Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Matthew 7: 7-8

I spent part of my last day at the lovely YSS Dakshineswar Ashram drafting the “Rightful Living” page linked to on the home page of this site. It was a challenging page to write, mainly because I have tried to not sound too “Godly,” even though everything about rightful living begins and ends with God in body, mind, and soul.

Unfortunately, many people in our Western world flee from the word “God,” yet they are desperately hungry for something more out of life than the gluttonous consumerism served up in our society — something deeper and more meaningful. As part of my research into our social malaise, I signed up for a New York Times newsletter called “Believing.” In the last newsletter the author indicated that many of her readers wrote to her saying that they are in search of a “secular spirituality.”

In other words, they want the enlightenment without having to do any of the work. They want spirituality without making any fundamental changes to their materialistic lifestyle. God forbid — haha — they have to give up any of the convenience and creature comforts they consider necessary to their happiness. In fact, God, just get out of the picture…but please deliver me from the misery of this world. Show me something cool…and spiritual. But not all those dirty homeless people piling up on our streets.

The title of that newsletter, “Believing,” reminds me of something Anand said one morning during satsang on our “Wheels of Awakening” motorcycle pilgrimage through the high Himalayas. “Believing,” he said, “Is just a cover for ignorance. People believe in something because an inner anxiety needs to be resolved, so they claim certain ideas.” How true. Believing is like a secular spirituality. You will never find God by “believing” in him, like the Tooth Fairy. The only way to find God is through direct experience. You need to get to the point where you’ve had enough of the bullshit to get to what’s real, which involves letting go of the false dream/nightmare you’ve thought was reality all along. You start digging into your heart and soul.

That’s the seeking that Jesus and the great ones talk about, and that’s when you start finding the answers, when you really have had enough and are ready to go all the way. Coincidentally (!), this is from another email that landed in my Inbox within an hour of writing that page, this from the great Eknath Easwaran:

“And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” — Jeremiah

“Secular spirituality” is asking for spirituality without the heart, a sort of fast food for the soul. Empty. Vacuous. A facade. Such a “spiritual” pursuit is bound to cause indigestion, and it sounds so apropos for our Western culture today. It is like the fake yoga classes that Anand likes to mock.

My initial intent for this post was far different than what this is turning out to be, or maybe not. I wanted to write about how incredibly divine it has been at this ashram, how the people around me just glow with joy, how they have piled heaps of material and spiritual food on my platter, how they welcomed me in with open arms asking for nothing, and how to a larger extent every experience I’ve had in the Self-Realization community has been that way, from my spiritual family at Lake Shrine to the desert retreat out at Joshua Tree, to the wonderful, incredible, loving community I found through Wheels of Awakening…and beyond that, how I have found the peace in my heart and rid the angst from my mind when I plunged onto this path four years ago.

I guess I just wanted to say, thank you, God, for allowing me to find this place. Thank you, YSS of India, for providing shelter from the storm. Thank you, Lake Shrine, for being the home of my heart, the only home I need. Thank you, Wheels of Awakening, for bringing into my life such lovely souls, of giving me a community of friends that has restored my hope for the world. My heart overflows with gratitude, sitting here at the ashram getting ready to go meditate with others, and thinking that hey, this is actually Thanksgiving, what a coincidence (!)…

And then I think of Donald Trump pardoning that turkey…before taking it out back and slaughtering it with an axe!