Spirituality is an enabler, not a destination!

Spirituality, metaphysics, religion, God - all these are mental models which are excellent means of restoring order in the otherwise entropy ridden consciousness of mankind.
Certainly the practices like meditation, yoga, prayers help to build human consciousness and evolve the culture to the next level of finesse.

But, the moment these mental models become ones destination, it is derogatory for the evolution of mankind. For if someone jails herself in a cave, and meditates throughout life, there is a problem to the culture. Certainly that human in the deep trance of religious ecstasy, is able to feel the pleasure of the trance. It is definitely very fulfilling. But the person does not leave any work of creativity for the culture and society. There is no work of art that is created for posteriority and a heritage left for humanity, that could have transcended the life of the person, which could have help humanity to achieve something beyond its present powers.

The works of the great masters - Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, and the likes are certainly creative and worth following. Mind you, for them God or Spirituality was not the final destination. They had a concrete domain grounded on sociology that they were addressing. Their purpose of existence was to evolve human culture to a level which is beyond the biological urges. In a sense these great masters aim was to bring about more such distinction between an animal and a human. They initiated a lateral evolution, orthogonally apart from the Darwinian biological evolution of mankind. I call it a cultural evolution.
See, their aim was social upliftment, and spirituality was used as an enabler. That was not the end by itself. What was the vision was something else - bringing order, maturity, compassion and understanding in a social context.

What is disturbing is that some use spirituality as an end to itself. This certainly leads to lethargy, and reasoning out ones own in-adequacy. The established religion, new age spirituality, all of these help humans to create psychological shields to keep them in their comfort zones, and totally stagnate cultural evolution.
Why I say this because most of these constructs do not help a person to confront the reality, and grow in the process. But rather they create un-real metaphysical parallel pseudo realities which unfortunately push the person away from what is real in the physical realm.

Well, I am not raising questions on the validity of the un-real metaphysical pseudo realities. I am not learned enough to raise questions on them. Only what I am saying is that even if they are real, they are not worth having end to themselves. If one is so much engrossed in translating the happenings of the real world to the mental model which she has inherited from a book, or someone else, she obviously will miss out many intricate details of every moment of her existence. Such mental models work as a bias shield which tend to misguide a person from what is happening around in real. It is so very important to focus on the outside world and the work at hand, and not get diverted into any such parallel translation of the realities. Life has to be made simple, and as is. Only then one can divert ones psychic energy to its entirety to something worth pursuing.

My life is not metaphysics. I have to earn my bread and butter, commute to office, face the boss, slog in deadlines, pursue my hobbies and ambitions etc. All these give me the kick for my existence. Spending more time in metaphysical model making to explain one thing or the other, I lose out time to really devote in things which creates meaning for myself - may be my work, my hobby, my ambition, my goals, etc.
Having said that I agree that an understanding of spirituality, and oneness of consciousness, the aspect of divine presence, help in tackling the real world challenges more smartly.

But at the same time, I would reject the labeling of the real world events as "illusions" and "Maya". How can something as real as a poetry well written, a painting well done, an act of kindness, a heart break, or a promotion, or a sexual ecstasy, etc be labeled as "cosmic dance" and "illusion". It is like blinding ones eye to the real world, and create a pseudo reality which is designed to suit ones ego.

Being alive in this world, one has to abide by the realities of this world. One has to carry out ones roles and responsibilities, and be like another ordinary human being.
Being even a God, in this life is an opportunity wasted. Life is a priceless opportunity to experience what it feels like human. The effort of being a God, having spirituality as a destination is an major opportunity wasted.

I would prefer enjoying the food, nature, the flora and fauna, the human relationships, the complexities of the domain of my pursuit, and leaving works of novelty in the domain, for the culture to evolve, rather than spending hours meditation on a mental model, imprisoning myself in a cave!
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