13

Humanity means the quality of being humane and kind. It is just not the collection of humans of the world. People who are cruel, violent, liars, thieves, and impure cannot be a part of humanity. In other words, people who are non-violent, truthful, just, and honest and who have controlled their anger, avarice, passion, greed, and inordinate desires reflect humanity.

Journey from manhood to godliness is truly a journey from being a brute man to a divine man. A brute man has all the qualities of a beast. Receiving repeated blows from bad deeds, we gradually understand our follies and mend our ways. We then sincerely try to abstain ourselves from these habits and form new habits instead. We move up on the ladder of higher development in consciousness. After all, man is something beyond his physical form. His journey actually did not start from the ape-man stage but much earlier, say from the stage of the earthworm. And it will come to an end not in being a man or a superman but at a stage that is far beyond a superman. He is a divine man, the Buddha man. The earth worm evolves itself in to a Buddha and the Buddha goes back to the involved state of the earthworm. Humanity moves in a circular motion. The Buddha is the spirit itself, full of consciousness. That is the real nature of life. We have to realise this state but how? The answer is in detailed activities. They are supposed to take up such activities as will help them go forward towards attaining divinity. And these activities must be self-conscious activities.

Consciously, we would feel that by performing these activities, we steadily grow in unselfishness and feel happy. We are happier when we spend on others. Unselfishness is divine; selfishness is beastly. While selecting our activities, we must use our discrimination to isolate the good Karma from the bad ones. Good Karmas are acts of merit and they are intended for the benefit of others. They lead us to earn Dharma or righteousness and from Dharma we attain happiness and peace. These are the stages. Stress is on the selection of good Karma. We should focus on completing this Karma through honest means. Therefore, humanity means love for honesty, love for truth and faith in us including the faith in the Lord who dwells in our hearts.

Our task as human beings would be to acquire all human qualities noted above like non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, cleanliness (both inside and outside) and control of mind. This control of mind is the most important challenge facing us all, including the learned and the educated. Often, our mind is induced to enjoy filth like ordinary flies and rarely chooses to suck honey from flowers like honey-bees. We have to deny every inordinate desire that comes into our minds.

When we acquire these five above mentioned human qualities, we become good men. Goodness is interlinked with humanity. But, we also have to cross the barrier of goodness. It also binds us to this temporal world. It is born of Sattva quality. It is also a bondage which we have to overcome by taking a great leap into the region of the Divine. It is then we become great. We are not satisfied with good people only; we have to produce great people as well. Good people are unselfish but great people are spiritual. Unselfishness is the gateway to the spiritual realm but even goodness has to be often sacrificed for godliness. Godliness is beyond all the three qualities like Tamas, Rajas and Sattvik. God is surely good but all that is good is not Godly. This is the true relationship between humanity and spirituality.