According to the dictionary, a seeker is a person who tries to find something by searching for it. In the sense that I use the word, a Seeker (capitalised) is an individual who is actively looking to discover and use spiritual truths with the intention of living a richer, happier and more meaningful life.
It should be understood at the outset that not everyone who lives on this planet is a Seeker. There are also many millions of people who I would describe either as Adopters or as Abstainers.
Adopters are individuals who, when considering the ‘big questions’ of life, choose to adopt the set answers that are offered by a particular religion or philosophy instead of spending time thinking about the questions for themselves. A person may therefore choose to be a Christian, a Buddhist or a Wiccan (to name just three of the many available options) and spend the rest of his or her days living from that largely predetermined perspective.
That might sound like a short-cut to success, and if all that one wanted was a ready-made, off-the-peg world-view, I suppose that it could be. However, in my experience there is no one-size-fits-all form of spirituality, and so blindly adopting the beliefs of a particular religion can never be as fulfilling as carving out a tailor-made spiritual path of one’s own.
Abstainers are those who have absolutely no interest whatsoever in so-called spiritual matters. Whilst they may occasionally wonder if their lives have any intrinsic purpose or meaning, they are quick to dismiss such questions as largely unanswerable, and therefore undeserving of their time or attention. After all, what’s the point of thinking about matters of the spirit or soul until science has proven that there even is such a thing?
Seekers are quite different from both Adopters and Abstainers, neither blindly adopting the ‘truth’ of any existing religion, nor deliberately abstaining from investigating spiritual matters for themselves. Of course, it is sometimes the case that both Adopters and Abstainers can later choose to become Seekers if their life experience leads them in that direction.
It is important to note that Spirituality for Seekers does not view Seekers as being in any way superior to Adopters or Abstainers. When all is said and done, the vast majority of human beings are simply doing the best they can to live their lives in the most effective way they know how. Some try to do that by joining a religious organisation, others try to do it by abstaining from matters of a spiritual nature and focusing on the physical here-and-now, and Seekers try to do it by setting out on a path of their own making.
The fact that you are reading these words strongly suggests that you too are a Seeker, in which case I hope that you will find the thoughts that I share here to be of some use and interest. I invite you to contribute to our mutual journey by leaving comments or questions on the posts that you read so that we can enter into a discussion on the topics and explore them more thoroughly.