Sceptical spirituality

Genuine Spiritual Knowledge & How to Achieve It

Doing your spiritual homework #1

Peter Eastman
Know Thyself, Heal Thyself
6 min readJul 8, 2021

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Photo of the front of a ship sailing forward.
Picture by Author

Learning to do your spiritual homework

Homework ? You mean like sitting at a table and studying? And using your ‘brain’? ‘And thinking’? Surely this is for kids, and not for adults.

Well, if only people did their spiritual homework when they were younger, they wouldn’t have to do it in middle and old age. But very few people take the quest for spiritual knowledge seriously, and can’t be bothered to think things through, so they remain in a state of spiritual immaturity, even on their deathbeds.

So yes, if you want to get some idea of what’s going on in the quest for spiritual knowledge, you have to take the time to sit down and do some basic brainwork.

For example, if you want to learn a skill, you have to put in the hours. And if you want to master a skill, you have to go way beyond the call of duty. Nobody contests that; and even a cosmic genius like Hendrix played the guitar all the time, even when cooking in the kitchen — he never stopped. But spirituality is weird in the sense that, once you understand what you are trying to do, you won’t want to stop doing your basic thinking, or stop reflecting on what you discover.

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Peter Eastman
Know Thyself, Heal Thyself

Independent Buddhist counsellor, teacher & writer. A quest for an objective spiritual Truth, devoid of any type of doctrine, belief or religion. Scepticism 101.