The word spirituality carries so many different meanings, but regardless of whatever meaning one may attach to it, it usually means something beyond our present state, something to be grasped, strived for yet unseen.

In most cases, it is an escape from the present reality we seem to be in. We are suffering from some illness, we are unhappy, fearful, insecure, feel guilty, and all manor of other seeming problems, and we want out.

We jump from belief to belief in an effort to find what is real and holy. Or we hang onto one with too much fear to question it or go beyond it. We will believe just about any nonsense we are told by some seeming authority. We will believe that at one time god sent his only son to die for our sins, etc., and so many millions of people eat it up without question. This is clearly insanity, but we call it spirituality.

If we are not caught up in any such belief, we may still seek out some more abstract ideas of what the truth is. We may turn to the more psychological approaches like some parts of Buddhism or Hinduism. Yet within most of both religions, there is so much nonsense as to make them worthless to those who really want to find the truth and awaken. Any religion that still finds there members praying to some savior up there in the sky somewhere is not fit to teach. The leaders are clearly not awake.

Even in such paths as Zen Buddhism, which I have far more respect for than any other paths, their members can become so lost in being ZEN students, and the spirituality it carries, it can keep them from awakening. With the right teacher, who is awakened, they will make sure their students don’t fall into the pit of spirituality.

“So, what is wrong with spirituality?” You may ask. Spirituality is out there. Beyond your moment by moment reality. It is something YOU are seeking. When the very problem is YOU.

We can grasp for something outside of ourselves in the most subtle ways, and think we are doing what will bring us to awakening, enlightenment. Any act of prayer is an act that will keep you from seeing. Whom are you praying to? In that moment of prayer, you are again separating yourself from yourself. The image that is the Me, is looking for something wonderful outside of itself, which creates a nonexistent duality. Just the idea that there is a you who can seek outside, is a wall that has been built by our conceptual thinking. There is no real wall, but for the mind, it is dense and cannot be penetrated.

Grasping is a real problem for those who want to awaken. Of course it is only a problem for the false sense of the ego. Which is the main problem. The thinking process has created an ego sense. The thinking process comes to a point that it realizes something is wrong. It feels empty and lost. So it  turns to something outside of itself in hopes of finding something to fill the void they feel inside. They are already grasping, which can draw them even deeper into the dream.

If, on the other hand, they see clearly enough, and are intelligent, they can see past the traps and come to a state of just watching, keeping aware of what is going on within themselves and what seems to be outside of their being. In this state one will not be grasping, just watching and understanding.

If you see clearly, even intellectually, what is taking place in the mind and how that came into being, then you will never be tempted to be drawn into any nonsense again.

Right this moment you are free. There is nothing that can or should be done to be what you already are. You do not need to be spiritual in any sense. We tend to create words that carry some meaning for what we don’t have. There would be no need for the word ‘spirituality’ if we were truly transformed. Even the idea of being transformed can be misleading. The only thing that will be transformed is the false beliefs and concepts we carry, and they have no reality beyond what we give them.

It is sort of like having been raised by chickens. You would watch what the other chickens did and repeat it. You would peck around the earth looking for seeds, worms and bugs. Not knowing any better, you would fully accept that you are truly a chicken. Then one day you see another human, but he is different than you. He walks upright and he makes sounds you cannot understand. You are a little afraid of this creature who is like you, yet so very different. In time, you learn to understand what this creature is saying to you. He tells you you are not a chicken, but a human being. This seems very strange to you and at first you cannot accept it, but in time you can’t help but see this must be true, but you still want to eat some worms and go on acting like you have been conditioned to act. You start to look around and see what the other chickens look like. You observe that they do not, nor can they, speak as this other creature can. This all starts to sink in and one day, out of the blue, there comes a flash of insight that is so direct that it cannot be questioned: You are a human! What a change of perspective that is! You  now see you were always a human and could never be a chicken. There is great joy in this realization and the mind explodes in one insight after another. All the questions have been answered, all the doubts fall away. I am HUMAN, I am free!!

You are not a chicken. Stop acting like one. See the silly game the mind has been playing with itself and be free of it. See what is before you as it is, don’t grasp for anything, just let go of all your chicken-ness and see what is.

Don’t call anything spiritual. That would be like our chicken friend still thinking he is a chicken and looking toward Humanity. He is humanity and you are what IS this very moment. Quit clucking around in your pen, stand up and see clearly.

We are Life Itself. We are not clucking humans lost in a dream world. Don’t say you are consciousness or awareness, those can be traps as much as the word spirituality. What you are is unnamable, so don’t try to name it. Go outside and feel the air, observe all the creatures, the plants, everything but don’t say a word. Just be with Life.