Who can Teach Spirituality?

Just like, a laddo (an Indian sweet), has no value if it does not have any sweetness in it, similarly, it is said that a spiritual teacher must have enough Devotion, Love for People, Self-Realization, Deep Longing for Spiritual Progress, Inner Strength, Surrender to God's will, Simplicity, Selflessness, Purity, Sanctity and other Divine qualities which are gained through years of one-pointed Spiritual Practice. The level of spirituality that SoM wants for its students can only be given to them if SoM teachers have it themselves. No one can be perfect in any of the qualities I just mentioned, but a SoM teacher needs to be ardently striving towards gaining those qualities. Ultimately, it is God's will to decide if someone will serve as a teacher or in some other way in SoM. If someone is really ready to teach spirituality in SoM, then it won't matter to him (or her) whether he serves as a teacher or in some other way. Serving others selflessly and his own spiritual growth is what he would want.

Sincere devotees of God having such divine qualities are not so difficult to find even though they may stay hidden in their own small world working towards their Divine goal while living in a family setup, or a few may become monastics. It is difficult to recognize the stature of such people and know their inner qualities. One such great devotee of God whose day-to-day life of service to mankind is well portrayed in a movie is Sister Nivedita, a disciple of Swami Vivekananda. This black and white Bengali movie, ‘Bhagini Nibedita’, has English subtitles. It portrays an excellent example of how life of a SoM teacher needs to be. At least, a SoM teacher must strive to be like her and have at least some of her selflessness and other divine qualities. The movie is also available as DVD.

I think I will have to wait for a long time before I am able to qualify for it. A miracle that can bring a swift inner transformation may reduce the waiting time to a few months, but in the usual way it will probably take much longer. Therefore, as of today, I can not do anything linked to the spiritual side of SoM, other than researching and planning. In fact, I do not know about the spiritual side of SoM in detail yet. I know maybe 60% percent of it, mostly at a high level. I do not know many critical parts. But on the other side, for academics, I may be knowing about 90% of the whole plan.

These days, I focus on some specific parts of SoM, like, Academics, Rural initiatives, Software Design & Development work, learning from the work done by others, studying relevant scientific research on character growth & other areas, and learning other critical skills that anyways will be required in running this startup-NGO. I am also focused on sharing my thoughts on social media.