What Is a Spiritual Condition?

 Sahaj Marg literature contains no precise definition of condition. For this reason, we here take a step-by-step approach, with the help of a series of quotes from our Masters.

First of all, it is useful to note that there are different levels of condition: the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.

Spiritual Condition

Because it is like something which is covered up, like a lamp with dirty glass around it. Clean it and the light is the same. So the whole thing is nothing, you know, we do not become pure. My Master’s teaching does not recognize anything as pure or impure. It only says there is an original condition which we have covered over by our activities and our thoughts. Remove this and then you expose the inner reality which was always there.

— P. Rajagopalachari, Heart to Heart, Volume 3, p. 48

So when we go to the Master, we must understand that He knows everything about us. He sees not only our bodies, but He can see samskaric diseases, what is going to come in the future too! He can see our mental condition, what are all the corrupt ideas that we have got, whether there are some dirty things in our mind; and also the holy ideas, the divine ideas that we bring with us. And to see our spiritual condition—well, that’s his speciality. He is Master of that field.

— P. Rajagopalachari, Principles of Sahaj Marg, Volume 8, p. 58

He said: “(…) At death the mind should be made a complete blank. No thoughts must be allowed to come into it, not even of gods or anything like that. It must be made completely blank so that at death it can merge with the Source where the condition is that of nothingness. And I tell you, for the abhyasis of our samstha this is very easy because this is what they are taught to do every time they sit in meditation. To us this becomes second nature. When we sit in meditation the mind becomes thoughtless, and so what we are experiencing, to put it in one way, is a condition somewhat like that at death. You may call it a condition of death-in-life if you like. (…)”

— P. Rajagopalachari, My Master, p. 138

Condition and Progress

The condition, that is the spiritual condition, must keep changing if there is progress. Often we find that an abhyasi has a good experience at a particular level, which he likes to be repeated at subsequent sittings. But I always tell them that if they have the same experience again and again, then they should run to the preceptor, because such repetition of experience shows stagnation, and requires correction. So change is necessary because without it no progress is possible.

— P. Rajagopalachari, My Master, p. 59

So, the need for not fixing ourselves at one position, or in one condition, or in one state of being, and saying, “Today I have reached my destination in Sahaj Marg.” Such a statement would be impossible. Even by the Master of Masters. Sahaj Marg knows no static condition.

— P. Rajagopalachari, What Is Sahaj Marg?, p. 14