Overview

Spirituality is simple: it is our personal experience of the divinity within ourselves and a recognition of the divinity in all living things. It is not religion, which is an outpicturing of man’s concept of God. The structure and dogma that religion provides may help us access our own spirituality but it is not, in itself, spiritual. Spirituality is an inherently individual experience that we each can grow into accessing and expressing more completely. Although this primer presents information in a very “mental” manner and the reader may gain an intellectual comprehension of spiritual growth in this way, it is through living the concepts—practicing and applying them in our day-to-day lives—where our growth occurs .

Much that is spoken and written about spirituality makes it seem much more complex and esoteric than it is. Many people consider topics that push the boundary of conventionally known scientific knowledge to be spiritual. For example, some would label using the energies of crystals, doing psychic or mediumistic readings, or performing Reiki as spiritual activities. If those things help us connect with our inner divinity through either performing or receiving them, then yes, they are. But to call them spiritual to the exclusion of other practices—or other situations, objects, or people—lessens the importance of what we see around us in our everyday lives that can help us grow to better know the God within.

The fact is that everything can contribute to our spiritual growth when viewed from a higher context. Every. Single. Thing. When we separate the items, people, places, situations, experiences, dynamics, etc. in our life into spiritual and non-spiritual buckets, we exclude the possibility of learning from those things which we believe are not spiritual. If we want to maximize our spiritual growth, we must begin to see everything in the world, particularly in our immediate environment, as metaphorical lessons from which we can learn and grow.

Spiritual growth naturally unfolds as we increase our self-awareness. Since we mostly see the world from an egocentric framework that focuses on appearances while ignoring our divine vision, we misperceive our environment and the true nature of and reason for living on this three-dimensional earth plane. Our desire to grow spiritually brings about a desire to correct these misperceptions so we can see and live from our heart with love and peace.

The contextual background that follows helps us understand how to effect our own growth, for once we are familiar with the context, we can see that our spiritual development is fairly straightforward, but not necessarily easy. When we view our life and the world differently, transcending our customary patterns of thinking and acting, we can heal the outdated, limiting behaviors that impede our growth.

We carry subconscious misperceptions about ourselves that drive dysfunctional physical, mental, and emotional patterns. As we observe, learn, and heal these issues, we grow spiritually. Thus, spiritual growth is manifesting healing, which brings us to a greater awareness of our inner light, the divine flame within, our godliness.

Healing can take many forms and occur on many levels, but it is the deep levels with which we concern ourselves for spiritual growth. We don’t want to stay in a pattern of putting superficial Band-Aids on ailments that appear on the surface when the wounds are coming from someplace deeper and need a more profound kind of healing. Much of what professes to be spiritual out there in the marketplace resembles or contributes to addressing a symptom , which can obfuscate getting to the cause of the underlying issue or ailment that presents as that symptom (indeed, represents the cause). Solely addressing the symptom is like plucking the leaves from a weed, allowing the weed to grow back, versus pulling it out by the roots, which removes the source of the issue.

However, since we can learn and grow from every experience, the symptom provides a direction toward which to look for the roots (the cause) and a metaphor for what we are energetically harboring as a block. All situations that we experience can help us move forward spiritually, not just the ones we think are “spiritual.”

Note that often it is the inner work we need to do, the deep work on ourselves, that appears to create challenges. Comprehending the underlying fundamentals helps streamline our understanding of the process of spiritual growth, helps us get to know ourselves better, and guides us toward taking the individual steps necessary to move forward with greater awareness, creating a more peaceful, loving, and joyous life in the process.