In the book “Why I am a Hindu”, Tharoor describes religion ‘as a technology that can be leveraged to grow spiritually and eventually achieve union with the Supreme’. He goes on to quote one Merchant’s definition of a Hindu as being one who is an ardent seeker of Truth:
“‘An individual who strives to actively discern the existence of the objective Reality otherwise termed as God and attain Him if convinced of His existence, using means that are inherently subjective and dependent on the individual’s own proclivities, beliefs and values.’ This definition of Hinduism, if it can be called that—since it could apply to almost anyone of any culture or religious faith—emphasises the individualist nature of the quest for truth, the role of reasoning in the process, and the ultimate yearning for God (whether one uses that term or speaks of the soul’s merger with Brahman, the idea is the same) (1).”
As emphasised elsewhere here, the pathway of true Yoga requires having the ‘right attitude’ to begin with. You need to be able to prioritise the spiritual journey and, where necessary, make sacrifices for it. The responsibility for undertaking this journey and the work required to do it are always with you. We all need to be ardent seekers of Truth.
As Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita
“… many are the paths of men, but they all in the end come to me (2) ” ; or perhaps
“there are many methodologies, but if properly pursued, they should bring you to the same goal of Self Realisation.”
These days, however, there is such a proliferation of ‘pick and mix, as you please’ and recreational approaches to spirituality, the hallmark of the New Age disinclination to study any one method/practice to any real depth. Yet students or apprentices commonly spent years under the aegis of a master, learning the arcane secrets of their craft. The same principle applies to many things that would normally demand the hard work and commitment of years.
In this ‘lite’ approach, a respectable, established skill or practice is asset stripped of its essential aspects which may then be packaged up, sometimes together with bits of other systems (crystals, Ayurveda, shamanic drumming, quasi Jungian notions of archetypes, Wicca etc) into some witches’ brew that can then be sold like snake oil to the gullible, generally with the implicit (even explicit) goal of making money. The overall aim is to gain a sufficiently convincing set of basic practices at minimal input of effort or expense and then advertise oneself as a practitioner and charge for services.
A friend of mine who had trained in Thai massage, as well as being a professional yoga teacher, met several people with this approach, including some who wanted her to teach them the basic core skills of Thai massage in order to be able to set themselves up as teachers, when she herself sufficiently respected the practice not to see herself as a teacher without a much deeper level of training. I have also observed a depressing burgeoning of different sorts of quasi spiritual enlightenment movements, often promoted by entrepreneurs, who have cobbled together yoga methodologies of the East, with, for example, Amazonian cosmology, sometimes involving the powerful and dangerous hallucinogen Ayahuasca, the psychoactive properties of which are then linked to spiritual practices of the East designed to expand one’s consciousness and so forth. There are no professional standards, no regulating authorities and anything seems to go. People who might be sufficiently discriminating when setting out to buy a car or a house, apparently fall easy victim to this kind of spiritual spivery with something as priceless as their souls.
The message therefore should be clear. Be serious, be committed and prepared to put in the work in whatever system you choose to advance your spiritual journey, whether it is a formal guru led movement in or outside of an ashram, or the alone pathway of Kaivalya that I recommend myself. As I have said elsewhere, the work to be done is always where you are, you do not have to go looking for it. What you need is a clear commitment and determination to engage with yourself using life itself as a mirror to you.
(1) Shashi Tharoor. 2018. Why I am a Hindu. Part 1. Ch. 2. The Hindu Way.
Bhagavad Gita Ch. 4. 11. Translated by Juan Mascaró. 1962. Penguin, Random House, India. The translation “The Bhagavad Gita as it is” by A.C. Bhaktivedants Swami Prabhupāda glosses this slightly differently, as does The Bhagavad Gita Comes Alive: “In whatever state of being a person approaches Me, ‘I reciprocate and establish a relationship with them in that mood’. In fact, everyone already has a relationship with Me, even if they are unaware of its exact nature.”