The modern spiritual movements today are captivating cages, that hold us entranced but only for a brief moment. We find ourselves flung from faith to faith, from idea to idea, and never feel satisfied. The root of the problem is not us, it is not our society that caters to individual whims of fancy. The real root of the problem is that we become dissatisfied with a free market spiritual movement.

We find ourselves in a religion and honor it with our service, our money, but then in time we notice that the more money we pour in, the more diminishing returns we seem to receive. Why is that? Why is it that our service and income seems to give us less and less?

Modern spiritual structures lack substance. They are elaborate cakes, crafted to display visually stunning endeavors, but once we cut into them they are all facade and no cake. Empty and hollow these tasteless ventures give little back after their initial wowing qualities.

This occurs because most systems and spiritual movements are based on the free market. They are selling services, ideas. They have a singular vision of financial success for the leadership, and as such they often lack substance.

Sometimes there is meat to the matter, and it us the individual aspirant who, after careful investigation, gets bored and wonders off. Yet I can’t help but notice that most spiritual movements are themselves facades set up to hold people in place long enough to collect an expected sum from them. Once one progresses beyond the first bit of work, the work becomes cyclical, it becomes nothing. It is the same repeated song played over and over again, like an album with just a few tracks.

The true spiritual path is not found on the free market. It isn’t paid for on your AMEX card. It’s found within you. It is found in isolation. Others can help us along the way. A book, a teacher, they can inspire us up the mountain, but the climb is our own – unique to each of us.