revised 2010.01.08

Spirituality

In reality everyone is spiritual, because life itself is spirit, and spirit is life-power, motivating the materialized garb of the self. The self identifies itself with its limited mental and physical status, without realizing that the all-pervading immanence of life is that indescribable power which is constantly manifesting behind all impulses.

Spiritual ideals cannot be the property of one particular transmission because of their universal nature. Spirituality is a call for the human right of thought and feeling on the spiritual path. This call has been sounding ever since eternity but has not always been understood, which explains why various terminologies employed to explain that call generally misinterpret its real meaning. Besides this, what brings still more confusion regarding spirituality is that there are endless numbers of self-proclaimed mystics, occultists, spiritualists, fortunetellers and parapsychologists whose mission seems to be to satisfy those who are chasing after miracles.

There is a well-known theater play that mentions the famous words “To be or not to be”, emphasizing the fact that striving in this difficult life requires one to choose to be. One might assume that this principle also applies to obtaining spirituality, whereas spirituality does not have any meaning unless one discovers that to be spiritual means exactly the reverse of wanting to be something, or pretending to be something; in the case of spirituality, ‘not to be is to be.’.

Spirituality cannot be limited within doctrines nor defined in words, and it cannot be taught or learned; it can only be discovered by way of the heart. Therefore spirituality really means rebirth, in the sense that one begins to discover that it has always been one’s birthright. Spirituality could best be described as the perfume of true knowledge, although it has been illustrated in all ages in many folkloric fairy-tales, which have given spirituality the appearance of being related to strange powers and eccentric behavior.

We imagine that to become spiritual means becoming higher and higher, but have we ever stopped to discover that everything that we have wanted to obtain ‘up there’ is already right here in our own hearts? Spirituality means losing the desire to impress others, whereby one comes unconsciously to identify with the divine presence; otherwise spirituality mostly remains just a dream, if one fails to see that the means to obtain inner realization cannot be the goal; the goal is further still.

Numerous methods are offered in view of discovering the Light of Truth!

There are also thousands of spiritual schools!

But unless one tries to hold the ego under control, one is wasting one’s time, and only facing disillusionment. Disillusion in spirituality is even more discouraging than disillusion in worldly affairs.

PoM Hidayat Inayat-Khan