Spiritual Hunger

 I am a spark of life force. To come into contact with the reservoir of life force will satisfy me. My hunger for ‘spiritual food’ will be mistaken for desire for material things if I am in ignorance of my true identity as spirit. I will thus be mad after matter but I will never find fulfilment in it. This is the state of today’s individuals and societies the world over. The symptoms of frustration and purposelessness are everywhere. The frustration, despite material wealth, is just one of the in number able symptoms of the bankruptcy of the materialists’ philosophy. Here is a short look at a few others.  

1 RACISM Race Wars. If I think, “I am the body’ then it is natural to think ‘I am white’ if my body is white, or ‘I am black’ if it is black. Thus, identifying with the body one wrongly thinks he is black, white, red, yellow, etc. As a result, there are unnecessary clashes and animosity towards people of different coloured bodies.  

2 NATIONALISM National Wars. ‘I am the body; my body was born in America; I am American’.  This is the teaching of the materialist. So someone  in an ‘American’ body fights with someone in a  ‘Russian’ body, etc.  

3 RELIGIOUS WARS Titles such as ‘Hindu’, ‘Muslim’, ‘Christian, ‘Jew’, etc are all bodily designations, and one who identifies himself as the body thinks he is his faith. So they fight one another; not having the eyes to see spiritual energy, they cannot claim to be true religionists. Thinking  they are matter – the material body – they are materialists in disguise.  

4 SEXISM Man vs Woman. Instead of seeing the living being or person inside the particular type of body they may be in, the materialist sees only the body, and, desiring to enjoy matter, he sees the other person simply as an object to exploit. A popular song goes, ‘I saw man exploiting woman, now the woman wants her turn, not seeing the  person in the clothes, to lust their love is burned.’  

5 ECONOMIC TROUBLE Those in control of the economic policies of the world are materialists.  Not knowing the aim of life is spiritual realisation, materialistic people collect, hoard and compete over material things. Thus, exploitative economic systems abound with unfair distribution systems.  Blinded by desire, they are unable to make any clear decisions for the good of all. Furthermore, failing to see the Supreme Soul or Reservoir of Life Force, they do not see His laws or the laws of Nature, who is His agent. Thus they break Nature’s laws and suffer economically. They become addicted to alcoholic beverages and animal flesh, wasting precious grains. They pollute the air and land with useless chemicals and upset Nature’s ways. Thinking of ‘quick profits’ they care not for the long-term effect of their agricultural and industrial policies. They set up the economy around frivolous instead of necessary products to keep soul and body together. Not seeing God as Con troller of Crops, they aren’t anxious to please Him.    

6 ECOLOGICAL TROUBLE Seeing sense enjoyment as all in all, they rape the earth. Evidence of this is everywhere.  

7 EDUCATION Educational systems breed ignorance. Instead of teaching the students the source of the soul along with knowledge of the world, they neglect this science and therefore create generations of materialistic people who are always in anxiety about economic development (jobs, money etc). Those who are spiritually or philosophically inclined have no interest in their subjects and so drop out into an outcaste society. Less intellectual or worker – inclined students are forced to take poetry classes, and those who are poetically inclined are required to sweat in metal shop.  It creates jacks of all trades and masters of none, and all are without knowledge of who they are or what the purpose of life is.  

 Factually I could go on forever on the various problems caused by materialistic thought, but I will get into each subject in detail in future booklets.  

 The science of Bhakti Yoga is meant to bring both the individual and society to a peaceful, joyful condition.  

 As I explained earlier, the soul or person in the body needs ‘spiritual food’ or he will ‘spiritually starve’. So this mantra or sound vibration acts as ‘spiritual food’ for the soul. The mantra is not a product of this material world but has descended from the anti-material or spiritual world. This is an entire subject in itself (God’s Names and Their Power) and it is too lengthy to explore here. Let us simply say that the same tree which has grown the fruit of the science of the soul as discussed earlier mentions the Names of God, as the remedy for the soul’s hunger. It is not a modern creation of some unauthorised man. All authoritative scriptures mention the chanting of God’s Names. But ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’. If one tries the chanting individually or collectively, softly or loudly, he will gradually begin to experience the power of it.  

© 1975 Science of Identity Foundation  

This article was taken from a booklet by Jagad  Guru Siddhaswarupananda