How many times have we heard the story of someone going around and telling people what some big-named big-wig wants, and then finding out that the big-named bigwig had said no such thing?  And how often might that have happened regarding a deity?

For many, if not most, overcoming such mis-information (read: spiritual garbage) is one of the most important tasks on a spiritual quest. 

Whether we're talking about a TV preacher, a college campus "guru", the nun who used to stand over your head with a ruler in her first, or the lady in church who devoted her life to minding other people's business, their interpretations of the Divine are not what a spiritual quest is about.

A spiritual quest is about your own relationship with the Divine!  Some folks miss that point.  Some other folks are afraid of that point.  After all, if you actually know the Divine, that might contadict their pre-conceived notions which they are pitching to you, right?

And so, how to overcome that and actually know the divine?

And what will there be when you do?

And why have we let so many people stand in our way?

On your quest, you will of course encounter words.  Written and spoken.  What do we do with them.

So many are intended to guide us.  But are we hearing what was intended?  Or are we hearing what someone between us and the original author wants us to hear?

An oft-quoted saying in The Craft is "One cannot be a Witch alone."  But, let's have a definition of "alone".  Does "alone mean not having membership in some group (or particular group), or does "alone" in this case mean being stuck so far into the broomcloset that even close friends of like mind don't know who you are?

When translation from one language to another is added, then the situation really gets muddy.  An oft-quoted verse in the Christian Bible (particularly the King James Version) has been the pretext for violence and even killings in the English-speaking world.  But is what King James said that it meant what the original writer meant?

This is one of the challenges of a spiritual quest, and one which must be met.  And once it is met, there are secrets waiting to reveal themselves. 

Reading a blog sponsored by a group which represents a viewpoint I once held dear and also reading what the mainstream media have to say about non-mainstream religions, I came to a realization:  how regularly the so-called mainstream misses some of the most important points!

The current rucus going on among certain mainstream religious groups would be hilarious if it didn't have to do with perhaps the most important thing we mortals might be involved in.  And if all of the fuss did not have such a high price on the spiritual paths of so many.

And in the middle of it all, there's one basic point which many of us get, but so many of the so-called mainstream misses completely.

Can a Christian be a Christian if he or she has a good time at Christmas and enjoys Easter candy and clothes, but avoids Lent?  Can someone be Jewish by celebrating Hannukah but avoiding Yom Kippur? 

If there are "pluses" and "minuses" in every spiritual path or tradition, how is someone supposed to deal with the "minuses"?

And is Aidan saying that we need to rigidly follow a path without question, or is he saying something else?

There's something basic here.

Gauthama Buddha (known to some as "the Buddha," although there have been several) taught that all we had to look forward to in this life are sickness, old age, and death.  Did he really mean that, or did he teach that as a way to spur us on to something more, something greater?

Most Christians have a teaching which is similar in its implications.  They teach that we are miserable, terrible creatures who would never "make the grade" without a savior.  Some of them take it further and make lists of demands of what we must do in order to be chosen for salvation, lest we find ourselves going to that "hell" which some of them love to tell us about.  Add to that their common teaching of "one chance in this life is all you get," and there's a wonderful opportunity for spiritual blackmail.

But even if there is a savior available for those who would not otherwise pass muster and those who insist on having only one chance, is this teaching all there is, or might it be that there is something more, something greater, that can be reached for.

In every spiritual path, teachings can be found that say that if you seek, you will find something worth seeking.  And they all teach that we have it within ourselves to do jsut that!  The Buddhists teach that there is a Buddha within each of us.  In Wicca, I learned that there is the spark of the Divine within every creature.  And so many, many more.  How many teachings of how many paths teach that we can claim what is already ours, waiting for us to claim?

Is there something waiting that transcends our artifical boundaries of sect and denomination?  If so, will we see something that we must preach from the rooftops and impose on each other, perhaps with baseball bats if necessary?  Or will we see something that is highly personal and individual, that each of us can take into our hearts and nurture?

There might not be much that's new, but there can be quite a lot that's next!