Should software professionals practice spirituality
Recently, I got a query from one of my visitors on the spiritual stuffs I post on my website. Being navigated from Google to one of the technical articles, he was not happy to see spirituality related content in my articles. This may be due to the fact that he was a practicing Muslim. As the name of this website indicates, this site is about sharing my stuffs with the internet world. Since I follow entertainment, spirituality and technology, my stuffs revolves around these three domains. Leaving all such issues aside, my motive behind this article is to answer the query of my guest('athithi devo bhava') and also to explain why it is essential for all of us to practice spirituality.
Please note that most of the concepts mentioned in this article are taken from Hinduism but it should not be taken from the religious perspective as the same are applicable to whole mankind.
Every soul is born with two identities
Each one of us is born in this materialistic world to fulfill two absolute identities.
1) Spiritual identity
2) Social identity
Trapped under the illusions of wealth, pleasures and comforts, most of us forget our spiritual identity and focus completely on social identity. Even then, we don’t adhere to our social identity quite well. We tend to play with our friends, colleagues, neighbors etc just for the sake of fun, happiness and ecstasy. This makes it very important to first know our real social roles before moving onto the explanation of our spiritual roles.
Everyone is born to fulfill many social roles
Social identity of each individual can be further divided into many sub-identities. For example, one may work under the identity of a manager in his office but among his closed ones, the same person would have multiple identities like that of a friend, husband, father, son, uncle etc.
Multiple social identities of each soul
Additionally, you may create many fake identities. For example, many of us are not comfortable in revealing our exact identity to the outside world especially when interacting with the strangers in the social network like linked inn, facebook, google plus etc. Also some of the ruthless out there create fake identities to post hateful pages, increase post/website likes, malign/abuse others, encourage religious intolerance/violence and so on. This raises many important ethical questions:
1) Are you the true ‘you’ when you are in home and outside?
2) Are you the true ‘you’ with everyone including your relatives, neighbors and strangers?
3) Do you change your behavior/nature or show false attitude depending upon the person you are talking to?
4) Do you feel proud of yourself for not having the guts to face the real world (creating fake identity) in the way it is?
5) Are you among the ones who talks rosy in front but stab behind back for better appraisal, money, good future etc
6) Do you think that showing false behavior is going to last a positive impression among your colleagues, relatives and family?
7) Do you think that making your point through fake identities is going to create a better world for yourself and society?
Example of cheating through fake identities
This is how many souls live their social life but there are many others like me who don’t subscribe to such a way of living. I believe in contributing toward the better society instead of playing around with the emotions/feelings of strangers, abusing religions/politicians/media etc.
Social role of a software engineer
To explain our social identity more clearly, let me consider my example. My main social role in this materialistic birth is of a software engineer. After attaining adolescence, the main question that wobbled in my mind was
How can a software engineer contribute towards a better society?
There can be many answers. Some of them are
1) Donating money to social causes
2) Developing softwares/website for NGO’s and other non-profit institutions.
3) Creating a revolution on social issues/causes across all social websites.
And so on.
First approach was not suitable to me as I was born in a poor family and didn’t have enough funds to spend on any social causes. I refrain myself from second approach as there are no NGO’s that can be trusted. Many of the NGO’s have been linked to multiple scams and I am suspicious of the remaining NGO’s of looting off the wealth of innocent donors. This leaves me with the third approach.
Why did I choose spirituality?
Since religion is the major cause behind all social violence across all countries, especially in India which is a multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-lingual nation and also that I was born in a religious family, I thought of creating an awareness revolution on Hinduism. So, I created a website that strives for spreading awareness among the general youth on highly advanced scientific and social theories of Hinduism and also its message of peace, harmony and universal motherhood.
This was my approach of contributing to society and thus fulfilling my social identity. Following this approach of catering to my social identity, I am also on the path of fulfilling my other identity i.e spiritual identity.
How much I got from my contribution to society?
1) I haven’t gained anything considerable from my website. In fact, I went through a situation where I had a hard time finding a decent job, not because I was technically or professionally incompetent but because the employers doubted me as a communal person after seeing my articles on Hinduism. In search of honest employees, Employers are now strictly peeking through the profiles of potential candidates to check on their true nature, behavior, loyalty, skills, stability, attitude etc. Unbothered of such issues where the person/organization perceives me in a wrong way for my good deeds, I am determined to post my spiritual stuffs for the next 30-35 years.
2) I am not bothered by the amount of likes/shares/comments/tweets my articles generate over the social network. Many useless articles in popular media channels generates hundreds of likes and comments whereas many good articles in lesser known websites generate very less likes or no likes at all. There is nothing to be bothered of such a number game.
3) I just believe in creating a positive impression among visitors through my articles and feel happy about the good work I am doing for the development of a better society
How and why we forget our true purpose of life?
Having said about social identity, let us now move to our spiritual identity. As said before, we forget our spiritual identity under the illusion of materialistic pleasures and comforts, thus dwelling away from the real purpose of our life. We make ourselves so busy in earning money and other materialistic pleasures that we forget our divine connection with the god. We work day and night to earn money adhering to the notion that money can buy all joy and happiness. Even when we earn sufficient money to lead a happy life, our desire for money is never satisfied. Our consistent greed for money gives rise to evil, sorrow, jealousy and anger.
