Trying to do here it's it's one of those very vague terms that is used quite a lot but sometimes

it's very
difficult to try and pinpoint what it is that it's that it means and what's it trying to do and I suppose it
means different things for different people but ultimately the way I like to think about spirituality is that
it is us connecting with our spirit we recognize that we are not just a body we recognize that we're not
just a mind but we're aware that there is a part of us that is spirit based there is a part of us that has a
intangible side to us and that's spirit is something that we want to understand more we want to connect
with we feel that there are some benefits to understanding and connecting with our spirit not only in
our day-to-day life but also throughout how we interact with ourselves how we understand ourselves
and how we deal with all the circumstances that we come across in our lives and almost all spiritual
traditions traditions are trying to address one specific problem almost all spiritual traditions are based
around the fact that human beings we don't understand what we really are most human beings don't
really have a full appreciation for who they are and when we say this I think a lot of people will naturally
become defensive and they will say well of course we know who we are I know my history I know who I
am I know all the things that I've done in my life I know my likes and my dislikes and what we do with
that is we create an identity that we are this body and we are this this totes all the thoughts that are in
our head all our memories and all our likes and our dislikes all the decisions that we make and when the
spiritual traditions have said you don't know who you are it is precisely that which they are addressing
that you believe you are this body you believe you are the thoughts in your head and we don't
necessarily understand that there is more to us and even for those who go on a spiritual journey and try
to become more spiritual try to find any practice that gives them peace that gives them bliss very often
people even in their spiritual path don't address the root cause of their problems don't address the root
of who they are so trying to understand the root of who you are is the most important thing in any
spiritual tradition and almost all spiritual traditions should lead you to ask one fundamental question
and that is who am I what is this what is this body where's where do I come from where am I going
where is my life heading so these are some very important questions now the reason we need to ask
this question of who are you and why are you not sure about who you are is because every human being
is born with and idea that there is something more to life even from a young a young childhood going all
the way to adulthood we see that most human beings walk around with life knowing deep within
themselves that something is missing something is not quite right in my life and the way that we deal
with that feeling of discomfort within us and that feeling that something is missing in our lives is that we
try and then go out into the world to try and find something that will get rid of that feeling of unease
that feeling of being empty like there's a void and emptiness inside of us so how do we do it most
people spend their lives pursuing a happiness by trying to find that happiness from the outside and that
could be through fulfilling our hobbies that could be through materialism buying lots of different things
that could be through going through many different relationships and what we're trying to do is we're
trying to find something that will fill this empty hole that we don't quite understand we never quite
study we never look at it but we we know that there's something uncomfortable inside of us this is the
reason why most people can't sit with themselves most people are uncomfortable just sitting and just
being with themselves because there's something so empty inside that it feels like I must feel that I have
to do something with that and we always use our senses our eyes our is to listen to sounds to view
something interesting our taste our sense of touch we're always using our senses to gratify us to give us
some feeling that we need to fill and emptiness inside of us now the spiritual traditions have told us that
empty feeling inside you isn't actually empty there's something there and rather than running away
from it and rather than going out to the outside world going within ourselves and actually finding what
is this emptiness exploring that discomfort inside of us that's actually the most valuable thing you can do
and that is where you start to question yourself and say what is this what's really going on inside me
why am I uncomfortable and so we need to know understand what do we do when we try and go within
ourselves and this is where spiritual practice must always be complemented with spiritual wisdom it's
very interesting that we see now in the world that there are so many people who are attracted to yoga
to mindfulness to spiritual retreats to meditation apps and what we're doing is we're using a lot of
spiritual practices again as an external thing to try and fill a discomfort inside of us and while it's great to
use all those spiritual practices those practices when they're done without the right guidance without
the right spiritual wisdom the wisdom that says what are we trying to do with ourselves what are we
what what are we really who are we what are we made of when we don't have that wisdom what we do
is we use meditation mindfulness then yoga all of these things as just another way to pacify our minds to
try and soothe the discomfort that we feel within our minds and it's great for doing that but it's so much
more than that you're really only getting I wouldn't even say half the benefit if you don't have the
spiritual wisdom So what is the spiritual wisdom the spiritual wisdom makes us look at two very
important factors one is our worldview what is the way in which we understand the universe the second
is our self view what is the way that we understand ourselves and they're they're not actually two
different things but as we explore we'll find that they're actually part of the the exact same thing there
are two sides of the same coin what is our worldview and what is our self view and almost all spiritual
