What is the basic quality required for undertaking the spiritual journey? Bhagawan endearingly reminds us today!

The first sign of spiritual life is detachment (vairagyam). If you have no detachment, you are illiterate as far as spiritual scholarship is concerned. Detachment is the ABC of spiritual effort. Detachment must become strong enough to make you discard the bondage of the senses. Just a few minutes of thought will convince anyone of the hollowness of earthly riches or fame or happiness. When you are affluent, everyone praises you. If a corpse had a few jewels on it, the proverb says, many will claim kinship with the dead person. But if it has no valuables on it, not a single person will come forward to weep for it! When you are adding more and more sums of money to your bank account, ask yourself, whether you are not accumulating troubles for yourselves and your children, making it harder for your children to lead clean, comfortable, and honourable lives. When you struggle to achieve paltry fame by devious means, remember who among crores of your countrymen are honoured today and for what! Don’t you see that only those are honoured everywhere who gave up, renounced, and sought the more difficult road of God-realisation instead of the easier path of world-realisation?