Dear Adam,

I wonder if anyone knows why people are doing what they do and why they’re doing it this way and not that way. However, the benefit of considering different viewpoints and approaches is that we may be reminded of what we’re really here for.

I think there’s a universal need, completely independent of culture, religion, or view of life; it has been ours since the beginning of time and will last as long as time has relevance for us.

Put simply, we all want to know what this mess is all about. Why are we in this experience of life and death, and is there a way out? What is reality and what illusion?

There’s a desperate need for truth, which means we feel separate from truth, separate from what is real. Our little schemes may seem to work for a while but they usually fall apart when we least expect. Then it appears we’ve been sleepwalking all the time. Why is this? Do we really have a grip on things?

The need for truth is the source of our spirituality. Spirituality is our own individual expression of this inevitable need. Our spirituality may start out along the established lines of organized religion or commonly accepted views but truth cannot be organized, and so honesty, or love of truth, tends to venture out on its own. It may take some time before one realizes that the answer is not in the method but in the intensity of one’s love. The great saint of Tibet, Milarepa, started out as a criminal. His love blazed a trail for him.

So, as long as we talk about the differences between Christianity, New Age, Buddhism, Skepticism etc. we’re really only talking about wine labels without ever getting a taste of the wine.

The wine is what we - everyone of us - make of a given situation in daily life. Our capacity to be lovingly unpredictable is our greatest spiritual asset, because limitless truth will never fit into set opinions.

Words, thoughts, experiences, are only a vehicle to bring us to the point where we simply know truth directly as it is. That’s the end of separation and division, the end of the world as we know it.

All I can say about the diversity of spiritual paths and methods is that somehow they all need to bring us to openness. At least some openness is necessary for being in contact with reality. My openness is helped a lot if I’m peaceful and loving. Therefore, any approach that doesn’t empower me to let go of fear won’t work for me. This is my little guideline in choosing an approach to reality from moment to moment.

Stan