On Spiritual path you are either a Seeker or Realized, Believer has no place
A lot of noise is made about believing, faith and trust in religions for Spiritual upliftment. But the truth is that:
On a spiritual path, you can either be a seeker or the realized. There is no place for a Believer.
If you are looking for something in the house, you are either in the state of looking for it or have found it. There is no value in being in a state, where you start believing that you will find the thing you are looking for. Believing that the thing is somewhere, you are not even sure about where though, and that somehow by sitting and believing the story of its existence can bring you up to it, is useless.
I have found that anytime you come close to a religious or spiritual institution, there is a feeling of righteousness and of the feeling of “coming home”. Thereafter, its supposed to be just a matter of following up. But is it really? Once you are deliberately and consciously on a spiritual seeking path, then you can’t close your eyes mid way.
That is all you need to know about the complete nonsense that is perpetuated in so many so-called religions about Believers and Non-believers. It is a distinction made by those who have neither the knowledge nor the interest to walk the spiritual path. Those who talk in these terms are merely interested in furthering their political cult. No more.
Unfortunately, a lot of talk in spiritual parlance goes around as some kind of divine truth which cannot be tampered with. And that is the sad part. Either people make shallow proclamations, remaining on the surface of the seeking, or they shun from any meaningful discussion. They are neither interested in serious search/exploration nor are they interested in a deep dive. A story – any story – becomes a very good proxy for the Truth.
In the past few years of my seeking, specifically in the last few months – where I have decided consciously to eschew all political correctness while I seek and question – I have come across quite a few people who want to reinforce their own thinking which they have just picked up from here and there – which has very little deliberate thought and analysis – but they shun from an exploratory discussion. Take them on an uncomfortable path of analyzing and they are in an unknown zone.
Interestingly, this malady is far more pronounced in the so-called liberals and progressives than the religious. In my view, “liberals” and the “progressives” of today are the new cult-believers. They have the highest resistance to any analytical discussion. But give them a keyboard or a pen and out comes a tome of rants. Ranting and spewing opinions is easy. Understanding what you are saying and if and why it even makes any sense requires fighting ones own prejudices. That is tough.
Exploring without stopping and believing in to any story is the most important “principle” of the spiritual path.