(my use of the term G-d in this post is because I simply resonate with that word, but feel free to replace it with source, the universe, freedom, whatever word means something highly sacred to you)
This overwhelming unworthiness washes over you as you step into an ancient holy place. It may be a massive European church with light pouring through the stained glass, a buddhist temple in Bhutan with monks in meditative chant, or even somewhere a bit more mysterious like Stonehenge in the UK.
You entered this sacred realm and felt almost nothing in your soul. You may have experienced a physical awe over the architecture, the craftsmanship and the aesthetic beauty, but you had been preparing yourself for some spiritually revelatory moment and alas, none arrived. You leave with no questions and no answers. It was just another beautiful worldly monument.
Yet, the next afternoon, you stop at a food stall on a grimy street on your way to the airport and have an epiphany, this all-connectedness feeling wash over you suddenly, which changes everything and makes you feel like G-d is real, and with you, in this very moment. Now, why is that? That you can feel null at a sacred temple with thousands of years worth of spiritual revelation built into the floor you stood upon, but perhaps going to the grocery store or walking down an average street in a dirty city filled with anxious people can make you have consistent overwhelming spiritual inspirations ?
I've personally had my most incredible spiritually encompassing experiences on airplanes, in bathrooms of bars (sober, seriously), sitting on the floor of my kitchen or the pavement of the street outside. I believe that this is because I, like most people reading this post, were brought up in a spiritually mundane environment. Hear me out as to why that would cause us to have spiritual epiphanies in such unlikely places.
If you were raised in a western environment (besides a relatively small outlier of people who were still raised with integrated, spiritual, ancestral practices), you were raised in mostly a spiritual wasteland. You may have been raised religious, but unfortunately, the majority of the religious in western culture are not truly living spiritual lives. They mostly see it as a safety net, and don't know anything else. Many partake in religion in western cultures simply out of fear, the fear of the unknown and the fear that if they don't, they will be punished (by G-d and by their community).
For example, I was certainly raised in a very religious community in the more rural south east of the USA. I went to church with all of my friends because everyone was doing it. I would go mostly to socialize and when everyone was singing the gospel, I felt like a fraud. Did they all really feel G-d? I would say I felt it, I would even lie to myself, but really, I felt no soul fire.
But nowadays, I feel it all. I feel G-d in everything I do. And I never go to church. All I do is take walks though places with heavy air pollution and sense his presence.
I believe holy places in the world have true spiritual significance to people who SHOULD BE initiated into those places. Who, for example, may have true ancestral roots and attachment to them. They are given spiritual access to those spots. I think it's a special thing if you can connect with them. But, we were all born into different circumstances, with different life paths and destinies and journeys. We all are meant to unlock ourselves at different places and for different reasons and in different ways. That's why there is a whole world! And not just one holy place for us all to join in. So maybe the people born into the mundane are given special spiritual access to the mundane.
I think that if you were born into a “spiritually mundane” culture, and raised in that way, then unlocking your spiritual potential in “mundane”, everyday spaces, is your birthright. You may not have a temple, but then everywhere you go may become your temple. You may not climb up a mountain to a church built for G-d and finally touch the heavens, but you might meet an angel in the waiting room of a dentist office through a relatively boring magazine.
And through this, you can make the mundane so meaningful. You can make every step you take become a step closer to the truth. Of course you can do this no matter how you were raised, but I think people who were raised in a worldly way have some kind of birthright for experiencing their breakthroughs in the sublunary. And I think this can truly help the world as well by more people doing this.
I do think it's a “more difficult path” to find spiritual fulfilment in these things, and I think that's why a lot of us are so lost. But I think that's actually, really a huge and important part of this type of path. Being utterly lost and confused for a long time. Feeling abandoned in a way. Feeling robbed of that inherent spiritual connection that some cultures have built into their bedrock. This forces you to make that for yourself and to have to push so hard for it. To make something brand new, and true, and special, and unique from your souls personal path. To be obliged to practice some kind of (once confused) discipline, to see EVERYTHING as a potential offering and to hold your hand out and offer it to others as well. This brings more spirit into the world into places where there didn't typically used to be. You are adding the sacred to the commonplace. YOU are doing that.
To find spiritual significance in a fast food restaurant. To stand there and see the insane beauty there is to be seen in how much suffering and fulfilment and pain and happiness and curiosity and crushed dreams and second chances and life has been had inside of any place like this. This is something real, this is seeing the truth in the mundane.
This is a very important task to undertake, and I personally believe it is part of a lot of our destinies. We need this now more than ever.
You can’t open the door to the divine, unless you first accept that the door is in the house you live in (the house you were born in).
The key just.. appeared.
And so I unlocked myself,
And out poured the light.
This is an incredible piece. Probably my favorite of yours so far. All of it just felt so true and universal, yet concise and refreshing. Great content.
so sooo dynamic and well-articulated i luv <3333