My objective in this series is not to create an archetype for the spiritual human being or set the limitations thereof, for I believe that would be impossible on this planet on where every human is unique and different from each other. What I aim to do instead is share with you the ideal portrait in my mind, thereby conveying to you what I understand from the term “being spiritual”.

First and foremost, the spiritual is one who is aware that the fact that his being as a human living on this Earth precedes all identities, roles and values presented to him. A person who lives with this awareness does not get lost in the identities and roles presented to him by society or sources of spiritual information while denying and suppressing his own reality. The human being harbors, within himself, not only light but also darkness and emptiness; and there will be times during his lifetime when he’s caught in the turbulence of this emptiness or when he feels like he’s left in the dark.

While it may feel good to hold on identities and roles during these dark times, living a life dependent on identities will keep a person from taking the opportunity to tackle the darkness and emptiness and transforming them into light. The spiritual person is one who can show the courage to observe the darkness and emptiness within himself and take the challenge to tackle them head on. There will always be roles and identities, just like in a stage play, but a good actor does not forget who he is and lose himself in the role he has taken on. We are, primarily, humans on the stage of this earth, and we are “humans” before all identities such as wife, husband, friend, lover, master, shaumbra, emissary of light, prince of whatever planet, Cleopatra, priest of Atlantis, one for whom the earth spins, healer, or the sage. Humans have sins as well as virtues, and the spiritual is a human being who can accept them as what they are with almost “painful” honesty, without resorting to defenses or excuses – for the truth that requires us to declare, read, comprehend and experience over and over again is that we are, before all, human.

The spiritual person is one who takes guidance from his mind and his heart at the same time. Although he may be surrounded by a great deal of spiritual information speaking to the heart, he is aware that he is an earthly being and does not neglect the corporeal, material side. It is often seen that many people who live completely detached from society and wait to die so that they can find relief in the “other” world actually use spirituality as a means to separate themselves from the world that they cannot adapt to and as an identity that will make them seem privileged. These people are very unhappy deep down and they don’t even really understand the information they so depend on. There are also priests and scientist who have excelled in their areas, who choose to live by only spirituality or only material truth so that this world is rich in intellectual and spiritual development. The secret is in combining all the elements around us to create our own synthesis because coming up with only one thing from all those colorful components is like having the same tasteless meal every day, and it is inevitable that a person who does this will sooner or later want to escape to lands where there’s much better food. In contrast, a person who uses his heart and mind to choose among the various and unlimited ingredients and create a different meal every day keeps wanting more and more. But none of this causes the spiritual to deny spiritual information, the secret is in bringing the earth and sky together, in making the two brain lobes work together, and in letting the priest embrace the scientist.

The spiritual will come across limitless information, innumerable people who believe this information, and countless incidences which will cause him to experience what he has learned. However, what makes the spiritual different is not the channeled information he reads, the energy techniques he uses or the visions he receives. What makes him different is the way he evaluates the information he comes across with both heart and mind, his genuine and sincere relationship with others, and the way he accepts his experiences with awareness. Just like awareness does not mean “fiddling with every experience one comes across in light of the information he has received in order to come up with a message”, sincerity does not mean smirking like a clown while exclaiming “I love everyone and accept everyone as they are”, and evaluating information with heart and mind does not mean repeating “I am ONE, I am EXISTENCE, I am WHOLE, we are all LOVE” three times a day to ourselves and to others. Yes, if we fiddle with every incidence we encounter we may be able to find countless messages, but this kind of awareness will do nothing but create paranoia after a while. The greatest awareness is accepting what one encounters and living it to the fullest, and at this point one must accept that life is full of both good and bad experiences and that both must be accepted as they are – otherwise one will grow the habit of escaping the bad and putting on an act to disguise this fact, which is the primary reason for the existence of psychiatry in medicine and the mental symbols in reiki. It is my opinion that a good example of such escapist behavior is smiling at each other continuously as if one were high,  embracing each other while exclaiming “dear, oh dear!”, speaking of ONEness and the beauties of the world. Of course there may be some who really feel this way and live with such feelings but they don’t play this game of LOVING, ONEness, DEARness, and WHOLEness – you just look at them, and see those feelings in their souls.

