Spirituality is not a lifestyle or a concept. Spirituality isn’t synonymous with religion, prayer, belief, certain actions, looks or habits.

It is the most naked spot of you.

Your most vulnerable and least desired spot. The spot you do anything to avoid. It’s the rawest possible emotion, what you think you can’t survive. The simplest place of all. By having the courage to go there, paradoxically, you will also meet bliss and joy.

But you don’t go there to get anything, you go there to find the truth of what you are. You won’t go there without a burning desire that nothing but death can take away. This desire is not within your control. It may appear or not. If you go into spirituality to get or avoid anything – anything -  it is not spirituality. It is wordly.

​Spirituality is the process of removing everything that is possible to remove. It is not adding anything. Spirituality is having no answers, only an unshakeable desire to be nothing, do nothing, except what you deepest are. It is the association with a truth that knocks out everything you thought you knew. It is humbling, refreshing, intimidating and deeply blissful. 

​The truth is not hidden but because we love mysteries we say it is. All the beautiful messages of all the religions and sages around the world have changed nothing. It hasn’t made the world a better place. We still kill and hate one another. For thousands of years nothing has changed.
 
That is because thruth is nothing that you can read about and learn in the same way that you learn the ABC:s. Truth is something you find inside, even though there is evidence of it outside.
 
Truth is something that has to be discovered by each and everyone, individually. If they want to. That is why truth can be open in plain sight and still nothing changes. That is why truth can be told and not seen.
 
Truth goes beyond belief. Truth goes beyond what you think you are. Most people are not ready to give up what they believe is true in order to find actual truth.  But that is what is needed. The complete giving up of all beliefs. How else would you be able to make room for truth?
 
“Love is all you need” may be true but as soon as we start asking “how do I get love?” all is lost. Not even to ask “how do I give love?” is quite good enough. Because your idea of love is a belief and it may not tally with someone else’s beliefs and perceived needs. And what will you do if your love is rejected? If nobody is happier because of the love you give?
 
A better question to ask would be, what is love? Or better yet, what is true? What do I know for certain? What do I actually know that can never be denied in any circumstance? And be prepared to go wherever that question takes you.
 
That is the direction in which you will find truth, and love, and freedom. If you look hard enough, if you are willing to give up everythng. And I mean everything. And I mean willing.
 
But how many of us are really willing? How many of us even have that interest? And so the truth will continue to be in plain sight and continued to be denied. And the world will go on as always. This is no problem, really. The interest can not be manufactured. Either it’s there or it’s not. You will know if it’s there for you. The fire  inside is a sign, the continuous looking.
 
The trick is to not look for what you believe about truth, but for truth itself. Truth is not an object. Truth is not an acquisition. 
 
In a sense you are not the one discovering truth but truth is discovering you. You may not even know why you want it. But in the end you will discover that truth makes everything intensely interesting and vividly alive. 

When I started out searching for a greater meaning in life I had no idea what I got myself into. Not that I had a choice. My life has forcibly and insistently put me on track for the search for freedom.

That’s how it showed itself to me, the search for freedom. It can also present itself as the search for truth, God, nirvana, enlightenment, awareness. It has many, many names.

Knowing what I know now I would never recommend anyone to get into serious seeking. Because if you do your whole world will shatter. The only ones I’d recommend it to are those who are so fed up with the world, or so intent on knowing the truth, or God etc, that they don’t care whether they live or die.

The world as you know it is the price for freedom.

It will cost you your deepest most cherished dreams (this includes all spiritual dreams and ideals). It will cost you your most cherished beliefs. It will cost you some relationships. (Warning! Do not build a new, more spiritual world. It’s still the same world, just in a different clothing.)

Freedom costs everything you are.

Who’d want that? Well, some crazy people do. When I realized what it would cost me I wanted to get off the train! But by then the train was moving full steam ahead and all I could do was to put down my luggage and be on with it. There is a point of no return on the spiritual path. When that point is you won’t know until it’s too late.

Spirituality means realizing, in a very tangible IN-YOUR-FACE sort of way, that you don’t have any control. That you are powerless even regarding the most obvious and simple details of yourself, maybe especially those. Anybody noticed? You don’t have any control of yourself. If you think you do, it’s most likely imaginary.

You can’t control yourself. You can’t control others. You cant control the world. You can only let them be free.

This is a painful process. There may be fear, terror even. The fear may be nameless or there may be scary things happening on the outside that will teach you (in no uncertain terms) that you are not in charge. The severity (and it can be severely severe) of the situation depends on how much you have been holding on to untruth, how much you have been holding on to the image you have of yourself. It also depends on how willing you are to let go of that image.

In short, it depends on how much resistance you put up.

You see, spiritual search is not about getting what you want. It’s not about being happy. Although that is what attracts most people to the spiritual field. Spiritual search is about loosing everything. The quest of getting what you want belongs to the world. Period. Being focused on getting what you want is worldly. Nothing wrong with that at all but it’s important to know what is what.

That is why the new age movement is worldly and many religions too. New Age says: “If I think positive thoughts and raise my vibration I will get what I want.” Religion says: “If I am good and do what God wants, God will reward me and give me what I want.” And you are stuck in the endless game of trying to get happiness.

If you want to be worldly, be worldly. If you want to be religious, decide if you want the worldly strain or the spiritual one.

If you want to be spiritual, be ready to loose everything and be very comfortable with not getting what you want.

Of course to stay completely in the world will not prove to be much better than going on a spiritual path. You will be mercilessly tossed in the worldly merry-go-round. If you stay in the world your only hope is doing your duty with a thankful heart and doing right by yourself and others and, most importantly, giving up the attachment to specific results of your actions. You can build a fairly happy life on that. (It’s not as easy as it sounds, though.)

It’s all up to you and how much you want to see the truth of you really are, how the world really is. Or, let me rephrase that: It’s not really up to you. If you embark on a serious spiritual journey eventually it’s not you who decide. It’s something else, much deeper in you, that will pull you and push you.

Of course, there are great benefits to enlightenment. You will know the truth of who you are. You gain complete relaxation. You loose all shame, guilt etc. You won’t feel the need to hide anything about yourself and nothing – nothing - can hurt you. You will feel like your most natural self in every situation.

And you gain access to bliss whenever you want. That can be fun to play with. Apart from that, no I definitely don’t recommend spiritual search. In my early days, just as I had gotten on the train, I would recommend spirituality to people. But not now.

If you’re already on board, relax, sit back and let life unfold. Because it is also the most rewarding (and the most paradoxical) life experience you can have. If you don’t mind loosing everything!

With the greatest love imaginable to all the bodies in this world, and to all the starved souls, trying to get heard.