Ohh… you just happened to land here. I would say you were meant to arrive here. And if you stay with me till the end, you will not look at yourself in quite the same way again.
Today I want to clear a confusion that is rarely addressed properly.
When we look at Indian spiritual traditions, everything seems different.
Different names. Different scriptures. Different practices. Different philosophies. Different technical words.
Over thousands of years, religion, mythology, rituals and social customs also became mixed with these teachings. Because of this, it became difficult to see what was actually being taught underneath all of it.
However, if we go underneath every tradition and look at its core philosophy, they are pointing towards the same truth.
They reached it through different paths.
They described it in different ways.
They used the language available to them from what they had investigated, experienced and realized.
So let us put the religious identity aside for a while and look at the philosophy itself.
Start with our ordinary experience.
I say:
I am this body.
I am this mind.
I am my thoughts.
I am my emotions.
I am my memories.
I am this personality.
I am a separate individual.
This feels completely natural because we have experienced ourselves this way from the beginning of our life.
But the spiritual traditions started questioning this very assumption.
Am I really only this?
Why do I suffer?
Why do I become attached?
Why do I fear losing things?
Why does the mind keep moving between what I want and what I do not want?
Why do I experience myself as separate from everything around me?
Now look at how different traditions approached these questions.
Samkhya says we have confused Purusha with Prakriti.
Purusha is the conscious principle.
Prakriti is everything that changes, including the body, senses, mind and mental activity.
The problem is not Prakriti.
The problem is identifying ourselves with what is constantly changing.
When Purusha is clearly distinguished from Prakriti, that confusion ends.
The Yogic path takes this investigation into practice.
You work with the body.
You work with the breath.
You observe the senses.
You train attention.
You stabilize the mind.
You develop concentration.
You turn awareness inward.
You begin to observe how thoughts, desires, reactions and identification operate within you.
Yoga gives you a practical way to investigate what you normally accept without questioning.
Jain philosophy approaches the same human problem through karmic bondage.
The conscious being is bound by karma.
As that bondage is removed, consciousness becomes unobstructed.
The framework is different, but the movement is from bondage towards freedom.
Advaita Vedanta approaches the question through Brahman.
The reality underlying existence is one.
The individual appears separate because of ignorance.
When that ignorance is removed, the apparent separation between the individual and ultimate reality is understood differently.
The realization is not about creating something new.
It is about knowing what was already there but was not understood.
Buddhism takes another route.
Instead of assuming that there is a permanent individual self, it asks us to investigate the experience of this self itself.
Look at the body.
Look at sensations.
Look at thoughts.
Look at perceptions.
Look at mental formations.
Look at consciousness.
What exactly is this permanent “I” that we are constantly protecting and defending?
Through disciplined investigation, ignorance and attachment are examined at their root. When they come to an end, suffering comes to an end.
Different traditions.
Different explanations.
Different methods.
But the question underneath them remains:
What am I, what is consciousness, and what is the nature of the existence in which I am living?
This is why words such as Moksha, Nirvana, Kaivalya and Kevala should not simply be treated as different names for exactly the same technical state.
They belong to different systems.
But they all concern liberation from ignorance, bondage and suffering.
The common movement is clear.
We normally live through a limited understanding of ourselves.
Because of that limited understanding, we identify with changing things.
Identification creates attachment.
Attachment creates fear, desire and suffering.
The spiritual path begins when this identification is questioned.
Then comes disciplined investigation.
Observation.
Meditation.
Self inquiry.
Detachment.
Knowledge.
Transformation.
This is also where Yoga becomes especially important.
Yoga gives the seeker a method to work directly with the human system.
The body becomes part of the investigation.
The breath becomes part of the investigation.
The senses become part of the investigation.
The mind becomes part of the investigation.
Attention becomes part of the investigation.
You are not just reading about consciousness.
You are observing your own experience.
You are finding out how your own mind creates attachment, reaction, fear, desire and the sense of individuality.
And with deeper practice, you begin to question the identity you have always taken for granted.
This is why I do not want spirituality to remain trapped inside blind belief.
If a teaching is about knowing reality, then it should invite investigation.
If a practice is supposed to transform you, that transformation should become visible in your own life.
You should not have to pretend something happened because a book says it happened.
You should not have to accept every story because someone calls it spiritual.
And you should not surrender your intelligence simply because someone calls himself a guru.
The traditions deserve more respect than that.
They deserve to be studied for what they were actually trying to investigate.
Think about martial arts.
One school may practise Monkey style.
Another may practise Tiger.
Another may practise Snake.
Their movements are different.
Their techniques are different.
Their training is different.
But the style is the method.
It is not the fundamental purpose.
In the same way, Indian spiritual traditions developed different methods and philosophical languages.
Their paths are different.
Their technical descriptions are different.
Their explanations are different.
But underneath those differences, they are directing the seeker towards an investigation of consciousness, existence, identity, ignorance and liberation.
That is the part I want people to understand.
Not which ritual is superior.
Not which guru is more powerful.
Not which mythology should be believed.
Not which tradition should be followed blindly.
The real question is:
What did these people actually discover about consciousness and existence?
And what happens when a human being follows the discipline seriously enough to discover it for himself?
This is where spirituality becomes real.
Not when you collect more spiritual words.
Not when you create another identity called “spiritual”.
It becomes real when your understanding of yourself changes.
When ignorance begins to disappear.
When attachment begins to lose its grip.
When you start seeing yourself and existence differently.
Different traditions gave different names to what they discovered.
They built different philosophical systems around it.
They developed different methods to reach it.
But if we look underneath all those differences, we find the same fundamental movement:
From ignorance towards knowledge.
From identification towards awareness.
From bondage towards freedom.
From the limited individual experience towards the realization of the deeper nature of consciousness and existence.
That is why I believe these traditions should not simply be believed or rejected.
They should be understood.
Their teachings should be studied, their methods should be practiced, and most importantly, what they point towards should be investigated within our own experience.
Because ultimately, no tradition can give you realization.
It can only show you a direction.
The realization has to become your own.
— TattvaGuru Saroj
Savitur Foundation