traditions have come from this idea that behind all the things that we understand about ourselves there
is a unity there is something that binds all of life together all people together all of creation together
everything that is there that we can see with our eyes has all come from one source one creative power
and when we understand this creative power when we understand this thing that unites us all that's
where we really start heading into the wisdom we start deep diving into the wisdom not from an
intellectual perspective but from a self perspective from trying to understand who we really are so I
wanna go a little bit into this idea of oneness what is oneness what does that mean you may have heard
these terms like oneness possibly heard the ideas of non duality So what are some of these ideas mean
the very basic principle of oneness is that you are part of something greater that's the first thing that we
need to understand you are connected to something greater than your body you are connected in a way
that you haven't fully appreciated when all you've considered yourself is a person who was born on a
particular day lives certain number of years and dies when you just see yourself within that limited
window then you don't understand well what what was I before this and where will I be after I die when
you understand that you will start to connect the whole thing together so the idea of oneness is
something that really needs to be understood and what it really means is that you have been created by
something and as soon as we say this people start becoming uncomfortable because they assume that
we're automatically talking about some God some create a figure in the sky but I like to think about it in
a little bit more of an easier way to understand rather than thinking about this God character and the
and the word God has a lot of problems in itself because when we talk about God we almost
automatically think about some human like character I call it Mr God like this old man with a white
beard sitting in the clouds and really that's not what we're talking about but if we think about it your
body where does it come from now we all know the mechanics of where babies come from but the very
physical elements of your body if you look at your hands if you look at your legs your arms your your
your muscles your bones what is all this where does all of this come from if I lift anything up and I said
look at this pen where does this pen come from your mind will start to think OK well it's got plastic it's
got rubber it's got metal so all of these different elements come from the earth in some way now where
does our body come from where does all these things come from and and when we start to explore that
we realize that we haven't really understood much about our bodies one of the examples that I like to
think about is if you take a child's toy let's take a a robot for example a small child toy and you see it
switched on and it's got its legs and its arms all moving then imagine we were that robot that robot if we
are that robot that little toy that's moving around we think that we're moving completely independently
on our own we think we are making ourselves move but the robot doesn't understand that it cannot
move by itself somebody has to put the batteries in the robot when there are batteries in the robot and
they're working then the robot can move then the light switch on and all the sounds come on and all the
things can move in that toy as soon as you take the batteries out then that toy cannot function so the
toy has no way of working independently on its own it always needs that energy source and in the same
way we think that we're moving our bodies and and we're completely in control of our bodies but where
does this come from what is keeping this body alive where does the energy come from if we think about
our bodies like that same little robot what is the energy source that keeps it moving that keeps it alive
for 50 sixty 7080 years what is keeping this going for all this time and that's when we start to understand
that there is something inside of us and I like to call that aliveness there's something in you that is alive
and another way to understand this is if you take a person who is alive and when that person dies what
has changed what is it that was in the person who was alive and is not there now in the person when
they die they still have the same heart they still have the blood in their body and they have all the
organs and they have the skin and the bones and the muscles the same head they have everything what
has changed there is something in a person who is alive that has now been removed in and that's why a
person goes from being alive to not being alive what is that that has been removed what is the thing
that as soon as your body was created was put into you that's what I'm calling aliveness and it's a way to
make it very simple to understand without using any terminology that you might have a barrier towards
and I'm saying that there is a spark inside you call it a spirit call it divine light if you want to use religious
terminology call it a life force there's something inside all of us now that life force that is inside of us is
also inside everything else that is born anything else that is created from insects that you might see in
your garden to birds flying above 2 animals to other human beings to trees and plants everything that is
alive also has a life force a life energy that keeps it alive because anything that has been born had also
died so that means that at one point it has the alive alive Ness the the life force inside of it and after a
while it doesn't have that life force inside of it So what is that what is that thing that is inside all of us
now with our minds we can't necessarily fully calculate or understand or workout what those what that
thing is but we can appreciate yes right now I am alive there is a force inside me that is there all the time
now this force inside you is what many spiritual traditions have said that force inside you whether you
believe in a God or anything is completely irrelevant that there is an aliveness inside all of us every
spiritual tradition has said that aliveness that is inside you is worthy of your attention you need to spend
some time and look at it you need to spend some time and connect with it 'cause it's there and it's not
