Hierarchy of Need

The famous American psychologist Abraham Harold Maslow used the terms “physiological”, “safety”, “belonging” and “love”, “esteem”, “self-actualization”, and “self-transcendence” to describe the pattern that human motivations generally move through.
According to him, self-actualization is the last stage in the hierarchy of needs, whereas to look at it spiritually, it is the first need for any being to start off life. One may be fulfilling every stage of the hierarchy, but without self-actualization nothing is enough or worth. Self-actualization may seem to be on top and of utmost importance, which it is, but the flow of the pyramid leads one to assume that since it is
achieved in the end or last, it must be unattainable or unimportant. Spirituality has no age bar, nor does it have any bounds for certain needs to be fulfilled. Each stage of this hierarchy is important and deserves to
be fulfilled as a human grows; they need to move up the pyramid and onto the fulfillment of the next stage.
Your body is your temple and it is your ‘Dharma’ to protect it; your physiological needs of food, shelter, water and clothing are your basic necessities after which come the needs of security. After the basic needs are fulfilled and when one is not merely in a hand to mouth situation, then one worries about securing
their future; securing it in monetary terms, for everyone lives in fear of the future. To secure their future they look to secure their job and work in order to maintain their proficiency at a job for it to last longer;
fear of ill health and the security of their house creeps in which makes one buy life insurance and other policies. Being spiritually inclined does not mean to give up on any of these; we simply need to re-center ourselves and live in every moment taking every day as it comes.
Social needs arise after one feels secure; the need to be socially accepted is inevitable, for humans are social animals, they interact with society and make friends to lean on to feel the need of love and belonging. They search for love and compassion in fellow beings, not realizing the ultimate love and support of God, which one gets on the path of spirituality with a Guru. The love of family and friends is
limited, and time bound; people come and go, but a Guru always stays. The wish to fulfill the fourth stage of “esteem needs” arises, when one is satisfied with their previous needs and then feels the urge to build an ideal image for themselves to keep up with their social image. They run after luxuries and try and fulfill
their endless desires, whereas a spiritual being would never become a slave to luxury, they would upgrade their esteem according to their needs but not be driven by greed, for not every desire is worth the effort.
The last stage, the top of the pyramid is “self actualization”, one might assume that one needs to be older to achieve this level, but that’s not true. The path of spirituality is not age bound, and definitely not time
bound.
However, for those of you who aren’t familiar, perhaps a more amicable example of Po from The movie
‘Kung-Fu Panda’, who achieves inner peace, much before Master Shifu, his guru, would seem fitting.
Inculcating spirituality in each stage of the hierarchy would lead one to live a balanced life, ultimately being connected to God in every stage of life, thus living the life we were destined to live.