Spiritual Progress

SPIRITUAL PROGRESS

By Prof. Nisi Kanta Sanyal

The Jiva or individual soul is an infinitesimal particle of the spiritual potency of the Absolute Who is the possessor of all powers. The individual soul can attach himself to the plenary spiritual potency in order to have a place in the plane of service of the Absolute He may, in the alternative, seek to choose his function independently of the guidance of the plenary spiritual power. He is, however, so constituted that he cannot function at all except through the plenary power. When, therefore, he seeks to choose his function independently, he does so against his own nature. In order to be enabled to function at all on his own terms, he is endowed with a second nature in keeping with the requirements of this unnatural demand. This adventitious nature can be cultivated on the mundane plane where it is possible for the rebellious Jiva to indulge his unnatural appetite for independence against the power of Godhead, within certain very narrow limits. But, as a matter of fact, the rebellious soul is compelled to obey unconditionally the deluding phase of the plenary power which produces in him the false egoism that regards itself as having mastery over physical Nature.

If the deluded soul goes on indulging his appetite for worldly domination, he gradually losses all characteristics of his spiritual nature and approximates to the condition of insentience. This state of gradually increasing unspirituality is hailed by the deluded soul as the hall-mark of progress. The close thraldom of the deluding energy appears to him as the realisation of the state of complete freedom from the galling yoke of the Absolute. All arguments are wasted on the willing victim of such self-elected folly. It, therefore, becomes one of the kind duties of the true benefactors of all deluded souls to humour the irrational complacency of this abject condition of bondage to his lower nature in their attempts to effect the cure of this malady.

If the Truth is fully divulged to the unrepentant conditioned soul, it only serves to increase his aversion to Godhead. This is so because he allows himself to be wholly guided by the dictates of his lower nature. It is in this way that evil is born. Those who suppose that the Absolute is responsible for the miseries of the unconditioned state of the rebellious soul overlook the above considerations. The conditioned souls requires to be left in the state of delusion and thus reconciled to the conditions of penal servitude imposed upon him for his regeneration by his own reclaimed rational choice. The conditioned soul may not resent what his suppressed rational nature enables him to imagine to be the logical consequence of the abuse of his powers of initiative exercised in a fully independent manner. He feels that the mercy of Godhead provides him with a fair field and no favour for making or marring his own destiny. This tragedy cannot be interrupted by any form of mechanical intervention.

The enlightened soul understands and deplores the plight of conditioned souls without being able to render any directly real help. But the conditioned soul cannot be rescued from the clutches of the deluded energy without seeking the help of the plenary spiritual power. It is only when the repentant rebel sincerely seeks such help that it is possible for the enlightened soul to offer him the requisite help.

The progress of material civilization is no proof of spiritual advancement. Neither is it necessarily opposed to spiritual progress. Material civilization is brought about by the operations of the eclipsing potency of Godhead. The rebellious soul does not know this. He wrongly thinks that he is the maker of the material civilization. Nor has he direct access to the service of Godhead. The individual soul is not the possessor of power. He can make neither the material world nor the spiritual realm. He is an infinitesimal particle of the potency of God lying between the spiritual and the mundane--the border potency. The individual soul has to raise this if he wishes to function in accordance with his real nature. He can function in either realm only by the will of Godhead, which does not interfere with his freedom of choice. He is free to behave properly or improperly towards the entities of the realm in which he may be placed by the will of Godhead. Those worlds exist independently of him and are ruled independently of him by the will of the Absolute Autocrat. He may be incorporated or rejected by either phase of the divine energy according to the will of Godhead. He would be in his natural position in either realm if he behaves properly towards his environment.

But the mind of man is averse to this divine arrangement. He longs for domination and not for service. Such longing is against his own nature. But he is free to rebel against himself and to desire for self-mutilation. In proportion as this malady tends to increase in virulence, its victim retrogresses towards insentiency or self-destruction. By a device of the deluding energy this effect is not produced in the course of one lifetime. This prevents the offender from realising the gravity of his danger.