You may have noticed that the information given above is nothing new, it’s doesn’t comes from communiqués received through various psychics, it is in fact nothing but a compilation of the opinions of many people who actually contemplate “being human” and write about it. This may lead you to ask how, then, the “spiritual person” differs and my answer would be this: as I see it, spiritualism is “the road to knowing oneself” and the spiritual is “one who seeks to walk on this road to knowing oneself”. This effort leads him to observe life with a shaper perspective, to examine it and to discover it, and if he can manage to sustain his balance and not go crazy, his inquiries of “who am I? where do I come from and where am I going?” will eventually lead him to attain a clearer conscience and receive increasingly more pleasure out of life.

In the end, we are all human pebbles in this earthly mosaic and we are HUMANS, as must be repeated over and over again. As long as I exist on this earth, this is the truth beyond all other realities and identities.

Section Two
 

You have read about my portrait of the spiritual in the previous section, now let us examine the current situation of the spiritual community.

I can summarize it this way: Remember the illustration we used to come across in stores a long time ago? It depicted two store owners – one took only full payment and the other sold on credit. While the former stood and sneered in front of his cash register, the latter was beating himself up in regret. Although this analogy may seem relevant, I beg to differ and ask that we ponder the state of the store owner in deep regret. If we face the mirror, we will see that this state of lamenting exists in each of us and we should recognize this with such honesty that even though it may hurt, it will still help us see what’s going on, accept it, and make the necessary changes. Unfortunately, up to know, we thought we were looking in the mirror but were actually lost in our reflection from the varnish on the floor – we failed to raise our heads and see the truth, in fact we thought it really was us in the reflection. It is now time to face ourselves and what we may see in the beginning might not be pleasant at all.

Before we came across all this information, we were unhappy people with not much confidence in ourselves, people who weren’t at peace with ourselves, people who sort of drifted with no idea who we were and what to do. Then we came across this information and first we learned that we were all “gods”, then we were told what beautiful beings we were and how much we were loved, and afterwards we received information that before coming to this earth we were princes and princesses of other planets, that various beings used to throw themselves at our feet, etc… And we jumped on this information with such enthusiasm that we completely lost the notion of who we were. Right away we painted over the cracks on the walls of our internal home, went ahead and moved right in and even invited a few people along. Painting over our problems did not change the fact that they continued to exist but we weren’t aware of this because it looked good; however, that house was bound to come down at some point, and some actually did. What I am trying to do here is create a reminder of that damage, first to my self, and then to you…

Dear friends, here is our biggest mistake: we are human, but we keep denying this and try to live like angels. Those who read spiritual information are so mesmerized by it that they immediately try to put wings on their back and a halo on top of their heads. Unfortunately, what emerges is a picture similar to angel costumes worn by five-year-olds in school plays and this all becomes quite entertaining when the person doing this actually seems to take himself quite seriously. There’s actually those who go ahead and drill holes on their backs and heads for the wings and the halos to go into and these people will just do about anything while the universe keeps messing with them until they can go from being completely mute to yelling out “enough!”

We will keep suppressing out feelings, will fail to express ourselves, will impede our only chance of personal growth by denying our shortcomings, and we will never see the true power in ourselves as long as we deny our existence as humans. It is such a sad irony that while all the holy books talk about angels fell to Adam’s feet, Adam’s grandchildren are so enthusiastic to become angels that they deny the Adam in themselves… Please! I am a human being before everything else!

As far as spirituality goes, we are the best, especially when it comes to exhausting the spiritual literature. However when it comes to practice, we find ourselves literally nailed to the ground like a scared rabbit because our connection to the world is not half as good as we think it is. Though we all operate magnificently from the fourth chakra up, we act like the bottom three chakras do not even exist. In fact, an expression like “these words are coming from your root chakra” is an insult to some of us because for some reason the first three chakras represent a vile and foul existence (a man who gets insulted when told his second chakra is working perfectly is actually ecstatic when you tell him his crown chakra is in perfect condition!). The way we completely deny half of our being naturally reflects on our lives; and we end up getting mad at ourselves and at each other for the conflict between what we say and what we do, and the fact that we completely fail to integrate the information we have learned into our lives.

