Shalampax Speaks

For income generation reasons, we in Shalampax often pretend to be profoundly spiritual, but what is real spirituality?

As you work away at attempting to fulfill your and your family’s material needs, do you ever have the sense that something larger than yourself is an integral part of your life and watching over you? Do you experience these feelings deeply, right down to your very soul, despite the tedium and insignificance of your workaday grind?

This may be a result of spirituality. Your feelings may be a consequence of your having become aware of and enlightened by the greater force that underlies religious belief. Then again, you have to be careful about attributing it to spirituality because there can be other causes. For example, it could result from one of the following:

• A feeling of being watched over may be a result of your boss’ or the government’s activities. It’s possible, although you may be aware of it only on a subconscious level, that you are being watched over in a purely physical, rather than spiritual way. Remember, whether or not you have a brother, you may still have a Big Brother.
• The same feeling of being watched over might occur if you are being stalked by a psychopath, but you aren’t aware on a conscious level of his or her stalking. The old saying, “just because you’re paranoid, that doesn’t mean everyone isn’t out to get you,” is a useful one to keep in mind in these cases.
• If you hear a commanding voice that is not attached to any physical body, it may be someone playing a practical joke on you using hidden speakers, cameras and microphones. I recommend that you consider immediately ditching “friends” who would go to such lengths to do something like that to you. It’s just a suggestion.
• A commanding voice that you hear clearly within your head may be a result of schizophrenia. If the voice asks you out on a date, give the voice a fake phone number or, better yet, someone else’s number. Your psychiatrist’s number or the number of someone you lust after, but whom you’ve always been too inhibited to call, might be a good number to give. Don’t, under any circumstances, give the voice the number of someone to whom you owe money.
• The feeling of being embraced by a force beyond your own being may be an effect of naturally or chemically induced hallucinations. Under such circumstances, you should probably lock the door and pull the blinds in case the police are patrolling the neighborhood. Again, it’s just a suggestion.
• Finally, it is possible that the reason you hold your belief that there is a higher power in your life is that you are insane and highly prone to delusions. This one probably happens much more often than we’d like to admit.

Don’t ask me how you would know if you are insane, but if you can confidently eliminate all of the above as plausible causes, and you still feel the presence of something beyond yourself, then you may have entered a state of true enlightenment and spirituality. Or not. Probably not. How the hell should I know? I just write this crap.