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Why write this and add to the already copious life advice, spirituality, self help genre of websites, blogs and books? Simply put, because for all this information in so many different forms, so many people are still so lost and there seems no-one more lost than people who claim to have some sort of spirituality, or who are adherents of some sort of religious persuasion or other. Since starting my own personal spiritual life journey many years ago, but more especially in recent years, I have both heard or read tales of, as well as observed personally, many examples of this ‘lostness’.

Shortcomings of Religions and Spiritual Movements

I have personally sampled several different spiritual or religious traditions, from conventional Christianity, to two different guru-led Yoga schools, to two different Buddhist schools and I have to say that I never ever met anyone within this wide range of spiritual belief and practice who manifested any serious sign of what I would term ‘enlightenment’. Most recently, I spent an entire year in India, much of that based in the northern town of Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, famous for the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of Transcendental Meditation and the Beatles, now center of the burgeoning spiritual industries and, increasingly, of adventure tourism, during the protracted period of the first coronavirus lockdown in 2020. There I had ample time and opportunity both to improve my knowledge of ancient Indian philosophies through study, as well as simply observe the extraordinary range of New Age spiritual movements on offer to spiritual seekers from around the globe in the numerous ashrams and yoga schools abounding there. Here it was that I heard many strange and often sad stories of the different fates that befell many of the foreign travellers who came to India seeking enlightenment, but who found anything but. Hanging out in ashrams growing dreadlocks, smoking hashish and chanting “Hare Krishna”, or “Om Namah Shivaya” will not, by itself, advance any spiritual cause, and is, in fact, totally unnecessary anyway as a practice for achievement of enlightenment.

It is my firmest belief that there is no religion or spiritual practice that will ever save you from yourself. All are simply tools that you can use to either dig yourself out of a hole or dig yourself further down into it. Neither do I believe that you find any more spiritually enlightened people in any one particular religion than you do in any other. There seems to be the same general spectrum from people who are ignorant and selfish to those who are good hearted and generous, be they Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, even atheists.

You are the Work

The Eastern Yogic traditions and those that employ Zen style methods can, however, offer powerful methodologies for getting to grips with that one process that produces us as people with all the character aspects and idiosyncrasies that most of us have: conditioning. But the bottom line is this. It is you who must do the work. No guru can do it for you. And the good news (or bad, depending on your view) is that the work to be done is always where you are. You do not have to go looking for it. It will be your closest companion throughout your life until you finally achieve that much sought after and poorly understood state ‘Moksha’ – Liberation.

The Value of Pilgrimage

Hence, for me, the value of pilgrimage, whether it be an actual journey undertaken for Self discovery, or approaching one’s daily life as a pilgrimage. I believe that both are of equal value, if very different in style and means of undertaking. To take ‘time out’ from one’s daily routine, normal social and working milieu and life context affords important opportunities to experience oneself in very different ways. Formal pilgrimage is like a different hall of mirrors, where we can see ourselves differently, or test ourselves by embracing challenges and routine breaking circumstances that offer that critical opportunity for self re-evaluation and change.