A person's quest for spirituality starts simply with his visiting a temple. To facilitate the process of his spiritual growth, some temples require their devotees to adhere to a dress code. The temple walls are decorated with religious symbols and images. The 'puja' itself consists of singing of hymns, bhajans etc. followed by a 'parvachan' or a class on religion/spirituality; with 'Aarti' being the final offering to the gods.

There is a psychological reasoning behind all this. The dress code, all the temple decorations, the aroma of incense, the fresh flowers, the nicely dressed deities on the alter; are all meant to create an atmosphere conducive to a spiritual experience. They are the first step of a process meant to alter the state of one's mind, to bring it to a state where the internal turmoil subsides for a duration. The spiritual vibrations of the temple atmosphere lift the soul to a level where it becomes capable of connecting with the divinity. It essentially prepares the person for what he has come there for.

In our everyday existence, we hide our innermost feelings and wear a shield against any intruding thoughts. Every bit of information is thoroughly screened by our rational mind before it is accepted or rejected. But if we are to learn anything from a spiritual master, the sieve has to be temporarily put away. Subliminal thoughts have to penetrate the mind in their entirety, without being filtered or diluted in any way.

The second step in creating the proper state of mind is to remove the filter separating the ears from the brain, to give our defense mechanism a rest. This is done by singing bhajans and hymns. The mind, through this exercise gets into a voluntary receptive mode. It is then, that the brain can be programmed with the noble thoughts - be they to sing the glory of the Lord or ways to deal with our everyday problems in a conscientious manner. A spiritual master can be most successful in the healing process of a mind beset by the badgering of the trivialities of life; he can convey the scriptural philosophy on virtuous living, only to a receptive mind. And the mind is made most receptive when its guards are taken down, when it stops fighting the sensory signals coming in, when there are no obstructions between the sensory perceptions and memory cells.

The decoration of the temple with divine symbols and images, the incense, the flowers, enforcing a proper dress code, singing of the hymns and bhajans are all a prelude to the ultimate goal - to submit oneself to the reprogramming of ones brain with the doctrines of noble living.

The Vedas say, 'All intelligences awake with the morning.' "Being awake is not just being physically up and around but being mentally vigorous to celebrate another day of living " observed Thoreau, "The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred million to the poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?"

As we grow older, some of us get lost in the monotony of life. We tend to lose our zest for living. As Thoreau observed, "the morning ceases to be the most enjoyable season of the day". We are awakened not by our newly acquired force and aspirations from within but by some electronic gadgets. It is not the undulations of celestial music that wake us up but the prolonged chatter of a radio. And that is very sad; because it signals the decline of our excitement for life.

To quote Henry David again, "A person who is physically, mentally and spiritually awake in the morning and who keeps pace with the sun; for him the whole day is a perpetual morning. It does not matter what the clock says or what the people around him say, morning is when he is awake and there is dawn in him. And if he can keep the spirit of early morning with him throughout the day, then he has lived through, not a day but a long morning". One must be drunk with living and not ever let himself be resigned to life. If one finds oneself at a dead end, he should develop some new avenues for the release of his creative energies. It does not have to be a money making endeavor. One has to develop a state of mind in which he is alert and buoyant throughout the day and the whole day becomes one long morning.

"Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again". Keep the spirit of Goddess USHA alive in you.

Hindu religion is based not on believing a certain doctrine or dogma, but in realizing the Divine. It is based not merely on being loyal to a faith but on striving to become one with the infinite. And there is a definite progression that a seeker goes through. A beginner might need symbols or pictures to focus his attention, and to stop his mind from wandering while in prayers. But if he is earnest about his spiritual development, he would soon progress to a stage where he would not need any props for performing his sadhna to reach the infinite. In his quest for the eternal, he would advance from material worship to mental worship and then on to the highest stage where he can realize the divine.

