Swami Nirgunananda: The World is Made of Projections; The Way Out is Through Love

What is spirituality? 

It is a technique, an attitude with which to look at the world. In general life, people take the world to be real, then drawing on their intellect and past experiences, project onto others labels of ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ How we think of others, that sends them the message (e.g. through our posture, facial expressions, tone of voice), and automatically, the other person reacts to that assuming that very role. Thus, confirming our original belief, no matter how erroneous it was!

But in spirituality, we teach that persons are neither good nor bad. Everybody has done some good and some bad deeds in their lives, but it is not who they are. 

Hence it is better to project good qualities onto others instead. What will happen, most of the time, is that, in response, the other person will automatically reflect the same good quality back at you. Think of smiling sincerely at a person passing your way, they automatically smile back, and soften their guard. 

So, try to love everything, try to love everybody. This is the lesson.

Biography of Swami Nirgunananda