Greed for excessive money is harmful to your soul
Money can’t buy you happiness and peaceful life
What if you earn millions of dollars after years of handwork/troubles and then die in some accident? Your soul didn’t do any good deeds nor did your hard earned money served you any good. All your plans and dreams failed because of just one unexpected event.
So now, I would like to ask a question. Can money buy us all the happiness we need? Before I answer this question, let us see what the survey on happiness indicates?
Indians among world's happiest people: poll | Reuters
According to a survey, most of the rich businessmen’s around the world are not happy in their life whereas most of the poor sages/priests/nuns are happy and content with their life. This survey also said that poor Indians are happier in their life than rich Americans and britains. Many of the rich westerners especially Americans leave their high paying jobs and visit holy places of India in conquest of seeking happiness through spirituality.
Before I tell you how spirituality is the key to real happiness, let me explain the spiritual purpose of every soul born in this world.
What is your spiritual role?
Every living entity has a soul which is of transcendental nature and independent from matter. Our body is not conscious; it is the conscious soul that perceives the world surrounding him. According to bhagavad gita, “Soul never dies; it just migrates from one body to another.” Till the soul is present inside the body, body is conscious and perceives/reacts to the situation surrounding him. Goal of the soul inside our body is to attain spiritual perfection which is better known as Moksha or Nirvana (liberation from cycle of birth and death). This soul is not liberated till the spiritual identity inside us is invoked through yoga and meditation. Thus the real purpose of our spiritual identity (Soul) is to re-establish the relationship with the supreme divine soul (Parmatma).
When the soul is awaken, it merges with the soul of the supreme universal Brahman (God). One can awaken his soul only when he has perfected the art of making the mind stable and calm, unaffected by the desires of five sensory organs.
How spirituality helps us?
Spirituality helps in a great way in our day to day life. It makes your mind cool and calm enough to handle all troubles, disputes, responsibilities and worldly duties. Money can give you temporary happiness but spirituality gives you lifetime happiness because you learn to remain content irrespective of circumstances surrounding you. Even the corporate and business schools give bhagavad gita lessons to all their students/professionals. One of the favorite verses from bhagavad gita taught in corporate circles is “When you consider everything as your fate and concentrates only on your karma, neither happiness nor sorrow would affect you. Do you karma and don’t worry about the fruits of your karma”
Bhagavad gita lessons from some of the best management gurus
Why young generation is not interested in spirituality?
Most of the youngsters are not interested in spirituality because their mind is filled with desires of money, sexual pleasures and other materialistic comforts. It is only when they turn old and think about their past life, ever-increasing aspirations, fulfilled ambitions, millions of worthless money and lack of interest in sexual pleasures, they turn to spirituality because they feel of something spiritual missing in their life. This feeling comes after years of good or bad experiences filled with divine and unexpected events.
Hinduism way of living life
According to Hinduism, spiritual and social role of an individual changes as per the following four stages. These four stages define the actual way of living life.
Brahmacharya or bachelorhood (1 to 25 years): This is the stage of learning and growth. One should undertake spiritual lessons from a bonafide guru, build up his body, mind and senses to face the responsibilities of next stage.
Grihasthya or householder (25 to 50 years): One should marry and fulfill his household duties. Additionally, one should strive to earn artha i.e money, valor and honor following the paths of good karma (deeds) and dharma (righteousness). The karma (Cause effect law) we do in our current life will not only decide the destiny of our current life but also the fate of all our future births. By future birth, I mean Hindus believe in the reincarnation of soul until the soul undergo penance for the committed wrong sins after which the soul is eligible for moksha i.e liberation from repetitive cycle of birth and death.
Vanaprastha or forest life (50 to 75 years): This is the stage of gradual detachment from the materialistic world. One should hand over household duties to his/her sons/daughters and should spend more time in practicing austerities and making holy trips/pilgrimages.
Sanyasa or renunciation (75 to 100 years): This is the stage of complete renunciation from the materialistic world. One should go into seclusion mode, should do meditation in the forest to invoke our divine consciousness and then peacefully give up the body to attain either salvation or take birth in higher forms of life.
Four stages of life in serial order from left to bottom
More on Hinduism way of living life can be found in below article
What is hinduism-An overview
All soul is divine and seeks spiritual divinity
All of us are born here for a purpose. As explained above, real purpose of our life is to fulfill the social and spiritual roles for which we were born on earth. Most of us stick to only one role where the director/boss/superior assigns a role and we accept that role diligently and stay immersed 24*7 in this role for the sake of some money, good future and materialistic pleasures. As a result, devoid of any spiritual deeds, our life is incomplete due to which our soul remains trapped in the ever going cycle of birth and death. Thus, to liberate yourself from the continuous cycle of birth and death, one must strive to practice spirituality in every modes of life.
Conclusion
Main goal of our life is to attain spiritual perfection and enlightenment. Soul must never depart without gaining any spiritual karma. Hinduism advocates a balance life of spirituality and social hardship. Our life should be dedicated towards the enlightenment of the soul and development of the society. Therefore, everyone in this world including software engineers have the divine right to seek and practice spirituality in their social life. Now that I have explained social and spiritual identities that applies to all of us, I expect my visitors to respect my religious beliefs and continue to stand on my side towards the path of spiritual enlightenment.
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