Lay Spirituality before the seventies of this last century was a non existing term.

I am going to tell you a nice story:

Lay spirituality before the seventies of this last century was a non existing term. It started, by chance, with an intuition by Antonello Palieri during a meeting in Calcata’s “Circolo Vegetariano VV.TT.”, only because we felt the urge of describing a free and spontaneous spiritual approach to life; it was an invented word, depicting a search for self, free of bonds, a natural expression of the “I” looking for his own origin. 

Unfortunately, I discovered recently that this term has been
used for extolling worldly religious spirituality.

That’s a pity…. It is happening because religions and creeds are eager to maintain control over man, doing their best to spoil the natural awe and mystery of life, impressing the need for a savior and the necessity of external help.

Still, lay spirituality is a fact.

For the spiritual accomplished layman there is no time but now, no place but here. The basis for each experience is in consciousness and there is no need for corroboration. No one can give another either salvation or damnation. And truly speaking there is nothing you can do to attain that understanding, it is simply within us.
The only hindrance is ignoring ourselves, believing and following any practice alien to us, in the false hope of getting what we already are.

Freedom from desires and fears, from concepts and separativeness, from stupidity and ignorance. Nothing more is wanted but freedom from any imaginative state different from ourselves, from reality.
Although it is true that everything is made of consciousness, it is also true that there are different densities of consciousness. The most heavy are the separative ones, and religions are of course separative, since they uphold a God, a creation and many separate individual selves. This sense of separativeness from the whole is the only hell, cause of fears and unhealthy states of mind.

Lay spirituality, of course, is also a concept but pointing only to a
present and concrete reality, revealing the tricks of all “cleverly devised religious help”. 

I hope that all sincere laymen may be aware of this bare truth, relinquishing the imaginary, abiding in awareness and presence.

No spirituality for sale or to purchase, no fancies or alien states, no need to overcome or reach. Please understand. Please recognize.

Paolo D’Arpini