Who says spirituality sucks!

For the past one year, some of my office colleagues gently chide me for becoming too spiritual. ‘Your adhyatmikta sucks in the office place, they tell me. They have reasons to say so since I had ostensibly returned after a three-month stint in Dehradun to reflect, and rejoice after dealing with my character defects and flaws. Once I returned to the big, bad world, it was business as usual. However, despite the odds I decide to stay rooted to my spirit and conduct a daily self-inventory and maintain transparency in all that I do. What gave me greater courage to tread this path less travelled were my daily meditation lessons. I have been trained to stop chaining my thoughts and live in the present. I am also trained to live life, one day at a time, in true Zen Buddhist traditions. In the beginning I find this to be a slightly difficult way to walk the talk, but my daily thoughts and reflections hinge on playing it right. When I say playing it right, I mean listening to my inner voice and taking informed decisions based on this. Given my newfound spiritual wisdom, I wish to share that I am now an expert at the art of articulating my thoughts but I now make sure to exercise restraint and not speak out of turn. One of my colleagues and well-wishers often reminds me that I need to be more diplomatic in my daily dealings. He tells me that if you look directly at the sun you are likely to go blind. Strong words these, but I am convinced that if I tender my opinion assertively and not aggressively, I will come across strong but gentle.   I am further cautioned to live life in more practical terms when it comes to office matters. They tell me that the real world is a battlefield and everyone is fighting a war that must be won. This piece of advice should hold particularly true since you are involved in the daily drudgery of working in an office surrounded by image-managers and spin doctors, or so I am often told.

This set me thinking. I wonder what further impels me to write about such ‘dysfunctional’ thoughts on matters spiritual. Is my thinking too tuned to look at life as an outsider? So, when my wife  decides to fast on the opening day of the Navarra fast that just got underway,  I unwittingly remark: “It seems like you are turning into a ‘prude panditain’ as you are getting older. She turns around quizzically and says; ‘Come on now, it is my trigger to detox the body and clean my system.” Her retort gets me deeper in thought. I then wonder why I am so suspicious of organized religion and the ritualistic ways of the world. It also makes me aware of the fact that fasts and penance trigger my disdain for seemingly simple religious beliefs. I also turn to quell  my cynicism towards such acts since people prefer to be gentle during fasts but turn ‘fast and furious’ on non-religious days. I ask myself whether spirituality is a religious event or a way of life. Slogans, prayers and visits to temples are not my ‘elixir of life’ but then each person is entitled to his concept of God. Who was I to pontificate and sit on judgment? In a flash, I  realize that my wife always bring out my higher self. Thinking of women and godly matters, my thoughts   race, unhinged on my mentor and muse, the great singer Leonard Cohen who is always considered a ladies man. He too finds spiritual solace and unconditional love in his metaphorical love for women.

In one of his brilliant songs he talks of them as his thin, little gypsy thieves. I think I am smitten by his thoughts on how in order to be complete the man and woman must become one. Did he mean that spiritualism means the union of the man and the woman, the conjunction of the body with the mind? I am not too sure but what gives me certitude is the notion that if you want to say connected with your inner world, the world will scorn you, upstage you and leave you on the dark side of the moon.

I soon find echo of such outlandish but honest thoughts when two of my women colleagues share their similar predicament in how they are perceived in their social milieu. The first gracious young woman I talk to, has the gait of an empowered Indian woman, the smile of a soulful diva and her laughter rings through the air. .” She is  holding forth on how she is looked at suspiciously, when she talks of God and matters of the spirit. The fact that she is only recently married only compounds matters. But I am not going to change the garment of my soul for anything in life, she smiles. The second beautiful woman I broach the subject of spirituality and how impacts her life on a daily basis, she throws back her head and her hair cascades down her shoulder in a gentle wave. With a smile playing on her lips, she softly whispers, “I keep it simple, whatever people may say. My prayers gave me immense strength and my religion tells me to live for others”. The fact that she is considered too upright and ‘saintly’ only reaffirms to me that society is too scared to see its own  face in the office mirror.

I guess like Leonard Cohen, strong women awaken my spirit. I also realize such spiritually-inclined women are not too loved in an office environment since projections matter more than perceptions, and image matters more than reality. My questions abate and calmness permeates my soul. After all, my goal in life is to bridge the gap between me and my shadow, like the yin and the yang. By now, I am convinced about how the office and the home --like a man and a woman -- are only two sides of the same coin. The so-called ‘dysfunctional’ spirit needs to be constantly nurtured with the twin fountains of transparency and honesty – be it the marketplace, office space or real-time relationships. Who says spirituality sucks?