SPIRITUAL LITERACY

You would not be reading this unless you have an affinity to reading spiritual writing and teachers. How many “spiritual” books are on your bookshelf? By how many different authors? Chopra, Fox, Dyer, Gibran, maybe Schuler, Wilkerson, Grizone and Warren a few of them? Then there are the heavy hitters, The Bible, Vedas, Torah, Bhagavad-Gita and Koran. Let me apologize now for leaving out any preferred authors or personal heavy hitters. The point here is that seekers of the ultimate do what they do best, seek. This is going to be hard for some of you to swallow, so take a deep breath, perhaps get a glass of water before reading on. Ok, ready: Reading spiritual books does nothing for our spiritual condition, any more than reading about diets results in weight loss. Sure, we know more about weight loss, perhaps more about nutrition, have read testimony from those who lost weight and have become inspired to take action. Now, we may be informed and inspired but nothing happens until we take action. Knowing when to stop seeking and start doing can be a hard and painful transition.

When I wore a younger man’s clothes and was far more impressed with myself, I would look at my book shelves loaded down with spiritual tomes with self-important satisfaction. Believing knowledge equaled demonstration, I had convinced myself that I not just talked the talk, but walked the walk.. I could not have been more wrong. When the truth finally hit, it was devastating. I had a head full of knowledge but had put precious little of the “great truths” I would expound on into action, and what I had put into action was inconsistent and haphazard at best. I was the antithesis of the teaching, talking the talk but not walking the walk.

Today I “keep it simple”. Instead of looking for a new book or author, I re-read a small select group of books. It seems that having read these books and then put them down for a time, “gremlins” sneak in and add/change the text before the next reading! Some of these books I have read for decades, all of them numerous times and those darn gremlins never fail to do their work. Instead of looking for a new book or author, pick up a book that deeply touched you, it is right there on the shelf, and read it with the new pair of “glasses” your living experience has provided you, and say hello to the gremlins.