baffling phenomena, we try to measure them up with our known but obviously inadequate scales and units of measurement. It is just to exchange ideas and thought processes among similarly equiped minds. So "God, Heaven, Saayujyam, Karma, Punyam/Papam, Maya "etc., are all tentative and linguistic tools/terms used to exchange ideas. No one knows what God or Heaven looks like. Those who claim to have attained saayujyam never have come back here to tell us what the experience was like. Even if they tell we may not be able to relate to it. Punyam/papam are like the bitcoins we never see as they never exist physically any where. Our equipments can only perceive an external object if it has a physical existence. The rest are all just ideas and are abstract.
It need not lead to the conclusion that it is a degenerating mind which perceives all these bitcoins. On the contrary as the individual mind travels along the spiritual path crossing mile stones, and grasps difficult abstract ideas with a logic of their own, it gets enough brownie points that makes it happy beyond words. And it is happiness for which we all live and strive24x7. LOL.
So let us be less judgmental and more open to exotic abstract ideas. We may also attain saayujyam. LOL.
