Hope is a positive emotion that keeps us going and gives us something to live for. Hope plays a crucial role while dealing with life’s problems and maintaining resilience in the face of obstacles. Even a glimmer of hope, that our situation will turn around one day, can keep us going.

But many times, life brings forth huge challenges and difficulties in almost every aspect of our life, and the circumstances become so extremely hard that we cannot see any way out. This is when we tend to lose hope and start feeling like there is nothing to live for.

However, precisely during such times, spirituality proves to be very helpful because spirituality is a science. Science means it always bears the results in the manner it should.

The importance of spirituality

In the current era, people are found suffering from all types of misery. The suffering which human beings go through is mainly due to ignorance of the Self – this is the biggest cause of any problem. All the confusion in this world has materialised because of the ignorance of the Self only.

What does ignorance of the Self mean? Our real Self is the pure Soul! The Soul is an eternal element. It is made up of infinite knowledge, infinite vision, infinite energy and infinite bliss and it is capable of illuminating the entire universe. Yet we experience helplessness, suffering, fear, pain, and insecurity. Why? It’s because we are ignorant of the Self.

What is the reason for it? The reason is: we are not ‘aware’ of who I really am. We are not aware of our own energy which lies within us. Spirituality makes us aware of it and thereby helps us live a peaceful and blissful life, free from all misery and suffering. This explains how spirituality can help anyone who is feeling hopeless and is in despair.

Spirituality is based on the right vision.

When we attain Self-realisation, we get the real knowledge that makes us aware of ‘who am I.’ Awareness of the eternal is bliss! Nothing in this world can affect those who live life with the applied awareness of the pure Self.

So, to attain freedom from any kind of suffering and misery, without having to lose any kind of hope in life, one simply has to change their vision; and spirituality enables that change.

One is considered to have entered spirituality when one has the right vision of the Self, not otherwise; when one sees the world from the perspective of the eternal vision rather than the worldly vision, which is the root cause of one’s suffering!

What does the wrong vision do? It makes one see, “This person created loss for me; this person caused me a profit; this person insulted me; this person gave me unhappiness; this person gave me happiness; this person is the reason for my suffering and so on.”

In reality, there is no one out there who can give unhappiness or happiness. Everything lies within us only. Our own anger-pride-deceit-greed are the ones which give us unhappiness, and these verily are our enemies. There is no enemy outside. Those on the outside are all merely evidentiary instruments. If you get this right vision, then know that you have attained the solution. This is the solution that spirituality provides!

After Self-realisation, we can see our own mistakes. Since the real Self has manifested, our mistakes that happen in life on account of ego, pride, anger, deceit, greed, etc. come into our vision! And as this vision (of seeing one’s own mistakes) blossoms, we continue to see more and more mistakes. When we see our mistakes in the awareness of the Self (the Soul), the mistakes shed off automatically, and we become more and more pure..

As we become pure, we start seeing the pure Soul in others too.

To conclude: When suffering and misery in our everyday life become excessive, we lose hope and lack the desire to live life. But spirituality helps us realize our real Self (through Self-realisation). When we acquire the knowledge of the Self, we acquire the right vision. This vision enables us to see the world as flawless and we begin to see our own mistakes which are the real reason for all the suffering and misery that we experience in life. When we see our mistakes in the awareness of the real Self (the pure Soul), the mistakes shed away; and we then experience purity and bliss of the Soul (the Self).