Spirituality is the intimacy of the immediate, not the blaze of the beyond || Acharya Prashant(2016)

Acharya Prashant: So, here we are, sitting in a spiritual city. Everything here, the whole context is spiritual. Some of us are not from India, and they have come here for spiritual reasons.

So, what is Spirituality?

There is that which is visible, which appears substantial, is perceptible – we call that as the material. And then we use the word ‘spirit’. If there is a need to have a separate word, surely spirit can be nothing, just nothing what material is. Otherwise, another form of the word ‘material’ would have sufficed. Or another form may not even have been needed. So, when we say ‘Spiritual’ or ‘spirit’, by definition, it can have no elements of that which is sensory, sensual, mental, material, carrying a name or form or that which we call as existence. The Spiritual can be none of these. If we can put our finger on it, it is material. If we can hear it, it is again material. If we can touch it, lift it, keep it in our pocket, wear it or even think of it, it is material.

What is material? That which we see, that which forms our universe, that which is space-time; that is material. Then, by definition, the spiritual has to be beyond space-time. That’s a nice point we have come to. Whatever then is in space, is spatial cannot be really spiritual. If that be so, then would it be fair to call a place as spiritual? A place is surely a geographical location, space. It is really prudent to say that a particular temple, a particular thing, is spiritual? It is important to enquire about this because several of us take great pains and cover large distances to come to spiritual places.

My question is –