The 21st century has seen a rise in humanity’s interest in ’spirituality.’ The Cambridge Dictionary describes spirituality as “the quality of being concerned with deep, often religious, feelings and beliefs, rather than with the physical parts of life.” There are a rising number of people drawn to so-called spiritual pursuits, but the problem I have is with what spirituality has come to mean.

The word by its own definition suggests concern with that which is not of the physical body, however what it has come to mean as far as I can see is a kind of spiritual consumerism. People think they can dabble in tarot cards or buy a few runes and that denotes an interest in spirituality. Shops are cropping up everywhere with the tools to be a ’spiritual’ person. Being ’spiritual’ seems to be something that anyone will proclaim without thoughts of the choices they have made in life or their actions and their consequences. Humanity is desire driven yet simultaneously stretching out one arm to dip into the spiritual realm and taking out whatever it fancies.

Celebrities are a prime example of humanity jumping on the spirituality shopper bandwagon. I was flicking through TV channels recently when I came across a programme about celebrities and religion. I was surprised to see (well only a little surprised) that certain celebrities rush to buy bottles of Kabbalah water, which are supposedly infused with Rabbi meditations. This allegedly gives the water amazing healing powers. Whatever happened to ‘right’ living and offering unconditional love! I am not a religious person but I do consider myself to be somewhat of a Christian in the true sense of the word. I believe that the words in the bible “Our love must not be a thing of words and fine talk. It must be a thing of action and sincerity (1 John 3:18)” to be true.

Wearing a bracelet or drinking water or energy drinks with rabbi infused meditations is not going to save anyone’s soul if that is what they are hoping for! As far as I can see all these things are merely gimmicks to make a tidy profit. Numerous hip-hop stars in the US adorn themselves with million dollar jewel encrusted crosses as if the size of their jewellery reflects their spirituality and commitment to God. All the while these stars are rapping about guns, bitches and dropping pills. The even more astonishing thing is that people worship celebrities as if they were some kind of divine beings. Humanity seems to have gone completely mad.

People seem to be hungry for ‘gurus’ who will feed them exactly what they want, in effect like a spiritual buffet. Rather than telling people the truth exactly as it stands a commercial guru will offer people a buffet of alleged spiritual answers. The individuals can then dip into the buffet and choose the answers they would like to hear at that particular moment in time.

Life is about learning lessons, hard work, trusting your intuition and making the right choices for yourself. Marketing bottled water as a cure all for society’s ills or wearing a belt made in the Vatican that is sprinkled with holy water doesn’t boost your spiritual ranking.

Don’t get me wrong, searching for spiritual answers and the quest to make ourselves better, more enlightened human beings is wonderful. Accessing our intuition and trusting that we have all the spiritual answers we could ever need in life is beyond fantastic. I am constantly learning lessons every day of my life and we all learn something from everyone we come into contact with.

The search for truth and for the divine that lies within is, I believe is the means to true contentment and peace. However, we have to be discerning with the information we take on board. The answers we seek are not external to us. Some books do have pearls of wisdom but much of what is written or said comes from people’s perceptions rather than true intuition. We need to trust our own intuition, as this will never fail us. Jesus said in the Gospel of St Thomas “Split a piece of wood and I am there. Pick up a stone and you will find me there.” The divine is all around us and within us. All we have to do is ask to access that truly spiritual part of ourselves. Undoubtedly there are some people that can point us in a certain direction, but beyond that it is up to us to take control of our own lives and ultimately take responsibility for our selves.

If you type the word ’spirituality’ into msn over 9 million results show up spanning a wide range of differing spiritual and religious belief systems, mixed in with courses in miracles and spiritual goods galore. So if you are doing some soul searching, be careful in whom you trust. Let intuition be your guide and maybe resist the urge to buy the jewellery infused with the power of prayer or the courses that promise miracles with no effort involved. Say no to pseudo spirituality!