Real Yoga

Have you ever heard someone say the following...

Oh she's a very spiritual person.

— or —

He's so spiritual.

— or maybe —

I've taken to the spiritual life.

— or how about —

I have a spiritual calling.

What's with this spiritual thing? Everyone you meet seems to want to BECOME spiritual, as though it was something that one could attain. Well, maybe you can, but then again, maybe you cannot.

There seems to be an unwritten code as to what spirituality IS. Certainly, if one becomes a monk or a nun in some church, within some religion or something similar, it is ASSUMED they will be leading a Spiritual Life. Does spirituality have to do only with religions then? What about the humanist who has no religion, yet wishes to be more spiritual by not eating animal life, so that he may be more spiritual. Are vegetarians more spiritual?

Gentleness? Wafting along on cloud nine? Being sweet and kind to everyone? Is It only the followers of Christ or Buddha or some other leader / prophet? What then about the good clean living, good to his fellow man, atheist? Can he be spiritual?

How have we become so embroiled and lost in the reasoning and misguided concepts of what spirituality IS? Is there really such a thing — or — is it how we label everything? Things on the good side of the scale as spiritual. That which cannot be known on the bad side of the scale as non–spiritual.

What about the spirits of the earth? The trees and all things natural? Various cultures speak to and use these spirits. Perhaps it is just beauty itself that is spiritual. So does that mean that ugliness is without it? Well it can't be that because we know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so what is beauty to you may not be to me.

The so called totally evil see great beauty in the pain and suffering they may cause others, in either a mental or physical way. Iago, a fictional character in Shakespeare's Othello, gloried in the suffering he caused Othello.

I am just trying to find out what spirit can possibly be? We have been so conditioned to think from an early age about spirit. Our early Christian teachings told us that God breathed life into Adam and made him a living Soul. Ah, there's that Soul word again. Could that be spirit? Perhaps the breath is spirit?

Surely it is not meant to be something that lives on after the body is dead and the breath is gone? Is it to do with the energy that Kirlian photography captures around the body?

If it was, it soon disappears after a person dies. Even if, as some say, the spirit hangs around for a ten day period or so, couldn't that be nothing more than the rubbing together of decaying atoms?

The dictionary gives it all sorts of meanings, from breath to animate or to be spirited, to the spirit if not the letter of the law, even spirits running around at the bottom of the garden, and spirits as in alcohol.

It seems to me it is a word that should soon be dropped by the aspiring Yogi, as it can confuse an issue so huge as to delude him/her into thinking that he/she is Spiritual, because of a certain life style, while those not taking that road may not be. Even worse is assuming that someone else is Spiritual and in need of being followed. That is a real danger.

In my other Gnana Yoga lessons I have made it abundantly clear that there is only You and the Atman. The You with attributes (Ego, controlled by Maya) and you the attributeless Self (Fully Awake).

The sooner You let go all the fancy thinking about Spirituality and judgment of yourself and others, and get down to the work of uniting with SELF, You will see that there is really no such thing as Spirit nor Spirituality. It is a word we use in most cases to explain something which we know nothing about and fall into the trap of getting caught up in the net of self–deception.

In one of my lessons I talked about the Sattwic Diet and a Sattwic Way of Life. This is not meant to mean a Spiritual Way of Life. It is meant solely for the eradication of Passions, so that stillness and quietness is more easily attained, and subduing the restless mind is more easily achieved.

As you continue to read my articles, you will gain a stronger ability to see things from this Real Yoga perspective.

Articles by Swami Harinanda and Yogi Karmananda are © 2026 and are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

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