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Two schools of spirituality: Meditation and contemplation
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What is spirituality?

It is a man's mind that differentiates him from the rest of creation. It can only be through the development of his mind that man can attain true spirituality, says Maulana Wahiduddin Khan.

Man has two facets to his personality—body, and soul—both of which need sustenance for their health and progress. Material things such as food and water sustain the body. If one is deprived of such sustenance over a long period of time, he or she will be starved to death. The same is true for the soul. I believe that spirituality is man’s spiritual food for the soul. Spirituality boosts man’s inner personality on positive lines. This guarantees man’s spiritual life.

How can many attain spirituality? There are two major schools of spiritual discipline: one based on meditation and the other on contemplation. I subscribe to the school of contemplation. As it is man’s mind that differentiates him from the rest of creation, it can only be through the development of his mind that man can attain true spirituality. Contemplative spirituality teaches man the art of conversion that is how to convert everyday material events into spiritual experiences and negative experiences into positive lessons. Although such conversion takes place in the spiritual rather than in the physical sense, the principle by which this conversion operates governs the entire material world.

In this way, man becomes disciplined and does not allow one’s personality to develop under the influence of external incentives.

I believe that everyone is born on a spiritual nature. But, after birth, one lives in a society, which, with its multiple influences conditions or shapes man’s personality or nurtures one based on negative feelings, just like the layers of the onion that cover its bulb. These negative feelings can be of anger, revenge, jealousy, hatred, and rivalry. I believe that one can regain one’s spiritual character by de-conditioning oneself through a superior intellectual process. And it is spirituality that makes it possible to de-condition the individual by training him in the art of deconditioning, so that he may revert to the natural state in which he was born.

For this to occur, one has to re-engineer one’s mind spiritually to become positive. In this way, man becomes disciplined and does not allow one’s personality to develop under the influence of external incentives. He, by his own decisions, constructs his personality on the basis of higher principles. Only then does he develop a divine character. He shakes and jolts and remoulds his personality to abide by the plan of the Creator. He, thus, turns himself into the kind of person who is shaped not by society, but by spirituality to live a God-oriented life.

The Earth is the sun’s satellite that constantly orbits around the sun. This is a physical demonstration that shows man how to live a God-oriented life. Just as the earth revolves around the sun. Man, of his own free will, should surrender to God and build a life based on the principles given by Him. By living on such a higher plane one is able to build a life based on spiritual principles.

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