People who are truly spiritual tend toward quietness. Not too many saints and prophets of old were the life of the party with a lampshade on their inebriated heads! You might instead find them out in nature somewhere, on a mountain trail, at the ocean, or in a forest, quietly reflecting on the deeper meanings of life. Or unselfishly caring for sick kids in India. They sacrifice everything they are or could be for that loftiest of goals - direct communication and merging with the absolute.

They don’t harm anyone or anything. How could they when their consciousness has been refined to the point of experiencing the oneness of all beings? They are the biting mosquito that they therefore cannot squash. They are the criminal who is executed. They are the world of endless pain and suffering.

In the eyes of an insensitive world, the spiritual are quite useless. Just sitting there contemplating their naval and seemingly not contributing to society at all. Little does the world understand the value of peace and tranquility, and how a lack thereof has produced what we now see happening in a world that is on fire.

This reflects the ignorance of those of lesser consciousness, those caught in ego, and those who don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever saying hello to God in person. These are the doers, the movers and shakers that keep the karma rolling on and on.

For those who have spiritual tendencies, never let the uninformed drag you down. You are not alone. There is a new consciousness arising in humanity, a well spring of awareness that we are not separate at all, that we are all interconnected.

The uninformed will cling to their small separatist egos and incorrigible opinions, and ridicule you left and right trying to force their ideals of religion and behavior upon you. Don’t let them cover your pure heart with their ignorance.

Be true to yourself and what you are, and hold tight to that openness and awareness which is the only hope. Be the prophet on the mountain, the seer in the desert, the enlightened one in the forest. Be with nature, the silence of which soothes and resonates within your heart. Acquire that tremendous energy that comes from seclusion and aloneness, that insight that develops when the ego is tamed, that wisdom which reveals that all acceptance is the key to the gateless gate.

You are not alone. Silently and reverently standing beside you are countless beings on the cusp of true awakening, all practicing in their own ways and following their hearts, far from the din and confusion of a world of tarnished glitter that beckons with false promises and heartaches.

You are never alone. Feel the power of universal, unconditional love emanating from countless people finding true spirituality in their lives, bypassing the traps of rigid, doctrinal religious dogma, idealism, and this or that imaginary savior in lieu of direct, personal experience into the mind and the heart - the dissolution of ego and duality rather than the building of such a separatist monster.

This is the humility of going inside to understand oneself and transcend that illusion of ego, instead of trying to teach others blindly before understanding anything at all, except what one reads in a book.

Nature, the vast universe, all of those inquiring deeply into their hearts, are all with you. You are never alone. But you prefer aloneness.

Because only in the silence and stillness of aloneness can that which you long for enter your heart. This is the true spirituality. This is the path out of the dense forest. This is waking up together.

All of us.

Author's Bio: 

E. Raymond Rock (anagarika addie) is a meditation teacher at:

http://www.dhammarocksprings.org/ and author of “A Year to Enlightenment:

http://www.amazon.com/Year-Enlightenment-Steps-Enriching-Living/dp/15641...

His 30 years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk.

He lived at Wat Pah Nanachat under Ajahn Chah, at Wat Pah Baan Taad under Ajahn Maha Boowa, and at Wat Pah Daan Wi Weg under Ajahn Tui. He had been a postulant at Shasta Abbey, a Zen Buddhist monastery in northern California under Roshi Kennett; and a Theravada Buddhist anagarika at both Amaravati Monastery in the UK and Bodhinyanarama Monastery in New Zealand, both under Ajahn Sumedho. The author has meditated with the Korean Master Sueng Sahn Sunim; with Bhante Gunaratana at the Bhavana Society in West Virginia; and with the Tibetan Master Trungpa Rinpoche in Boulder, Colorado. He has also practiced at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and the Zen Center in San Francisco.