People Say They’re Not A Spiritual Person

We may not like a word such as ‘spiritual’ because of the connotations it conjures up. I once heard a student say to the teacher, “I don’t like the word emptiness – I prefer the word shunyata.” His connotation was different to mine; for me, emptiness meant uncontaminated and pure – words I understood. The word shunyata was just being exotic. 🙂

Connotation: an idea or feeling that a word invokes in a person in addition to its literal or primary meaning.

When someone says, “I’m not a spiritual person” or “I am a spiritual person” what connotations have they acquired? Consciousness is ethereal awareness which some call it spirit, and some call soul. It is our essence. Being spiritually aware is being consciously aware, and we’re all aware to some degree.

By stating, “I’m not a spiritual person”, they’re equating it with being religious – something airy-fairy – and they don’t want to be associated with the airy-fairies. 🙂 I can’t blame them.

They think of themselves as practical, grounded people. These are mind-only individuals; they believe that their thoughts are what they are, never realising that those thoughts are concoctions from the concocted thoughts of others who are constantly quoting them. We don’t notice the mental prison that we’re in.

All beings are conscious, because they are consciousness first and foremost, but they ignore this in favour of conforming to social ‘norms’, just like any animal.

When investigated through meditation,
there is just pure awareness that has neither name nor description.