Spirituality Is Natural
Everyone is sensitive. Maybe in some people spirituality is not obvious, but it is there, arising in intimacy and profound experience. Spirituality as depth, intimacy, and sensitivity is the most natural attribute of a human being, far more basic than our thinking. Spirituality may not be normal, but it is natural.
The problem is that in today’s world, awareness of this kind requires courage – the foremost quality of a truly intelligent heart. It is not a question of education or social standing. An ignorant person may not understand some words or concepts but he or she will feel what is being said, and that is enough. Humane sensitivity does not seek agreement, approval, or recognition.
Everyone could question their awareness. No formal schooling is necessary. We read and evaluate our life and surroundings in different ways, but in the end those of us who call ourselves educated or intelligent rely on ready-made conclusions based on appearances. It is the simpler ones who hold the key to what is Real.
Spirituality is the height of perception and feeling anywhere, in any way, shape or form. It is the acknowledgement of the depth and mystery of experience of every sort. Everyone feels, whether they want to, or like it, or don’t want to, and don’t like it.
Techniques can be helpful for some people and for a limited period of time until the result of those practices, as quality of experience, is incorporated into our daily lives. These methods serve initially to sever the automatic disconnection produced by the demands of our society. Chanting OM with eyes strained upwards and sitting in unnatural positions, forcing oneself into demanding practices, starving oneself, or depriving oneself of certain foods makes no one more spiritual. Being natural does. What is unnatural is the constantly intruding mental chatter that pretends to be what life is about. What is even more unnatural is all the external activity that is usually expected of spiritual practice.
Sensitivity is the only real gauge of quality and reality; it is the essence of spirituality. Ecstatic peace is the result.
Once we are able to bypass the incessant transmissions of thought inside our mind – replete with emotional connotations, personal ambition, and biases – we tap into the genuine origin and dynamics of creation. A higher law is revealed where belief is not necessary, and the heart begins to tell its story of the way things really are. This is free of charge.
It takes tremendous courage to love, to trust, to know peace, and to be an emanation of peace. It involves a conscious resistance to emotional intensity, the kind that is supported by belief and opinion (see prior entry). In the most natural innermost tranquillity, the state of being known as peace spreads as a very physical and tangible reality, almost as if heaven were brought to earth. Because here is where it is.
And then we become peace and are able to transmit peace. Then the receiver, or any bystander who happens to come near, feels relief.
Is this so difficult to conceive?
The recipe:
Simply be present, without intention or reason: empty mind, present feeling, open body, frank, available, harmless, not looking out, not looking in. Be as you are with the wind or with beautiful scenery. Your eyes may be open, or they may be closed. You may lie down, sit, walk, move at random, or be wholly still. There is no posture required for awareness. You may laugh, or sing, or engage in any normal daily activity. Everything is beautiful; everything is a wonder. Everything leads to the same place.
Then, when you feel that spontaneous, natural joy arising, for no reason at all… be grateful.
Gratitude is the greatest and most powerful gift anyone can ever offer. It has no conditions and no objectives. All of life drinks it in and awakens from heavy slumber into what has always been. Spiritual.