In the last 5-10 years the search for meaning in our lives has taken on similarities to visiting a shopping mall. Never before have we seen such an array of teachers all saying they will bring ever-lasting happiness and proclaiming their path is the way, that they have the only or the best teachings, that if we do this we will be free, transformed, changed for ever, happy as never before, fulfilled, enlightened. We can even become a teacher or master within a few days: we once received notice of a Guru Training program where we can become a guru in two weekends, after which, the brochure assured us, we are guaranteed to receive endless adoration, wealth, fame and happiness or our money back.

When people are in need they will often try anything. They are susceptible and easily vulnerable to outside influences. When ego-centered or strongly persuasive people say they can help save them they believe it. There would appear to be three main reasons why someone goes window-shopping for a spiritual teacher:

1. Life does not easily satisfy our needs. We get something but always want more. More becomes the mantra. But from constantly wanting more materially and emotionally, we then apply the same principle to spirituality: more teachers and techniques must be better than just one, right?

2. Like the musk deer in India that has a beautiful smell in its anus but looks throughout the forest for that smell, so we look for happiness outside ourselves and come up short, because whatever we find never lasts. This is the truth of impermanence: happiness comes but happiness also goes. Not wanting to believe this, we continually search for that elusive promise of foreverness, and we search for it wherever we can.

3. Everywhere we look we find flyers on bulletin boards advertising how each can help save or heal us, promoting different teachers and methods which are the BEST. Each is more enticing: surely this one will finally solve all those nagging difficulties in my life? Or maybe it’s this one?

Where is all this taking us? How do we find our way through such a maze of offerings? Many of the above subjects may have something wonderful to teach us, but what can we really learn in an hour or two or even a weekend? When we dig for oil we have to dig deep to reach it. If we dig too many different holes we will never get to the source of the oil. In the same way, if we guru hop and shop too much or learn too many techniques, we will never get to the essence of the teachings. Does this sound like you? Are you a spiritual window shopper?

This blog is a chance for you to do a reality check. Are you being taught to listen to your own wisdom and to be self-empowered or is someone telling the way it is? At what point do you stop and are simply still? Do you need to go shopping or do you need to look within your own mind and heart for what you know to be true? Do comment below.

Ed and Deb lead meditation retreats and workshops. They are the creators of Chillout daily inspirational text messages on Sprint cell phones. See: www.EdandDebShapiro.com.
You can pre-order a copy of our book at: BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You and the World. It will be published Nov 3.