What is true spirituality?
Most people have asked this, and as many have answered it. I do not pretend to know more about this all-important topic than oth­ers, but to the thinking person who has come to realize that all is love, yet at the same time all is governed by law, there must be a different answer given than the one we ordinarily hear.

The average religious person thinks that spirituality must manifest in some unnatural way, such as giving up all personal pleasure and becoming resigned to whatever happens; that we must give up most of what life holds here; that in some far-off future perhaps we may attain. This was not the case with the man Jesus. We have more accounts of his being at feasts and weddings and similar gatherings than at other places. His first miracle was performed at a wedding feast, and we must remember that here he even turned water into wine for the pleasure of the guests of the house. Perhaps we have made a mistake about what true spirituality means.

Other people think we must live some kind of an excluded life in order to obtain. Perhaps this may be true of the weak ones. But what of the world? What of the busy street? Is it not to be saved also? Jesus spent much time with the common people as well as with the rich. And it is certain that he also spent much time alone with Spirit.

What is the Spirit, anyway? We all answer, “Why, of course, it is God.” Where is the Spirit? It is present at all times and all places. True spirituality must simply meancoming to realize the presence of thisSpirit. It must be coming to rely upon it more than anything else. The one then who is the most spir­itual is simply the one who relies themost; that is all. No matter where he is, he must rely, he must trust, he must believe. We do not have to give up anything but negative thought and act. We do not want to do anything that contradicts the forward march of the unfoldment of the Spirit, so all that we think and do must be in line with that which is right. But who shall say what is and what is not right? Remember this forever, Only your ownsoul shall say what is right and what iswrong. “To thine own self be true, and it shall follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” Look to no one for guidance. This is the “blind leading the blind.” The Almighty has put the truth into your own soul; look there and there alone for it. Many people seem to think that for a man to look spiritual he must have no color in his face, have some kind of far-away truth; he must be peculiar either in looks, or in the way he dresses.

To one who knows the truth, both praise and blame sound alike, but from the human standpoint at least, a person cannot help being amused at the way in which the world judges true spirituality. My idea of true spirituality is that a man should live a perfectly normal life, entering into and enjoying all in life that is clean and good. He should place himself absolutely under the divine guidance. Other than this he will seem just like other people, neither better nor worse. Get over all kinds of unnat­ural thought and remember that all is good. Neither criticize nor con­demn people or things. You are spiritual insofar as you trust in the Spirit, at all times, in all places, under all conditions. In order to do this, you do not have to seclude

yourself from the world. To do so is an open confession of your own weakness and lack. There are moments when it is best to be alone with the Power. From those moments we gather strength. To keep that strength to ourselves is pure selfishness. Walk, talk, live with the human race, hand in hand with all people and unified with all events, live and love and learn. Be natural and normal. If you seek to enter some other way it must all be done over again, for no one lives or dies unto himself but unto all people.

The Church of God

The Church of God is not built with hands, it is eternal in the heavens; it is not lighted with can­dles; its dome is heaven and it is lighted by the stars of God’s illu­mined thought, and each member in his separate star “shall draw the things as he sees it, for the God of things as they are.” Here all people recognize the God within their own souls and ask for and see no other God. When you can look upon all creation as the perfect work of a perfect God, you will become a member of this church. I doubt very much if the church uni­versal admits members from the church individual. When you can see in the saint and the sinner one and the same person, when you can realize that the one who kneels before the altar and the one who lies drunk in the street is the same one, when you can love the one as much as you do the other, no doubt you will be able to qualify. As it now is we have too many preachers who do not understand, that have no message; too many churches, too many ‘learned’ peo­ple, and too few thinkers. “The Kingdom of Heaven cometh not by observation.” It is the “still, small voice” within the soul that speaks. The expanded thought will never wish to join or be joined to. Nothing human can contain it. It feels the limitation of form and cer­emony and longs for the freedom of the Spirit, the great out of doors, the Great God of the everywhere. Alone in the desert, the forest or by the restless ocean, looking up at the stars, man breathes forth these words, “With only my Maker and me.”

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