Questioner:
Everybody says “spiritual” a lot everywhere, all over the world now. And my question, just to you is: How do you define spirit?
Swami Premodaya:
“Spirit” is a code word. It’s a code word we use for what we mean by “the Divine, the Unknown, the Mystery” — our portion of it, the part we can plug into, the part we can experience.
It’s more a code word than anything else. It doesn’t have an exact definition, although some religions, some schools, some philosophies, some spiritual ways, will give you an exact definition — and there’s nothing wrong with that. I am not opposed to that, and I am not quarreling with that. I am saying that, that’s simply an approximation towards the Truth.
It is a code word in our language. It is a code word for Divinity — for what we experience of the Divine, of the Unknown, of the Mystery.
What I’m saying is: forget the words, and see what there is to see in your own actual experience, both inside you and around you. Then see what your definition is for those words, because I can give you my definition all week long, and it will just become ‘knowledge’. You go to somebody else and they will give you another definition — maybe the same as mine, maybe different. And there’s some ‘more knowledge’.
The only definition that really matters is the one that comes from your knowing. Then if what I say makes sense, it is jiving with your knowing.