sincerity

In this episode of the series on attitudes, I want to talk about sincerity. And sincerity relates to honesty, which was the subject of the previous episode.

Here, I'm going to talk about sincerity with regard to our spiritual endeavour. And the reason why I feel this is worth emphasising on its own is that we live in superficial times. We live in times when everything is rather fleeting. And we don't even tend to value things of depth or some weight. We've come to enjoy and give value to very superficial things. The social media has really driven this, with flippant little comments flying around the globe, millions per second, little emoji icons, here for a moment and then gone. And whilst in other places, I encourage us to live in the moment, in a way, these communications that are so momentary have become very shallow as a result.

To make any significant growth in the spiritual side of our life, we need sincerity. By this, I mean, we need to really give importance to it, for our self: this is all one's own work, one's own value. It doesn't matter what other people think, and it's not about impressing other people. For oneself, one needs to be sincere in one's spiritual endeavours. If one tries to treat one's spirit with the same flippant superficiality that we tend to treat everything else, then we will get nowhere. We will stay forever on the surface, on the surface of life, barely touching it. Spirituality is about going ever deeper into oneself and into life. And to really enter those depths of being requires a tremendous sincerity.

This sincerity is a sort of honesty and commitment to oneself. It's also acknowledging the significance, the importance of the spiritual aspect of life.

In order to develop or grow this attitude of sincerity, it can be worth contemplating once in a while the importance of one's own spiritual journey. You might look back and see how your life has changed since you embarked on this journey. See how your understanding of the world has deepened.

You might also take some time to contemplate how all the material aspects of life are not in the end really fulfilling. They bring transient happiness that soon turns to sorrow. It's worth reminding ourself of this, from time to time at least. And from these observations we can rekindle the sincerity that we have for our own spiritual journey.