What is Spirituality?
Maitreya: Yes, this is such an important question. So humanity has three levels….
Physical Level
The first level is called the physical level. People are working hard for earning money, eating food, taking care of family, and social life. This is called the physical level. Then somebody earns money, nice money, and has a family set up; then he’s feeling that something is missing.
Mental Level
That missing takes people to the mental level, where literature starts, art starts, movies, entertainment. Then your hunger is gone; then entertainment comes. You want to know knowledge and books and these things. When you are done with this—so much art, so many movies, so much entertainment, so many parties…
Spiritual Level
Then one day you say this mental satisfaction is not making you satisfied also. And then the third urge starts, and I want to call this third urge spirituality.
Awakening – The Fourth Level
But there’s a fourth level: what happened to the Buddha? He went—his life was so set, the physical level was so nice—then he went to parties, and day and night parties. His father arranged everything. Then he reached the third urge, and then he left home for that spirituality, and going six years not eating, doing sadhana and everything. One day he was done with this level also. Spirituality level is done also.
And that night at 3:00 a.m., he dropped this third level of humanity to his spirituality, and that was Awakening. After six years of sadhana, he ate one day, one kheer, and layed down.
So spirituality is this middle stage when the mind is not satisfying you, and you start to search for the truth. So this middle time, I want to call this spirituality, according to me.
Can I go Directly to Awakening?
Advait: So when you are sharing Buddha’s story, I have two questions. One is, if you have already told that the first layer is physical desires and everything, the second is mental desires, and the third is spiritual, when I know this journey, why can’t I jump directly to the last? Why can’t I? Why can’t I learn from Buddha and directly become like some people have done it?
Maitreya: Rare. Shankaracharya, Sri Krishna—they were so young and they jumped. But their past life has given them these experiences. You need to be bored with this level. Like you are saying, there’s a cup—you saying I don’t want to fill the water from the starting, I want to fill only the last layer. You can’t fill; you have to fill from down there.
The Urge for Spirituality
How much a country is rich, there is more urge for spirituality. The countries like Africa—there’s nothing like spirituality; they have magic and techniques but nothing like the urge of truth because they are at the physical level. How much this level of entertainment and party—how much this is going to grow the third spirituality? So we can say that this party is also a journey—a journey you need to be fed up with this mind and the celebration. I wrote a shayari:
Le chalo Rind ko Yaahoo ke paas,
Wo ab ishq se jakhmi nahi,
Ishq se ooba hua hai.
When you take Rind to Yaahoo,
It's because now he is not in pain of love
—he's bored of love.
So you have to be bored with everything, and then you can jump, and then you can see the worthlessness of that thing—like how much money you have in your account, you feel less love affair for rupees. So you are filling the level cup up, and then the third level opens—spiritual urge.
Spirituality is a Jump, or is it Gradual?
Advait: And one of the things that I learned from my journey and spending time in Utsav Sangha is I always thought that spirituality is a jump that can happen in a day; that one day I will be enlightened and all my problems will be solved—yeah, all my chaos will be solved. But as you are explaining this step by step, bucket by bucket, it has to happen slowly.
Maitreya: It has two things: one, yes, it will solve in one day, one second it will solve. As you know “I am not this” – problem is solved.
The House on Fire
I want to tell one story. One person came from the office in the evening and he saw one home has caught fire. “Oh, one home is caught fire.” Someone says, “Oh, it’s your home!” “No, oh, please, please, please, please put water on it.” His father came and said, “Don’t worry. I had done insurance, no worry.” “Hmmm, then okay.” Then insurance person came that your last installment was not submitted, so you will not get— “No! Then put water more!”
Immediate Realization, Gradual Cultivation
So your suffering will end in one day as your “my” is gone. You are this mind, so suffering is yours. But as you realize this, you are not this mind. All problems will vanish. Wow! This is good news that when you listen or you realize, “I am not the mind,” but what you are saying gradually, you will cultivate. Then your mind and body are going to be aligned with this realization that you are not body and mind. You realize.
But after realizing, you realize but the body-mind does not realize anything, and that ego will come back. So you have to work again to cultivate what you have realized already. Yeah, this is the actual start from here. So two, three years you will take this, but your problem actually is solved that day when you realize.
Watch the whole Samvaad on YouTube
Small Disclaimer: This talk was recorded when Maitreya was previously known as Yaahoo Baba, and Advait was previously known as Visarjan.
