Fads are such a part of the society today. Fashion fads, diet fads, even toy fads… and now I see a new thing around me – spiritual fads.

Why are we spiritual? Some of us turn to spirituality for solace from the problems of life, some others to make easy money, yet others for a wide variety of reasons I cannot probably begin to list.

There are two of these reasons I’d like to list here though. Some people are spiritual out of a genuine interest, a genuine desire to transcend and merge with the universal consciousness. Most others, although they’d like to believe that they belong to this category too, are actually ‘spiritual’ because of the highs it brings with it. It is usually rare for the second category to ditch the ego massage and join the first category, but unfortunately, it is very easy for those in the first category to join the second.

The spiritual path is a long and winding one and it is so easy to get lost. Even easier, when one’s companions are lost too, and swear to you about the beauty of the road they have taken. The most beautiful roads are not necessarily the right ones. Sometimes it is the ugliest, most boring, barren route that’ll get you to your destination.

So how do people go astray anyway? I’ve been seeing quite a few examples around me lately. We get attracted to this path due to various reasons. Some of us have an inner calling right from birth, some of us discover it in the quest of solving a life problem – but we all start somewhere. But one route is always so boring, so wants to explore other options. After all, how will we know that we have made the right choice if we don’t look at the other ptions?

Reiki, gets so boring after a while. Every path is, infact, very boring after a point so I’ve been told. After the initial kick starts to wear off, we start getting restless. The excitement that was there in the beginning has faded, and while this means that we’re supposed to get serious about the route now, we’ve gotten addicted to the excitement – we want more. And so we go, jumping from one method to another, chasing the excitement, chasing the power.

Spiritual growth brings with it a variety of powers, a variety of perceptive abilities. You might suddenly find that you are able to read others’ thoughts. Or see their auras and predict their health and energy patterns. Or more! These are rewards that are bestowed on you on the path, or maybe you could also consider them tests to see whether you are still going to stick to the path or get stuck with the new gift. But things aren’t even that simple today. Today instead of being ‘gifts’ these abilities can be learned. What a pity.

WHY?

This is a question I ask my students to ask themselves, when they come up to me with new requests. Someone wants to learn crystal healing. Someone else wants to learn astral travel. I’ve been asked for more – teach me to use the pendulum, teach me to talk to my angels, oh and to others’ angels too… it never stops!

Or maybe it does, with a simple question – WHY? Why do you want to learn these things?

When you start going deep within, you start to realise, no, this isn’t really part of my spiritual progress. I want to believe that it is part of my spiritual progress because I really want that extra power. I want to feel more powerful, I want to be able to find out people’s secrets, I want to feel superior to others. If you’re thinking no, thats not the reason, I want to learn it because I want to help people, think again. No one really helps anyone else. If you have a strong desire to ‘help’ others, it is nothing but the subtle ego talking – you need a deeper analysis.

Yes, it helps to be able to communicate with your angels, one must learn to do that if one gets the chance, because its like getting direct access to your astral gurus. But things like ‘stronger’ methods of healing, or finding out more about others, whether through aura scanning or other techniques, are in my view nothing but a major detour from the path of spiritual progress, if not a totally wrong direction. I have nothing against these systems – professional healers might use it if they are directed by the forces to do so. But pray tell me, what use is this to a layman except for ego massage?

The most evident, and yet the most hidden aspect of true spiritual growth is a simple one – hard work. When you’re on the right track, things start to become boring, and then they become worse – because past karmas then start to surface and one experiences apparently meaningless suffering. This is when we need to grin and bear it, and just let go. Don’t run around in circles in the quest of removing something that is actually a removal itself – a removal of the mess left behind by your past.

Let us promise ourselves that we’ll stay focussed on the goal. The sweetmeats on the way are of no relavance. Enjoy it while it lasts, and then forget about it and focus on the next step. Annihilation of the ego. Merging with the universe.
Aham Brahmasmi.