Without spiritual direction religious regulation seems to be like pointless restriction or even pai
Transcript
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Without spiritual direction religious regulation seems like pointless restriction or even painful repression suppose we are walking along a road through a mountainous territory toward a beautiful resort on the top of the mountain on both sides of the road are protective barriers to prevent us from veering off and crashing down if there were a thick fog all around and we couldn’t see the beautiful spiritual peak, beautiful peak and resort and didn’t know that that’s where we were going then we might think that the barricades are simply obstacles and we might labor to break them down and then thereby if we go past them, break ourselves in the journey of life we are all meant to go to a beautiful spiritual peak, we are meant to elevate our consciousness through spiritual practices so that we can experience lasting happiness and attain lasting life and love, that is the spiritual direction for all life and especially for human life and along this path to the mountain, the barricades on the two sides are like religious regulations they protect us from falling into the dangerous and disastrous valleys of unfettered sensuality and narcissism, however in contemporary society there is a smog that makes blind to and forgetful of life’s spiritual direction and destination, consequently we start seeking pleasure in the here and now and believe that such pleasure is the purpose of life and is our inalienable right, naturally therefore religious regulations that regulate indiscriminate sensual indulgences start seeming like pointless deprivation worse still, given that contemporary culture allures us constantly with images of unending sensual delights not pursuing such delights starts feeling like painful repression, to prevent these negative perceptions we need not just moralizing discourses about the inviolability of moral regulations but illuminating explanation about life’s spiritual direction and destination, when we understand glimpse the joys that await us at the spiritual peak then staying on the path within the road fences is seen as purposeful and productive, even if it feels somewhat depriving we see that as an initial poison which will lead us to eventual unending nectar as the Bhagavad Gita 1837 assures, when we thus stress spiritual direction and destination first and not religious regulation first, we can present life’s higher dimensions in a way that attracts and doesn’t alienate