My method for bringing those two worlds together is this: First, I try to live the way I talk and I make an effort to stand by my words (I’m not saying I’m a hundred percent successful but the more I try, the more I improve my success rate). Second, I try to read, learn, and live everything about this world. I don’t read just spiritual books, I actually read more books on history, popular culture, psychology, philosophy and best-sellers. And the more I read, I discover that the information I find in spiritual books is nothing new, they are merely things that have been repeated over and over again for thousands of years, the only difference is in how the information is presented and I prefer to get that information through spiritual books because I like the way those books present this information. However I am aware that there are others who receive the same information through different kinds of sources, which only serves to increase my mental flexibility. The third issue has to do with processing the information through the filter of our minds. The tendency in this community to believe everything in blind faith is amazing – no one actually stops to ask: “Wait a minute, what is this guy saying? What’s on his mind? Is it possible he’s completely out of his mind???” Some guy comes out saying he’s psychic, he takes a pen and goes on and on, and people who come from an education system based solely on memorizing go ahead and treat his words like law. And witness the fun if his information provides an identity for certain people and groups – at once the entire place fills up with indigos, shaumbras, warriors of light and Lemurians! Do not, at this point, assume that I’m against channeled information – I have actually benefited from them quite a bit, but to me the important thing is not the channel is but the information he or she provides. I have learned a lot from Kryon, but that doesn’t mean I have to become a Kryonite or that I won’t have certain question marks in mind, especially after those communiqués of 2002 (plus, I like my channels down-to-earth and speaking clearly – I want none of those mediocre sentences filled with symbols aiming to agitate people). Understanding the real motivation, the true objective is incredibly important. Our hearts are not sufficient to distinguish the positive and the negative in all this information and sources we come across, we must use our minds as well. Unfortunately, the kind of exploitation that we have become used to witnessing in the religious arena has spilled over to the spiritual grounds as well. So many personalities have emerged, from those who aim to create their own group of followers in order to satisfy their greed for power, to those who try to confuse and trick people by marketing new “techniques”. Though you might be able to distinguish the crooks from the rest (as not all of them are crooks, there are some trustworthy ones among them), it’s really difficult to spot those who lend you a helping hand and mean to do well, even though they make a complete mess of it and by the time you realize it, you’re far gone.

There’s this criteria I use when I’m really confused, and it’s become a warning sign for me by making me realize early on what even my best friend can do to me without actually meaning any harm. This criteria is valid for all situations and every kind of information: “True information coming from the essence does not limit a person, it does not come with conditions, and instead of creating an addiction, it sets the person free.” If any kind of information attempts to do the opposite, I know that it’s not coming from the essence, and I don’t want any part of it. Similarly, my criteria for evaluating all kinds of masters, guides and the like is: “The true master creates masters. He does not try to create followers.”

 

Section Three
 

First I presented you with the ideal picture in my mind, then with the current picture but with the negative aspects; and now it is time to talk about the good side to the picture.

It is often customary to talk about the positive before the negative, but I tend to do the opposite. I first talk about the negative and then the positive, much similar to the way I eat stuffed peppers. I try not to leave anything on my plate unless I absolutely have to, but while I’m quite fond of the filling, I’m not a big fan of the peppers themselves. But since I don’t like to leave food on my plate, I eat the peppers first and save the best part for the end. It’s always been like this, all my life, and that’s exactly what’s been happening in this series. So, let’s get to the fun part…

Criticizing something does not mean trying to bring it down or to obliterate it, and my criticism of the people whom I call “the spiritual community” for practical reasons does not aim to condemn their beliefs or lifestyles. What I’m trying to do is sort of a SWOT analysis of this community in which I myself have existed for the past ten years, and my objective in doing this is demonstrating our strong sides along with the weak so that we can see our opportunities for development and foresee certain difficulties that we might encounter (a SWOT analysis is a method for companies to evaluate themselves and is involves an analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). Now, on to the positive aspects...

