You Are Not Book.indb - Stephen H. Wolinsky Ph. D.

96 / You Are Not
within the dimension of knowledge, while reality prevails
prior to it.” (The Nectar of Immortality, p. 40)
This provocative statement provides us with more than
we might ever need. For, if “Spiritual Paths” ultimately can
only entrap, giving us a like-minded community a spiritual
life(style) which enhances the illusion that eventually we will
“get” something, the path serves not only as a veil, but also
as a trap. So many people after so many years of following
a path have felt and continue to feel trapped at worst,
or basically the same at best. Moreover, the question arises,
“If all is illusion, whereby the starting point is the “belief”
called I am, (another illusion), how can one illusion, which
originates in the place where the spiritual path begins (with
the false concept I am, i.e., I am doing, going to attain or
have something) lead you out of the illusion of I am?”
The answer to these rather blasphemous questions, which
we dare to ask, leaves us with several important answers:
1) All spirituality and spiritual paths have as there
beginning point I am.
2) All spirituality is part of the illusion, or mirage,
and as such, each form of spirituality
contains within it the implicit promise of some
altered reality—where “I” can be, do, or have
______________ (fill in the blank). Thus it hooks
people into believing that “they” will attain or
get something like a state, which is also part of
the transient mirage.
and
3) Spiritual paths, too, are part of the mirage or illusion
and hence keep us in their wishful, hopeful
context, trapped within the mirage.
“Later I understood the meaning of spirituality
and came to the conclusion that it is as discardable as