What we need the most right now is a paradigm shift, we need new and original ways of looking at things. What's often sold to us as "new" in our society is really just repackaged forms of old ways of thinking, and this is especially true of spirituality. Now what is spirituality? There's a word that means a whole lot of things to a whole lot of different people. I've heard it defined recently as a personal relationship with God, and that is something very beautiful. I wish that was all the word meant.
There are thousands of people and groups promoting forms of spirituality that are really just the beginnings of new religions. In fact, the main difference is simply that they lack the popularity and influence of the mainstream religions. Some of these are relatively harmless, while others are run by psychotic leaders who need others to follow them to fuel their ego's sense of importance. Especially within the "new age" circles, these groups will be all about love and oneness on the surface, but when you dig a little deeper, it's anything but love and oneness.
The old paradigm: "Here's a list of rules you need to follow to get to God."
The "new" spiritual paradigm: "Here's an updated list of rules you need to follow to get to God."
And many of these rules just follow the societal trends at the time, do this, don't do that, don't eat this, don't drink that. It's just an updated version of the old rules, it's another ten commandments. After thousands of years of this approach not working, people continue to try it! It's not a personal relationship to God, it's a personal relationship with a belief system that's supposed to get you to God. Yet nobody ever found God in a belief system, because God isn't in your mind, God is in your Soul. God Is Your Soul.
Part of the problem with the old paradigm approach is that it puts the cart before the horse. Take the idea that you always need to tell the truth if you want to get closer to God. It's not bad advice, and I certainly wouldn't encourage lying, but you're not going to reach the Divine through that belief. It would be better for you to lie, to realize what you're doing to yourself by misleading others, and to learn from that, than to simply never tell lies because you're following some spiritual teacher. If you believe that's going to get you to God, you may never tell lies to others, but you're still lying to yourself. I'm not going to give you a list of rules to try and prevent you from stumbling along the path. It's okay to make mistakes, don't beat yourself up over them, but be aware, and learn from them.
It's been said, "The best teachers show you where to look, not what to see". If I tell you what to see, what to do, what to think, then I'm making you dependent upon me. Watch out for these kinds of "teachers", it's a form of codependency. Personally, I want to tear down everything that separates you from God, especially belief systems, but that's not something I can do for you. You have to do that for yourself.
Of course, if I'm going to talk about spirituality, I have to mention the spiritual ego too. There are many for whom spirituality is just a more elitist version of religion that makes them "better" than others. The vast majority of people still live so deeply in unconsciousness that being marginally more aware than the average person can lead people to believe they're "Awake" or "Enlightened" when they're really just beginning the path to those states of Being. Hopefully, it's just a temporary phase, but sometimes a person will go their whole life believing a small jump in awareness suddenly qualifies them as an "Enlightened Master". Religions have even gotten started this way.
So what is spirituality? Well that's really up to your subjective interpretation of it, meaning that it means whatever you believe it means. To me, a personal relationship with Source is called Life, it's simply the natural state of Being. No need to apply any special labels to it. I generally don't use the term spirituality, because so much of what's considered spiritual is more about style than substance, more about appearances than what lies underneath.
The Galactic Free Press
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