This is a question I am asked often since I am personally at a stage where I appear to be egocentric while talking about morality and spirituality...and it is a fact that I am egocentric since my practise is not as deep as the theoretical understanding I have due to my intellect and long standing love with eastern mysticism. I hope with time my practise gets deeper and I become more humble but till then lots of people are going to find me aggressive and egocentric which is sad because I will not be doing what I want to be doing and that is inspiring people to walk the path of spirituality. I guess I just have to keep up the practise and wait for the results.
My typical answer to the question is -->
It most definitely can 😆😆 and it is a very common conversation we have among meditators...but that is an initial stage...in Sikkim I was volunteering with this old lady and only after 5 days I realised that the ashram was her property and she had built the entire place with her own retirement money but she was so humble just working like any other volunteer.
I felt so small because till then i was inflating my ego saying look at me I am being so selfless...so yes initially we carry the same patterns of indulgence into our spiritual path but with deepening of practise one becomes more and more humble...high level practitioners will always look at everyone with the same compassion and not judge someone who is totally busy in materialistic pursuits.
But the aversion towards mainstream indulgent lifestyle propagated by the society is important, this I have also read being mentioned in Tibetian Buddhist literature...once the practise becomes extremely deep then you just see through things and nothing effects you, but that takes time...
That is the reason why morality is important, not indulging in loose talk and never using harsh words...initially one needs to consciously focus on these things...you slip criticise someone for living an ignorant life and then through meditation realise it was not correct to use harsh words and try to improve next time...
In yoga they say "Maya mahathagani hum jani", its a thin line, the battle is with your own mind but your mind knows everything about you and that is why you have to be constantly alert because the mind can easily fool you into believing you are doing the right thing when you are not.
It is a tough path...earning money and finding materialistic success is the easiest thing in the world all you need is a desire for money...I could be earning 200K sitting comfortably in a swanky corporate office but it's just too damn boring...I need some challenge which does justice to the intelligence I have and the human I am and the self I am trying to dissolve.
My typical answer to the question is -->
It most definitely can 😆😆 and it is a very common conversation we have among meditators...but that is an initial stage...in Sikkim I was volunteering with this old lady and only after 5 days I realised that the ashram was her property and she had built the entire place with her own retirement money but she was so humble just working like any other volunteer.
I felt so small because till then i was inflating my ego saying look at me I am being so selfless...so yes initially we carry the same patterns of indulgence into our spiritual path but with deepening of practise one becomes more and more humble...high level practitioners will always look at everyone with the same compassion and not judge someone who is totally busy in materialistic pursuits.
But the aversion towards mainstream indulgent lifestyle propagated by the society is important, this I have also read being mentioned in Tibetian Buddhist literature...once the practise becomes extremely deep then you just see through things and nothing effects you, but that takes time...
That is the reason why morality is important, not indulging in loose talk and never using harsh words...initially one needs to consciously focus on these things...you slip criticise someone for living an ignorant life and then through meditation realise it was not correct to use harsh words and try to improve next time...
In yoga they say "Maya mahathagani hum jani", its a thin line, the battle is with your own mind but your mind knows everything about you and that is why you have to be constantly alert because the mind can easily fool you into believing you are doing the right thing when you are not.
It is a tough path...earning money and finding materialistic success is the easiest thing in the world all you need is a desire for money...I could be earning 200K sitting comfortably in a swanky corporate office but it's just too damn boring...I need some challenge which does justice to the intelligence I have and the human I am and the self I am trying to dissolve.
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