What is the relationship between spirituality and success?
To know the Soul which is completely free from karma, and walk towards it is Spirituality. And worldly success is the fruit of karma and failure too is a fruit of karma.
Our merit karmas yield positive results like success, satisfying relationships, good health, comfort, peace and happiness in life. And on the other side, demerit karmas yield negative results like failures, negativity or worldly obstacles faced in life.
Generally, success follows failure and failure follows success. But when we follow spirituality, we actually stop binding karma, as a result of which we attain freedom from the cycle of success and failure.
We bind karma because we believe that, ‘I am John (please insert your name here) and I am the doer.’ However, these are wrong beliefs, since we are really a pure Soul. We realize this fact only when we attain Self-Realization. And Self-Realization can be easily and effortlessly attained through the grace of Akram Gnani, the Enlightened One!!! For details, we can go to https://www.dadabhagwan.org/
Through the spiritual science of Akram Vignan, we get the knowledge of two fundamental things:
• who am I? and• who is governing this world?
Once we get this knowledge, it solves all the worldly problems and we get free from all worldly unhappiness.Spirituality and Success - Do you need to choose one over the other?
As explained above, success is not in our hands. And no matter how big a success we meet, it is finally temporary only. Over and above, success makes us fragile, fearful and suspicious, and all the time we remain busy thinking about what do I do in order to achieve success in life.
The Enlightened One explains:
Nobody is independent to do anything. There are so many circumstances; when they get together, things happen!
When it rains, who is there in the sky making water? It is all natural. It is scientific circumstantial evidences. Same way, in our life also, only circumstances come together and things happen. And as a Soul, you are just an observer of all of that. But you do not remain in the awareness of ‘I am a Soul.’
You become John and you think that ‘I did it’. John was one of the circumstance to do anything. For example, make a cup of tea. Other things are also there to help the work. So it’s only circumstances (for any success to happen) and Soul (the end goal of spirituality) is out of the circumstances.
Since you are in ignorance of ‘I am John, I am doing.’, instead of the Soul, you become the doer, “I am John, I did it.”
And once you become the doer, you have to be the sufferer. Action and reaction are equal and opposite. When you have a belief, “I did”, that is a wrong belief. And that wrong belief made the action. Now, reaction will come. Reaction could come as, “Oh John, you did a very good job.” So you will be happy. Or someone will say, “Oh you spoilt the job.” Then you will feel bad. You will suffer in the form of unhappiness. Happiness or unhappiness is bound to come in reaction of the action.
When you are a Soul, you just observe all the circumstances. You see, ‘oh, mind is functioning right now, intellect took this decision, ego and jealousy has arisen. You will be aware of all of this and at the same time you are aware that this is all in John and not in me. You feel the separation and you experience total bliss inside.
When you become the doer, tension is on your head. But really, circumstances are the doer. So you are free. ‘I am not the doer, whether it results in success or not, and thus you remain tension-free.
You do your job; the work cannot be stopped or avoided. The work will happen. But previously you believed, ‘I am doing.’ Now, after Self-Realization, you realize that ‘This all happens by the circumstances and John is one of the circumstances.’ Since there is no new action, there will not come any new reaction. Whatever job John is seen doing is a result of the past karma. He had made intentions in the past; therefore, this job has come for John to do. John does it and the task is achieved.
You just remain a spectator, like you are seeing a movie. It is like watching the movie of John - sometimes there is tragedy, sometimes there is joy and fun. Similarly, sometimes there is success, sometimes there is great failure!
Thus, as far as success in worldly life is concerned, let us leave it to our past karma. And from now on, we will choose spirituality over everything else in the world for it is permanent and it yields eternal bliss! Hence, let’s intend being successful in our real life i.e. in the realm of our real Self, the Soul; for which we will follow Gnani and his enlightening words!
Ambalal M. Patel was a civil contractor by profession. In June 1958, spontaneous Self-Realization occurred within Ambalal M. Patel. From this point on, Ambalal became a Gnani Purush, and the Lord that manifest within him became known as Dada Bhagwan. A Gnani Purush is One who has realized the Self and is able help others do the same. Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan used to go from town to town and country-to-country to give satsang (spiritual discourse) and impart the knowledge of the Self, as well as knowledge of harmonious worldly interactions to everyone who came to meet him. This spiritual science, known as Akram Vignan, is the step-less path to Self-realization.