 A hermit was meditating by a river when a young man interrupted him. Master, I wish to become your disciple, said the young man. Hmm, why? The hermit asked. Well, like, you know, to find God and stuff, I guess. The young man responded. The hermit jumped up, grabbed the man by the scruff of the neck, and then dragged him into the river and plunged his head under the water. After holding him there for half a minute, with him kicking and struggling to come back up, the hermit finally pulled him out of the river. The young man coughed up water and gasped to catch his breath. And then the hermit asked, tell me, what did you want more than anything when you were under water? Air gasped the man very well. Go home, said the hermit, and come back to me when you want God as much as you just wanted air. Now, I gotta be real with you. This should be called the parable of the brutal hermit, I'll tell you that much. While we can mostly agree the methods probably aren't the best way to teach someone, poor guy probably has aquafobia now, the hermit does make a very good point. Spirituality is a lifestyle. It's a way of living life in alignment with your true self, being connected to the core of your being and the world around you. It isn't just something that you can turn off or on when it suits you. Many people who start on a spiritual journey may eventually become disillusioned with it because they find it isn't really an alignment with them or their core values or it just isn't what they imagined. In many cases, people sometimes want something but are afraid to give something else up in order to achieve it. As such, people often miss the simple truth of a spiritual path. I don't meditate to gain anything, I meditate to lose it. Contrary to what many religions may say, if you want to find God bad enough, you don't need someone else's help but to find true wisdom you must go after it with the same desperation as wanting air because in the way are many obstacles keeping you from actually finding it and applying it to life. But once you do find it and apply it, the cultivation of wisdom leads to inner peace, purposeful living and relationships that work. But most of all, it leads to freedom.