ABSTRACT
There has been much talk, particularly in discussions on spirituality, which claims that spiritual practices are more important than philosophical and metaphysical discussions of the same. Ironically, when one looks at the texts of Nataraja Guru, the foremost disciple of Narayana Guru, one finds a text that is philosophically rich, drawing from Bergson to Einstein. Why does a most important disciple of Narayana Guru decide to write such a text to explicate his teacher’s spiritual sayings? What is the role of philosophy in the day-to-day practice of spirituality, as defined, for example, in the teachings of Narayana Guru? I will use this occasion to critically analyse the commentary by Nataraja Guru, called An Integrated Science of the Absolute, on Narayana Guru’s Darśanamāla, in order to understand the unerasable presence of philosophical discourse in spiritual and social practice.
