 Just saying the word spiritual suddenly divides people. Everybody, it seems, has a different idea of what it means. For some people, spiritual means imaginary fantasy that is clearly not real. For some people, spiritual means God and the essence of a religion. For others, spiritual means, well really whatever they want it to mean. It seems to me like spiritual is a way of describing anything that cannot be described in the physical material world. And for many that would mean simply it doesn't exist because for many people believe that the material world is everything. For other people they may believe that there is a spiritual world, some kind of a world that is outside the material world that has all these various properties that we call spiritual. Others might simply describe it as God himself. I think of the concept as really a way of looking at things, spiritual is a way of describing things that are very difficult to describe. I believe that to dismiss spiritual as simply imaginary fantasy because it's not material is really missing the point. But on the other hand I don't see it as being sort of this separate world outside the material world, some kind of supernatural thing but simply another perspective, a way of looking at things that cannot be materially described. But even what I've said so far already points to the problem with this whole thing of spiritual and being spiritual is that it is so outside definition, it's so much open to interpretation. And the reason why it's not part of science is because it cannot be tested and verified through evidence. Now people that believe in pure science, pure materialists would say therefore because it cannot be proven by evidence and experiment it really doesn't exist at all, it's not real. And to me that seems like giving up access to a whole set of tools, a whole way of looking at things and aspects of our existence, aspects of life in the universe that are very valuable. But on the other hand others revel in this non-describability, this non-provability of anything spiritual because you can never be proven wrong. Whatever you believe spiritually you can believe that you're right forever. You will never be proven wrong by some kind of clear evidence. So then how do you know if you're right or not about anything that you believe about spiritual matters? Well there is no absolute standard. It's not to say that all beliefs are equal as the meme of the flying spaghetti monster demonstrates it is an idea that you know why believe in God and not in the flying spaghetti monster. There's no objective definable standard to say that believing in some particular concept of God is better, more real than believing in a flying spaghetti monster. Simply because nothing in spiritual matters is definable, provable and explainable in any clear way. So this really presents an opportunity to get lost, to escape into a kind of fantasy world where you can believe whatever you want. And this means that the world of spiritual matters is very vulnerable to self-deception. It is very easy to fall into traps where we deceive ourselves with what we want to believe. Because with something material like the classic example of gravity, if we choose to not believe in gravity or believe that if we believe hard enough we can fly and defy gravity, we will be corrected quite mercilessly by gravity saying no, your belief is clearly incorrect when you are pulled down to the earth. But there is no such open, clear, direct correction for any kind of spiritual belief that you could come up with. If you want to believe something, there is nothing stopping you from believing that. Which is a wonderfully free thing, but it's also dangerous in that you can start to believe anything and nothing will stop you. The world of spiritual things is a wonderful hiding place for anybody that wants to avoid facing difficult things in life. It is a convenient refuge for hiding out and believing things that make you feel comfortable. Endless positivity, simple denial of anything that's wrong. You are perfect. Anything bad that happens to you is because of some vibrational issue. And you simply have to think positive thoughts forever and that's all you need to do. Again, there's no way to directly prove that that's not true, but it seems like that can easily lead to some very bad choices. A kind of passive laziness really. Anytime something difficult comes up, it's easy to simply hide behind visions of positivity, serenity now. My problems don't exist in the spiritual world. Maybe if I just invest more in my guru, do some more yoga, have another ayahuasca ceremony. Just keep trying harder to connect with pure positivity and bliss, then everything will be okay. And I don't mean to dismiss any of these practices. Any such practice can have value, but it can also be a place to escape. A place to avoid facing honestly with real issues that should be dealt with. It seems to me that the real test of anything spiritual, in so far as it can be tested at all, is how it is reflected in our lives, in real life. Being a very spiritual person, whatever that means, it seems like it can only have meaning as it is expressed. In a sense, it's not something that needs to be proven at all, but to the extent that it is proven or demonstrated, it can only be through how we live our lives. The spiritual belief, spiritual practices, if they have real weight and resonance to them, they will be reflected in our actions, in the way we live our lives. So if you believe you are a light working star seed earth angel, okay, what are you doing in your life or how is it expressed in your life? Not necessarily specific things that, you know, this specific spiritual thing is being expressed, but how is your life overall reflecting your spiritual belief? Okay, you believe in a traditional specific God? Okay, how is that reflected? You believe in the flying spaghetti monster? How is that resonating through your everyday life? Okay, you don't believe that anything spiritual at all is anything beyond fantasy? How are you living your life? Don't let spiritual life be some kind of escape from the everyday world, but let it be a guide that resonates through everything we do in everyday life.