Fundamentals
Spiritual Development
Spiritual development is often understood as a process of moving toward peace, love, joy, or connection as future states to be reached.
In lived experience, these qualities are not elsewhere. They are simply present when attention is not absorbed in mental separation.
Separation appears as thought: concepts, beliefs, stories, excuses, interpretations, assumptions and projections about what is happening, what is missing, or what this means about ‘me’. Attention becomes involved in these movements.
Spiritual development is becoming aware of these, and seeing them for what they are.
Peace, love and, joy are not separate states, achieved or created by a separate self, but what is present when stress, fear, and seriousness are not being generated and sustained.
As attention is less and less focused on mental constructions, the sense of separation lessens. What remains is what has always been present: connection with all that is.