What is spirituality? Spirituality - rabbaniah ¬means ‘Giving in to God.’ The spiritually inclined so elevate themselves in their thinking that they begin to live on a higher divine plane. They remain undisturbed in the face of provocation, their mental balance is not upset by unpleasant experiences, and the distasteful behaviour of others does not arouse any feelings of anger or revenge in them. Living strictly by their principles, their mental level becomes so high that the status cast by others cannot reach them. In rabbaniah they find such sublimity that all else pales into insignificance. Rabbaniah in itself is such a great virtue that the seeker after divine bliss need quest no further. On the other hand, those who have no such spiritual inclinations allow themselves to be constantly influenced by their immediate surroundings and thus unhappily embroiled in human strife. They cannot, like spiritual people, smile when abused. Nor, in countless situations, can they adopt the attitude of ‘forgive and forget.’ They reach such a low ebb mentally and emotionally, that, spiritually, they become incapable of making progress. Life’s experiences for both the spiritual and the non-¬spiritual are like the grasping of a rosebush. On each branch are beautifully shaped and coloured blossoms whose scent refreshes from afar the weary in body and spirit. But also on each branch are the inevitable thorns. The spiritual individual will carefully avoid the thorns in order to take possession of the blossom, or if by accident, his hands are pricked by the thorns, he dismisses it as a trivial matter. But the unspiritual person, in his unseemly ways will rudely grasp both thorns and flowers, and will recoil in anger and dismay, baulked of his prize, and burning with resentment. Where spirituality makes the best of life’s experiences – although there is no rose without a thorn – the lack of spirituality makes the worst of them. Where spirituality implies elevation of the soul, the lack of it implies the baser instincts of jealousy, greed, selfishness and exploitativeness. It will only be when great numbers of the spiritually inclined come together that a society will be formed which shines like the sun and flourishes like lush green gardens.
