Shaman and spiritual practises of India

India had one of the oldest spiritual practices in the world ,it accepted life in its totality and many westerners were attracted to “spiritual guides “ like Maharishi and Osho. It reached the heights and depths of spiritual thinking without being soulful or serious. In the west they had Shamanism where the ancient spiritual practice was used to heal all ailments.All ancient spiritual systems believed that the mind and spirit are connected and accentuates the fact that we are part of the web of life where everything is connected to everything else in this world.
In India too like the Shaman there were branches of the Occult, Tantra etc in the spiritual belief system,these supernatural forces and events and beings collectively formed part of the practice. The Sun eclipses the moon , Planets and stars often are occulted by other celestial bodies,these are the set of principles that were practiced over centuries.
Indian spiritualism is not a religion but an adventure into one’s own mind a sort of revelation of the soul. All the time we have looked at life in fragments in a dialectic manner, as all religions, denies the body while accepting the soul, thereby presenting a sad and sorrowful picture of life and creating a dichotomy between body and spirit. But in spirituality you can laugh and cry where life is viewed in its totality. The spiritual and Shamanic way believes that all problems /illness have a spiritual cause which manifests itself in the physical body.
The belief is that whenever someone suffers an extreme physical or emotional trauma a part of the soul is damaged carrying part memory of that trauma, this concept is called “soul loss’. Soul loss manifests in many people through feeling of emptiness , loneliness and depression. Shamans use the spirit to track the soul through spirits and bring it back. In Indian spirituality the state of mind is raised to another level of altered consciousness and one enters a different reality, a sort of island surrounded by bliss far removed from the ocean of sorrow and misery of our everyday life.
It is not a prescription for eternal happiness instantly like a medicine pill that one pops in to the mouth as a panacea for all the ailments, but an arduous journey one has to undertake in to a different plane from earth.Spirits incidentally are a misused and misunderstood term, like black magic voodoo practice.-Vinay-