Hinduism
58The spiritual journey is only an Image of the turning around. Spirit represents precisely that dimension who precludes the assertion of I as against you in any of its form True, the lure of world lines and the thirst for life that it continually evokes also bespeak a vital urge of spirit, in response to the 'pleasant (prey as) seizing upon a human being" but it has its source in a fundamental unwisdom, a primordial lack of insight into reality. One becomes aware that it is also an expression of spirit , though distorted and deflected and Therefore not truly spiritual, but this awareness comes only in retrospect and again from the perspective of the turning around and the dowing of wisdom about reality that accompaniest it.
The religions literature of Hindu, in effect, acclaims with a striking unanimity of life is a 'person' but in the etymological sense of one wearing a mask, a false self. I as the person (the first person as grammar sanctifies) is not the real 'I' and much less the immortal spirit which I truly am by essence of affinity behind the veil of my nature. The ego is the mono-actor in the drama of a life of worldliness, being by definition of a life of worldliness, being by definition what exists solely for itself even while feigning altruism what isolates and separates from others while also ensconced in a web of relationship. The 'I' of 'I am' or 'I do' is not spirit as such but the misdirected, deflected dynamic of the spirit element in the service of deception in this deception I identify with my possession which by a right I claim belong to me but not to others. I identify even less aware with my body, my senses, and even my 'mind', which I presume without question to be necessarily, not contingently, myself or 'mine'. The 'I' (aham) is thus understood as the edge of 'mine' (mama), where 'I am' is a mere function of am explicit or incipient 'I have'. Such is the nature of identity that is assumed in reply to the question. 'Who' am I? Which one both asks and answers in every decision and in every cognitive endeavor. The subject-object split, which inhibits knowledge from realizing its destined goal of immediacy of 'truth' is both a reflection of and a development through one's se0nse of identity as ‘I’, vis-à-vis ‘mine'.
The 'I' as thus understood is severely castigated by the generality of Indian spiritual traditions' especially in view of the claim that it (the 'I') makes in the name of the ego. The ego is, by definition. that which claims attention for itself, as the center, as it were, of the universe, endowing one with the imaginary royalty of the world.
The real person-The spirit - calm, disinterested, and all-compassionate (What else can spirit be?) is what stands behind the ego letting itself be 'confused'. ‘The locus where there is absent a sense of 'I' and 'mine' is the locus of spirit, its Holy feet even as the serenity of supreme blissfulness is its Holy Crown'.
To renounce the ego by tracking it in its most far-reaching sweep is true renunciations, and to loosen it from its more insidious claim is true detachment. Conversely, any activity 'to the extent that it entails liberation from the hold of the ego. Even though seemingly an aspect of being-in-the world, to the extent is 'world less' and is revelatory of spirit.
The story of the spiritual wisdom of Hindu is the story of the concerted effort to contain the power and pretensions of the egoistic or self-asserting will.
To efface egoism is prized not merely on moral grounds as an exhortation to be humble or meek. It is also an enhancement of value, of willpower and of ‘personality’, if we remember not to understand these terms out of the context of the spiritual life. Through a discipline of mind and reason (jnana margam, samyak jnanam), through heart and love (bhakti margam, samyak daranam), and through will and power (karma margam, samyak caritram), what, incidentally, is accomplished is an enhancement or exaltation of life.
These are not mere techniques of self-actualization but spiritual paths with redemptive enlightenment as their goal. Yoga, again, is not a mere technique but an exaltation of ‘excellence’ (kausalam) cultivated as the art by which to apply the discipline toward a harmonic expression of the spirit. To recover real life, which is life ‘established in God’ (brabma nistha) or life of ‘supreme spiritual being’ (paramatman) is to shun or turn away from the shadow of life. By losing oneself one is ‘awakened to the spirit’ (prabuddhaatma); by becoming united with the spirit of the universe, one finds oneself and with it the whole universe.
Finally we can say that Hinduism may be viewed more as a locus for meeting of traditions, than as a singular religious tradition. In the estimation of contemporary historians of religions, Hinduism to India is most aptly, what comparative religion itself is to the world
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