One must not be content with accumulating scriptural knowledge. That is just the beginning of a long journey. The discovery of inwardness is the essential basis of spiritual life. The scriptures could point out the road but each man must travel it for himself. Reading about a past buddha's communion with God is not going to result in your communion. It can excite you and inspire you to have the same experience. But in the end you must travel alone. You must find your own salvation. "For thousands who talk, one can think; for thousands who think, perhaps one sees and understands". Use the talking and thinking stages as stepping stones to rise to the ultimate level of experiencing the Divine.

Those of us who lead outward lives without being touched to our inner depths, do not understand life itself. We believe that we do our duty to religion by accepting the letter of faith and making a token cash donation to the temple of our choice. This results in our spiritual dependence and forces us to accept what others say about the religious truth. But once the individual in his freedom of spirit pursues truth and builds up a center in himself, he has enough strength and stability to deal with all that happens to him. He has the ability to fight back and retain his peace even when he is faced with adverse conditions. Liberation comes by experiencing the truth on your own. It comes not from accumulation of information, but from inner transformation.

Gautama Buddha said to his disciples, "Be a light unto yourself." Find the truth, build your own light and let it shine your path. Remember, the goal is not to find out how others attained bliss but to use that knowledge to attain it for yourself.

Buddhism has at its core a psychology little known to the adherents but quite familiar to the Buddhist monks. 'Abhidharma' or the 'ultimate doctrine' has as its basis one of the most systematic psychologies of the world and elaborates Gautama Buddha's penetrating insights into human nature. This is the practical psychology that devotees apply to discipline their minds and hearts in order to attain a more ideal state of being.

According to Abhidharma, the human personality is like a river that keeps a constant form, seemingly a single identity, though not a single drop is the same as a moment ago. Each successive moment of our awareness is shaped by the previous moment, and will in turn determine the following moment. Each mental state is composed of a set of values, called mental factors, that combine to define that mental state. One's mental state at any given moment is a function of the biological and situational influences, in addition to a carryover from the preceding psychological moment.

The mental factors could be healthy ones or unhealthy ones. Good mental health depends on our ability to plant healthy factors in our mind so that they can inhibit and suppress unhealthy factors. The central healthy factor is 'Insight' which implies an ability to 'clearly perceive an object as it really is'. 'Mindfulness' is the 'continued clear comprehension' of an object. The two of them together 'perceive' and 'hold' clarity in one's mind and are sufficient to suppress all unhealthy factors.

The formal Western psychology, which is only about a hundred years old is merely a recent version of the human endeavor undertaken centuries ago in India. Modern psychology has rephrased the Buddhistic philosophy by saying that 'we should balance the negatives in our lives by the positives. We should try to keep everything under proper perspective. We should remember that what is an obstacle for one person is an opportunity for another; what one man calls a stumbling block is used as a stepping stone by another.'

There is a humorous story which illustrates the concept of keeping a positive attitude. Two hunters were offered a bounty of $5,000 for each wolf that they could trap alive. For days they searched the mountains and forests in their area looking for the elusive prey. Exhausted one night, they fell asleep dreaming of getting rich one day. In the morning, one hunter opened his eyes, only to find that they were surrounded by wolves with flaming eyes and bared teeth. He nudged his friend with great excitement and said, "We are finally rich".

In the history of mankind there have been a few famous people and vast multitudes of ordinary folks, and the true winners among them have been the ones who kept a positive attitude toward life. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "Don't waste yourself in rejection, but chant the beauty of the good".

Neutralizing the negative thoughts and replacing them with positive thoughts was good advice some 2500 years ago, and it is good advice today. Crush a negative thought today and replace it with a positive one. Experience the peace and happiness that flows from this process. Go ahead, do it now!

Yoga means 'to yoke' with divinity. It is both a system of discipline for control of mind and body, and a system of belief.

There are many types of yoga for spiritual advancement. And the goal of all of them is the same - to close the gap between our professed faith in God and the manifestation of that faith in action, to close the gap between advocacy of spiritual life and a firm commitment to it. It is a vehicle that bridges the gap between talk about morality and moral conduct. Yoga helps us to inculcate a spiritual discipline which elevates us from mere verbalization of our faith to an active demonstration of it.

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