In my new book Your Sacred Calling I have done some more deconstructing and radical demolition of the present era of so-called spiritual teaching. "Pop" spirituality sounds so very sensible and rational – and this alone should make the spiritually intelligent seeker suspicious – that we can be forgiven for being enticed and seduced by the gentle lilt of its comforting sentiments. However it is all without doubt (who doubts?) unnecessary – and worse.

Why unnecessary?: the way to the Divine is not a way as we think of it, practice it, conceive or experience ways in the material world. The real way is reminiscent of Franz Kafka's famous and perhaps by now too often quoted:

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet. 

What I like about this is how you feel privy to the writer's mental process. No sooner does he think, and write "listen" than he dismisses it. No sooner does he think, or write "wait" than he dismisses that also. "Still and solitary," however, he does not dismiss. Kafka knows that everything is contained in the heart... and the heart thrives on silence and solitude. The heart of a human being is unlimited, without boundaries of any kind.

Do you seriously think that some progressive practice can bring you to the heart? "Pop" spirituality can only offer these forms of delusion. To arrive in the heart, you must simply stop whatever you are doing. Do not do, simply be. Do not even think about being, just relax. Do not even relax, do nothing. All the world is here, now – revealed in supplication, or as Kafka would say rolling "in ecstasy at your feet."

BLOG entry #21