Spirituality Is Our Future

Spirituality is the path of the future. I have learned this through many years of studying, living and working as a theology professor and spiritual director. If we are not living from the core of our being, if we are not living from the Center of our being, we are just robots following the biological or neurological commands of the brain. When we act as robots, we are living according to the programmed patterning of our family and schooling or we are living in reaction to that programming.

The Spirit inside of us really pushes us to joy and happiness. But unless we are awakened to the promptings of that Spirit, we are still automatons. We need to wake up to that Spirit. We need to be free from the automatic responses of our daily living, so that we do not continue to live and act out of impulse and darkness.

Spirituality is the path, according to the Yoga Tradition, that makes it possible for us to wake up. Spirituality is the path one travels to the Spirit of Life and the path one travels with the Spirit of Life. That Spirit of Life, in Yoga’s scientific and philosophical Tradition, is our consciousness. In the Christian religious Tradition, that Spirit is the Spirit of Lord Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God. In the mystical Sufi Tradition, it is the God of Islam (Allah). In much of the Buddhist Tradition, it is the Buddha. Each tradition states that the Source of Life is within the human being and each calls that Source a different name.

Spirituality, then, is the path to/with that Source of Life, that Presence within. That Presence can be most easily met during times of quietude, during times of walking in nature, during times of mental silence, or during times of contemplative prayer. Each of these practices will wake us up to the Source of Life constantly operating in our lives.

Please spend as much time as you can in the Presence of the Spirit within you, using whatever tradition or method you wish to use. The consequence is enlightening!