In Gods house there is no particular religion or sect of faith. To Him, all are the same. Baba MuktanandaSeeking a deeper spiritual life, while jumping from one religion to another in an attempt to find deeper satisfaction? Some might call this spiritual dabbling. When seekers are confronted with the reality that spirituality is hard work, frequently they move on to something else. What they fail to appreciate is that spiritual development takes time, for many a long, long time. The goal of any spiritual practice is to transform you, through prayer, ritual, and a realization of God. Faced with this transformation, many people choose to run.Up until my thirties I thought of myself as a spiritual seeker. I studied a number of religions, trying to find the right fit for me. I had just begun my practice of yoga when my mother invited me to accompany her on a spiritual pilgrimage to Medjagoria, Yugoslavia. This is considered by many to be a holy place where the Virgin Mary is thought to have appeared to a small group of children. Knowing my laissez-a-faire attitude towards the Catholic Church she made it clear that to take on a pilgrimage of any type was to invite an answer to prayers and most of all to expect the unexpected to happen. At the time I was more interested in seeing her safely there and home again, but I nodded in understanding and set out to have my world rocked on its axis.Once we had arrived and settled into our room, my mom napped and I took off to check out the terrain before our group climbed the small mountain to the shrine of the Madonnas visitation. The path upwards was steep and littered with sharp, pointed rocks. I was mentally whining about the difficult climbing terrain, despite the expensive, padded sneakers I was wearing. Bounding up the path, I passed the stations of the cross without stopping (making sure I got in a bit of aerobic exercise) when, rounding a big boulder, I came ! upon a g roup of people blocking my way. I looked around to see how I could go around them, maybe bypass the trail and climb hand over hand up the side to the next level above. Now that would be a challenge, I thought to myself, but great fun! Then something caught my attention. These pilgrims were barefoot. Some had rolled up their jeans and were crawling up the path, leaving pieces of skin and blood on the razor sharp stones. One man carried a young boy who was too sick and crippled to walk by himself. They prayed the rosary, and the sound of their weeping mingled with each Hail Mary.
