Life throws at you many hurdles and also makes your path cross the paths of many others. I've come across many people of different thoughts, customs, traditions and approaches. The running spiritualist class is one such class of people that I have come across. A good question that one can ask himself is the following - why do people sometimes find deep motivation to study complicated texts written by complicated people with complicated lives? Sometimes these texts can be quite depressing but there nonetheless exist a whole lot of people who read them and find a lot of solace and comfort in them. What leads a man on this path of self inquiry?
I say again. Life throws hurdles at you, in some lives, there are just too many of them. If an individual facing too many hurdles is either cursed (or gifted, I don't know) he asks the following important question - why? Why is my existence a one without bliss? Why these hurdles? What purpose does my existence serve? The mind has a trouble letting go once these questions get embedded in it. Man then goes around hunting for the answer filled with unrest and very well knowing that this unrest can go away only if he somehow finds some explanation, some answer for his questions.
As one of the end product of such experiences and pursuit of answers, comes the Running Spiritualist. He is a spritualist in the sense that he is pondering hard over the subjects of relative and absolute existence, liberation, etc. He seeks happiness. He learns that emotional attachment can bring him harm. He wants to escape from being hurt. He tries to detach himself. But he is doing it by force .He is literally hammering himself on the head saying, "No attachment, no attachment." He deliberately tries to somehow use the following sentence in a conversation, "Anyway, I don't get affected by these things..." He is trying to find happiness by eradicating the so-called hurdles to happiness. What are these hurdles? Are they emotions? How can he be happy by trying to become emotionless when happiness is itself an emotion?
He is disconnected from people. He does not reciprocate the feelings shown by others towards him. And all this he does based on his drawn conclusion, "Emotions are painful." In this process he ends up being so neutral and passive that he inevitably hurts other who try get close to him. I strongly ask - how is he a spiritualist? He is of no service to the society. The people around him not only find the absence of happiness around him but in fact find depression. Why does he not understand that it is emotions that usher people forward in life? And if he had truly found some majestic answer to the riddle of existence then would he not understand that different people need different solutions based on what their tendencies are and so on?
I guess so far there have been more questions coming from me rather answers. And the reason for this is simple. In matters such as this sometimes it is easier to ask the questions and difficult or seemingly impossible to answer them. I can propose my own views and that is all I can do. I cannot say whether I am right or wrong because at the end of the day one asks, "Who is to decide?" Someone can come up with a bright suggestion that he who finds bliss in life is correct in the way he thinks. Then I say that different people with totally different train of thoughts can also find "bliss" as they see it and understand it.
I have no idea as to whether I should be calling this relative nature of truth a boon or a curse! I can only say that at least these class of people - the running spiritualists are someone I'd like to avoid to say the least for in them I see nothing but imperfection manifested in the same magnitude as I see in any other people. And I said earlier, different people, different thoughts - no conclusion!