Gremlins

Chances are you would not be reading this unless you have an affinity for spiritual writing and teachers. How many “spiritual” books are on your bookshelf, by how many different authors? Perhaps Chopra, Fox, Dyer, Gibran, maybe Schuler, Wilkerson, Grizone and Warren are a few of them? Then there are the heavy hitters, The Bible, Vedas, Torah, Bhagavad-Gita, Koran or the Book of Mormon. Let me apologize for leaving out any preferred authors or personal heavy hitters. Now this is going to be hard for some of you, 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, in truth, we may be informed and inspired but nothing happens until we take action. Knowing when to stop seeking and start doing can be a difficult and often fearful transition.

When I wore a younger man’s clothes and was far more impressed with myself, I would look at my bookshelves 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 spiritual truth, talking the talk but not walking the walk.

Today I “keep it simple.” Instead of looking for a new book or author, I regularly re-read a small 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 since the last 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.