Spirit-Based Religion

This visit of mine to Switzerland was for around a week. During the trip from India to Europe, I saw a great variety of sights. However, in every place, I saw only materialistic activities. I thought that man has two needs—material needs and spiritual needs. In the present world, most human activities are being undertaken on the basis simply of material needs and desires. In the true sense of the term, relatively few spiritual activities can be seen anywhere. For this reason, in material terms, there is a great abundance of material ‘goods’ worldwide, but in spiritual terms, today’s man is afflicted with severe starvation.

In Delhi, I do the work of spiritual counselling in a limited way. People from different backgrounds attend my spiritual sessions. Once, a person participated in my spiritual sessions for two days and was quite impressed. She told me that she had been regularly going to places of worship for many years but had not gained spiritual nourishment. She had not experienced any intellectual development through this. As a result, only some rituals would be conducted there. She found my spiritual sessions different. My lectures addressed her mind, and she was receiving spiritual nourishment and intellectual progress from them.

This same situation is prevalent these days at many places. Some rituals are conducted there, but those who go there do not experience any sort of intellectual or spiritual progress. The fact is that religion should be a representative of Truth. Only that activity is a genuine religious activity in the real sense through which people obtain spiritual nourishment and intellectual progress. Lifeless rituals and customs have no relation with authentic religiousness. Man is indeed in search of Truth. Therefore, man needs a spirit-based religion. A religion imbued with spirit addresses people’s minds and through which one can receive spiritual nourishment and intellectual progress.