Can Spirituality Help Me in Material Progress?

Many unintelligent students of spirituality, in their attempt to understand the scriptural significance through mere book study, come to the hasty conclusion that the technique of meditation cannot help an individual in life. A few even strive to prove that a meditator who practises regularly is someone heading for sure failure in life!Vedanta is not in any sense of the term a pessimistic negation of life. It is a healthy philosophy that promotes the growth and happiness of the human being both in his individual and in his communal life and points a way to reach the beyond, but surely in and through life. The greater the amount of concentration that a seeker can apply in his everyday life, the greater will be his success in meditation. Anyone who practises meditation correctly will necessarily gain in all efforts at concentration. Again, as he develops in meditation, he gains more in his ethical and moral perfection and in his devotion to the Lord, which must necessarily give him a greater amount of intellectual poise and mental peace..Anyone who has thus grown rich in concentration, intellectual poise, mental peace, and integrity of character will most surely succeed in any walk of life and reach realms beyond the purview of the average person. True meditation can fashion out of any ordinary person an incomparable genius. The stories of the great sages of the world all tell us that they often had nothing much to claim for their general education; many of them enjoyed none of the circumstances conducive to achieving anything spectacular; yet they grew to their brilliant stature through their practice of meditation. Ultimately, they became immortal people of Wisdom.Thus viewed, meditation becomes a true education, a secret preparation to face the world of unsteady circumstances and evanescent glories.Even if one saint or sage from the past could thus redeem himself from the limitations of the mortal and raise himself above the average in his own lifetime, every one of us has the right to claim this privilege as our sacred heritage.