Religious nuts are those people who in the name of religion become fanatical, irrational, disagreeable. In contrast, spiritual fruits are those religious practitioners who manifest virtues such as humility, sensitivity, forgiveness. 

What makes some people religious nuts and others, spiritual fruits? Often, it’s their conception of spiritual growth. 

Let’s compare the bottom of a mountain to material consciousness and the top of the mountain to spiritual consciousness. Religious practices are meant to raise people from material consciousness to spiritual consciousness. However, some religious practitioners become too attached to the externals of their particular path. They hold that their path is the only way up the mountain and those on any other path are dangerous deviants destined for hell. Such conceptions make them religious nuts.

Those people become spiritual fruits who appreciate that there can be many paths up the mountain. They are not naive, though. They understand that not all paths will take people up the mountain, some may take them down into a valley too. They commit themselves to the practices of their path, while constantly monitoring whether their practices are actually raising their consciousness. And they assess others based on their overall consciousness, not their specific practices. 

Gita wisdom offers an inclusive vision of the ultimate reality wherein all people are seen to be on the one shared journey of consciousness (04.11). The Bhagavad-gita (18.66) urges us to give up all religious formularies and focus only on the essential principle of love for the divine, a love that is expressed through wholehearted, unreserved surrender. When we learn to appreciate love of God, wherever it is found, we become spiritual fruits, not religious nuts. 

The more we apply the Gita the more we can become spiritual fruits. And the more we share the Gita, the more we can help others become spiritual fruits, thus helping raise global human consciousness.  

 

Think it over:

  • How can we identify religious nuts?
  • How does the Gita urge us to become spiritual fruits, not religious nuts?
  • How can we help raise human consciousness?

 

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18.66 Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear.

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