Spiritual Life and Life in the World

We have already seen that Jesus Christ combines in himself the divine and the human standing thereby as the perfect model for our spiritual life and life in the world. Jesus invites us to be his disciples as he wants us to be truly happy. The most important point here is to distinguish between true, real happiness and the apparent one. Real happiness can proceed only from our original nature, whreas apparent happiness relies on what appears to be real and yet is only a mirage. The method of Jesus, when he appeared in the world, was to invite people to accept the sumtotal of perfect and permanent happiness in the form of the Kingdom of God.
                           Jesus invited people to repent as the Kingdom of God was at hand.His fore-runner, John the Baptist, had exactly the same message. However, the Baptist was satisfied if the people modified their external behavior by being kind and generous to others. Jesus went deeper and demanded a total upheavel of one's personality by being born agin in spirit as against our usual birth in flesh from our parents. The fore-runner could not have imagined this new way of being born as children of God and he was not required to as his duty was only to prepare the way for Jesus. What Jesus was advocating was a new vision for which we had to turn back from our usual way of looking at things. From contacting the world through our five senses and the mind, we have to get behind to our very soul for a peep into our real nature. This will show us that we are nothing short of God's own image and likeness. The kingdom of God starts in our conviction of this reality to preserve and develop which is the real task of our spiritual life. This is to be achieved in confrontation with the world we live in where the life of Jesus should guide and lead us to perfect happiness.

Spiritual Life and Life in the World

It is a constant worry for ordinary people how to combine their spiritual life and their routine life in the world. The usual practice is to compartmentalise the two into two schedules of life. Our day to day life with all duties and functions we are expected to perform is called life in the world. The time set apart for religious duties is considered our spiritual life. The complete division between the two prompts some people to make a distinction between the religious and spiritual life. Although these are not to be identified as the same , complete separation between the two is also not feasible. Our religious practices should be seen as means to enhance spiritual life in us like a reservoir of energy. However, the same should necessarily be made to permeate our daily life giving direction and purpose to our life. It is like filling the petroltank of our car from the petrol pump ready to go places. If the car is left to idle, filling it up with petrol does not serve any purpose. Combining our life in the world and spiritual life may be seen as the coming together of the secular and the sacred in our personal lives.  
                                                       Those who want to follow Jesus Christ in their personal life may learn the art of combining the two in a very fundamental manner. His very person is the result of the union between the two, i.e., the human and the divine representing the secular and the sacred. Being the Word of God - and being God Himself - he took upon himself our weak human nature sanctifying us in the process. We only have to follow in his footsteps inorder to combine the secular and the sacred in out lives. We shall see step by step what are the requirements of a true folllower of Jesus Christ in subsequent communications.