First of all, the best thing is about these people is that mean so well!!! I have observed that even when we criticize each other and get into arguments, no one ever doubts the good intentions of the others. It should be said, though, that this really isn’t valid for everyone, and not everyone has the best intentions at heart. There are those among the crowd who are provocateurs, who intend to make money by exploiting people’s beliefs, and those who are just after satisfying their own ambitions. Fortunately, these are small minority in the big picture. I myself can recognize those who are “on the road to knowing themselves” and that’s the kind of company I’ve always tried to keep. But then there are those who are on the lookout for UFOs day and night, who are into the paranormal phenomena and who completely miss the intellectual element – those people are definitely not included in my definition of the “spiritual person”. I just wanted to make that distinction clear.  :)

Back to good intentions. I haven’t really seen bad intentions in that many people, be it the smartest, the wisest, the most naïve or the ones who are irritated by those different from them… I’ve found that even those who you think may have bad intentions, like those who argue with you because they don’t like your technique, turn out to be people who do this not because they don’t mean well, but because they can’t express themselves properly. It is for this reason that people who fight like cats and dogs are often seen making up and embracing each other. Having good intentions is a priceless virtue and fortunately, one that the majority of people possess.

Honesty is another important virtue that most people possess. Most of our dishonesty lies in our private worlds and in the defense mechanisms we employ when communicating with each other, but I haven’t seen too many people trying to con each other. Though as I was typing this sentence, I thought of some things I have seen in the past decade. Yes, many possess this virtue called honesty but… there have been many incidents where I have seen the “but”s. Most of what I have seen is friends selling friends out in an instant but since these things haven’t happened to me directly and since I haven’t had the chance to listen to the other person’s story, the term “selling out” may be a bit too harsh. As you can see, I am now confused… how about that?  :)  I can still say, however, that even though most of these disagreements are caused by miscommunication and powerful egos, not many people resort to lying which is still good news to me. We are all humans in the end and we strive to improve ourselves, and I hope everyone tries to acquire the best out of every situation they get into.

The importance of using one’s mind is one point I cannot emphasize enough. However, this requires information to enter the mind, which in turn requires reading. This community harbors an impressive tendency towards reading, impressive in this country with such poor reading habits, and most people in this community actually declare “I’m so tired of reading that I think I might take a break” or warn each other, “stop reading so much or you are going to go crazy”. So this community actually suffers from not from not reading, but from reading, which is kind of absurd in itself. Naturally, the fact that 90 percent (my guess, but I will definitely look into this) of the people who are into the spiritual matters are college graduates and have developed a reading habit plays an important role in all of this. And once we close the gap between how much we read and how much of it we process through the filters of our mind, we will be all set to go. (All information we come across is there because we are meant to find it. This does not; however, mean that it’s always pointing in the right direction. There are five possible answers to the questions in college entrance exams, but only one of them is correct. The wrong answers are there, and that’s why it’s called a test. He who has the ability to distinguish right from wrong, wins. That’s what I’m talking about – using our mind to find the answer that brings down the boundaries and sets us free. The true essence is in the freedom of the spirit.)
 

Self-doubt and insecurities are also good as I far as I’m concerned. However, they are good only when one has the courage to face and tackle these reservations and insecurities because that kind of behavior creates the opportunity for self-improvement. The opposite of this is overconfidence and that is more dangerous than insecurity because the overconfident person just prances around, seeing only what he thinks he looks like. Fortunately, the universe almost always sends him the kind of experiences that will topple even the most self-assured, and succeeds in creating an opportunity for improvement. These people can’t really survive in the spiritual community, in fact, our community is chock full of insecurities and the overconfident are usually rejected for their “fierce ego” with the affirmations that they are “loved and accepted as they are”.  :)  Insecurities are good in that they carry enormous potential for self-improvement, but the concept is also absurd because it causes the person to stay mum even after gaining some confidence, for the risk of being labeled with a “powerful ego” (for some reason, being told you have a powerful ego is the biggest insult in this community). Then there’s the “how much do we really know ourselves and how much of ourselves have we actually improved that we show the audacity to speak so confidently?” attitude which is sure to make a person paranoid and to completely prevent him from going any further. It’s even more frustrating to hear these things from those whom people actually respect and trust because this attitude prevents these people from standing up and making themselves heard, and the stage is left to half-brains who prance around holding on to a couple pieces of unreliable information.

