What is spirituality? If you are like me, than the first images that may pop into the mind may have to do with long hair, lose fitting cloths, tattoos and crystals. Perhaps commonly seen as the “pot smoking hippy”.
Or, perhaps, more of the orthodox route of robbed monk meditating in a monastery or fiery man on a pedestal, preaching the good word of the lord.
This is far from the reality. The Truth is, Spirituality is merely the recognition of your self as energy empowering a Human shaped body, for the purpose of expressing. Or, simply put:
The path of seeing yourself as this energy of expression and choosing to realign with it.
In my 11 years of seeking and wandering, from monasteries in Northern California, ashrams in Costa Rica and Spiritually centered collectives in Guatemala, I have come across a similar commonality within these varying methodologies; conformity.
These ideas that, if you are not: Vegan, vegetarian, organic, self-sustainable, hemp using, pot smoking, soft spoken, kind, compassionate, giving, self- sacrificing, kombucha drinking, sober, non-swearing, etc, then you are not “spiritual”.
Poppycock, I say!
Spirituality is the discovery of your energy
Firstly, all beings are spiritual as they all have a Spirit.
An energetic essence of self-expression.
The whole point of the spiritual path is to discover and align with that Spirit. To become identified as that, as opposed to our normal identification with the body and its ego construct.
Secondly, from my perspective, spiritual seeking has to do with separating ones self from conformity; to discover who YOU are, outside of the programs or ideas placed upon you from external sources. The journey of freeing ourselves from the social conditioning, traumatic responses, habitual patterns and faulty beliefs we inherit in our early years in order to acclimate into this world.
To see the very thing that has ensnared our authenticity imbedded within the methodologies that are meant to free us was a sobering discovery. The spiritual path would be harder than it would seem. The world offers much trickery and illusion to keep you within its grasp.
Now, I am not in any way bashing these things above. People can do what they want, that’s kind of my point. What I aim to point out is that there seems to be a commonality in the repackaging of conformity into a “spiritual” box and misleading people away from the real journey, which is the discovery/uncovering of Authentic Self-Expression, in what ever form that may be.
Spirituality is the Self-Expression of that Energy
Authentic self-expression is aligning with the impulses that “God” (Universal Intelligence or how ever you want to call it) gives you to be expressed through your vessel and allowing it to flow through you. The “you” that hampers this self expression is what we have come to call “The Ego”.
The Ego can be seen as a construct of all these conditionings mixing into an identification with the body. In its endeavors to protect the body for survival, it blocks many of these inner impulses in order to protect the body or mental construct of identity from perceived harm.
All situations experienced are bestowed to you by the Intelligent Light, the omnipresent orchestrator and translator of the Ocean of Light in which you swim, exist or have your being. This translation is what constructs your perceived reality, from within your perception of experience. All experienced situations are lessons created by the Intelligent Light for the purpose of growth and self discovery.
Improvement of Self - Removing limitations of Expression
You can look at this whole process of self-discovery as self-improvement. From my point of view, it seems as if the process of self-improvement is the undoing of that in which you are not. A process of riding yourself of these social conditions, ingrained beliefs and traumatic responses that block the authentic expression of who you are.
You can not improve yourself, you can only become more of who you truly are.
I know, I can hear people already questioning, “but what about the bad guys?”
And my retort to you is… What bad guys? 
When we zoom out of our limited understanding of the world and try to grasp the bigger picture, we come to realize that we barely grasp the meticulous intricacy that is Life unfolding; this Lila.
When we look closely, we see the world as a dance between two polarities, two modes of expression. These two modes simply being Service-to-Self and Service-to-Others.
Every movie or video game of substance has a villain as a challenge for the hero to overcome. Without the villain, who is the hero? With out the overcoming of obstacles, would the hero be as great as they are? With out the perception or experience of something undesirable, there would be no impetus to pursue that which is desirable and just. With out the challenge/obstacle/oppression, there is no growth to propel one beyond it.
In this regard, any thing you perceive as “bad” is just a label you put upon it. Another part of the social conditioning that is tarnishing your translation of this play of light. Both sides work together to create a tension and incentivize growth. The play or dance of polarities is what propels evolution forward, and from this perspective, there is no such thing as bad, only differing forms of expression.
*If you are interested on reading more about this subject, check out my article on the Polarity of Expression!
Fin
I hope this article has helped you to understand a bit more of what most perceive as woo-woo fairy talk. There is a real depth to these ideas. If this where all to be truly considered at a collective level, it very well could have profound effects on our social structure. Thus incentivizing all of us to evolve beyond our own limitations, making a better community and society for all to live.
Thank you for coming to my TedTalk…
Really like this blog, keep on sharing! I’ve also been “seeking”, looking for paths outside myself, trying to run away from “responsabilities” or Life without much succes, so I have to come over and over again to daily Life, to my true Life. So thankful now I can feel myself from within
Ah, thank you so much for your kind words!