(Response to 2.H.1 Mundaka, Upanishad (1.2.11-13), presented by Anantanand Rambachan)
The opening verse, which appears to suggest a life removed from the everyday world, would be familiar to many Christian hermits and ascetics. Yet other Christians, me included, would ask whether an over-emphasis on a life of withdrawal or retreat has created a hierarchy of lifestyles. In such a hierarchy of values, serious spiritual progress is limited to certain initiates who withdraw from the everyday world. Does this suggest a limitation in pursuing the spiritual life among the majority of people who continue to live and act “in the world”? That said, I recognize the teaching on detachment. I also recognize the emphasis on a fundamental human orientation towards the infinite. As Augustine suggests of our inbuilt desire for God, the infinite, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You”. Other Christian spiritual teachers, such as Julian of Norwich, are clear that we must not let our attachments to created things “that are so little” (her words) get between us and our deeper, truer desire for the God who is all in all. Even more I recognize the emphasis on finding a wise spiritual guide. From the early desert ascetics of the 4th century CE to the present, the value of spiritual accompaniment is underlined in both Western Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions. The “qualification” to be such a guide is not really training (although in some parts of Western Christianity there are contemporary trainings in spiritual direction) but recognition by others as a person who is spiritually wise because (i) s/he is deeply rooted in the tradition (“who knows the scriptures”) and (ii) s/he has been engaged seriously in the spiritual quest (“fixed in the infinite”) for an extended time.