Friends, looking in the mirror to evaluate ourselves with honesty does not mean hiding out because of a few blemishes. Real courage is not in looking at our negative side, it is actually in staring into our own beauty. Unfortunately we live in this world where people easily accept an insult like “you’re disgusting”, but get completely disoriented when told “you’re such a beautiful being”. This can even be seen in the encoding of our language; while there’s hundreds of responses, defenses, counter-attacks and curses you may receive when you insult someone, a compliment produces just a “thank you” (of course there’s always “yes, I am”, but it’s usually not taken well). Therefore, the one time we will be severe with ourselves must be in raising our heads to gaze at our beauty so that the generations after us can find words beyond “thank you” for responding to compliments and pleasant remarks.

Let us turn around and take a good look at ourselves, and let us compare ourselves to those around us even though we might not like it at all. Since you are able to read this article, I assume you can afford web access and even though some of you may be using internet cafes or school computers, the situation is not all that hopeless – none of you are hungry or homeless. Most of you are college graduates, and the rest possess everything but the actual diploma. Your basic needs are met, and most of you are in that segment of society labeled A and B in socioeconomic terms. These are important because as the saying goes, even God appears in the shape of bread to the hungry.

Now let’s get to the good part. You mean well, you work hard to improve yourself, you question things, and you take the time to tackle your shortcomings. You have either learned or are learning to take your fate into your own hands. You are loved by people around you because you are positive, you keep smiling, and most importantly, you have the best intentions at heart. People listen to you, and are impressed by you. These are all very important assets.

You are doing better and better with figuring out the workings of the universe, and you understand how much positive beliefs and intentions can do, even if just one person has them. You know that your internal world reflects on the outside and makes an impact on others, and you realize that even one smiling person can inspire the others and make them smile as well. Even if you can’t exactly feel how every person’s internal state can affect the common vibration of the planet, how even one person smiling in the face of life can raise this vibration and create a unique effect, you have most certainly read about it. (Remember from how far the light of a single candle can be seen in the dark. That’s how one enlightened soul can create so much light amid so many souls waiting in the dark, and light almost always attracts people). In short, things are going quite well in the spiritual sense!

This, in short, is our potential my friends. Under these conditions, unless we realize our own potential and make good use of it, the stage will be left to a couple of half-brains who claim to do just this. Our praises will go to those who don’t deserve it, and the ones who should be praised will never realize their true potential.

Beyond everything else, we all know the joy of smiling into the mirror and smiling in the face of life. We have to raise our heads and see our own beauty before we try to behold the world and the universe. And seeing is not enough, we have to accept that beauty, feel it in our souls, and be able to express it… (and if we can really feel this, no one can call us pretentious). As the number of people who can actually do this goes up, this feeling will become contagious and affect the entire world. And this, my friends, is the way to change the whole planet.

And now we come to the last but the best, and the most important part. I can write these because there are so many people in whom I can observe this and who teach me these things. All that I have written is in fact a collection of many conversations. Even though those who look in the mirror and slowly come to accept what they see are still a minority, there are many people who are trying to get to know the person that they see in the mirror or those who have found the courage to look, or even to make the decision to look. I find this wonderful, and very promising.

There are many pessimistic scenarios about what might happen in the future, and most of these scenarios are focused on dates like 2012. But let me say this, I harbor absolutely no bleakness or pessimism about the future. On the contrary, I know that we will see many wonderful things and I don’t even need to look at the world’s potential to come to this conclusion, what I see all around me is good enough.

So if you want to see this potential too, first look in the mirror and then look around you…   ;)