always gonna be there it's not always going to be connected with this body at some point this body was
just a small group of cells and this aliveness force came into it to make it alive and at some point this
aliveness is going to leave and so the spiritual traditions have said that if there is an aliveness of force a
spirit that enters your body stays in your body for a while and then eventually leaves then you are really
that aliveness you are not this body you are the spirit that is inside the body and so at some point the
body is going to go so why spend all of your time focused on the body why spend all of your energy
while you are in this physical body why spend all of your energy on something that is temporary this is
an opportunity for you to connect with that spirit this is an opportunity for you to realize that you have
this spirit that is older than time itself that spirit has always been there that spirit hasn't been created
that spirit has always been there you just don't know that because you don't remember anything prior
to your birth and so spending this human life completely absorbed in the human body or completely
absorbed with the worldly interactions all the spiritual masters have said you know what you're missing
something you're missing an opportunity to find out more and to connect with it because like we said
right towards the beginning most human beings spend their lives knowing that their life feels a little bit
empty and the reason you feel a little bit empty is because you are this spirit but you're trying to find
happiness elsewhere you know that there is some happiness in your life that you feel like you deserve
but you look in every other place to try and fill that happiness and what the spiritual teachings have
always said is no you need to go within yourself and find that you need to find that connectedness that
which is a part of the whole universe when you connect with that spirit you will realize that you are
much more than just this body the body is here but the spirit is connected with everything your spirit is
part of a large network of spirits and they're all part of this one gigantic being spirit universal force call it
what you want you see that when we start using language language is very limited but all the spiritual
traditions are saying connect with your spirit because your spirit is far bigger than this body it's far
greater you are connected to a lot more And sold a spiritual teachings have tried to use examples to
help us understand this a little bit more and the example that I find is the most effective in trying to
explain this is the analogy of a wave that doesn't know that it's part of the ocean think about when
you've been to the beach and you see these large waves a large wave comes up and it goes back down
into the ocean well I like to think about our life almost like that one single wave there was a point where
we didn't exist and then like the wave at one point we came we we became alive we became manifest in
this physical form and we are alive for a very short period and eventually we go back just like the wave
that comes up is there for a moment and then goes back into the ocean for that very split second that
the wave is alive is the same that we how we need to understand our our lifespan our lifespan in all time
and space is actually a very small fraction so even though we think that we live for many decades the
reality is if you look at time we're alive for a very small fraction of time just like that wave is therefore a
very small fraction in the story of the entire ocean so that wave when it comes out of the ocean it thinks
that it is a wave it thinks I am here and me being here is very important in the same way human beings
we arrive into this world and we think us being here is of tremendous importance and so we spend all of
our time only focused on the the wave itself we we're focused on this very short period that we are alive
in this physical form and the spiritual teachings have said don't worry so much about the wave
remember that the wave is part of the ocean and just like a wave doesn't understand that it's part of the
ocean we don't understand that we are part of the divine universal force life force or spirit and when we
begin to understand that we are part of something greater we are not just this body but we are this
spirit that is everywhere and connected to everything that has been called oneness that has been called
non duality this idea that we are not a separate being that that this body is separate from every other
person or every other thing outside we are actually a spirit or a life force that is totally connected to
everything when you connect with that life force that life force is fundamentally at peace that life force
inside you does not have a beginning middle and end it is beyond time itself it's always there whether
this body is there or not this life force is always there so the things that we try and fill our time with the
things that we try to get happiness from those things are all Waste temporary and when we connect
with temporary things we only ever experienced temporary happiness so the spiritual wisdom has said
go and find that which is not temporary but that which is permanent inside each and every one of us
and you can't read books about that you can't go and find that somewhere outside there's only way one
way to find that and that's to go and experience what you are spend time within yourself and this is
where all the various spiritual traditions of meditation and mindfulness and Zen and yoga all the
different spiritual traditions are all trying to point you back to your own being too that life force within
yourself now this is where we have to spend a little bit of time to make sure that we understand it
because for most of us this is not our experience we don't experience this life force this spirit inside of
us so we are unsure that it's actually true so let's try and unpack it a little bit more to make sure that we
understand it you know this word God that I mentioned before is something is is a very difficult word to
connect with and most people are now saying that we don't accept this idea that there is a God because
it feels too dominating like some sort of master in the clouds so when we go on a spiritual journey and
saying I'm trying to connect with God most of us don't know what we're doing and This is why most
people are getting i