What You Worship

It's over.  You realize that, don't you?  It's over because nobody cares for spiritual things.  Or rather, they care for them wherein they may profit by them, wherein they believe that those things will bring them some sort of security.  You will deny this and point to the millions who show up to church on Sunday or the millions more who meditate or attempt to practice mindfulness.  But it is not practice but priority which determines one's fidelity to the otherworldly.  What serves what?  From all that I can tell, in 99.99% of the cases, (I would say 100% but I know a fraction of a handful of exceptions) pious observance and spiritual practice are tools to obtaining the "good life".  Now note that I am not taking into account what people say about their observance, or even the observance itself.  I am observing whom they serve with their pious devotions and what they expect in return.  And what I see is that the spiritual is used as a tool by which individuals may more devoutly approach the god of success - the god who will give them what they want and prove to themselves that they are all that they believe themselves to be.  But that is not Truth.  We are not what we thought ourselves to be.  We have imagined a self that serves the whole, but it was not the whole but the self we served in all our serving.  And it is Truth that comes with a knife, to faithfully sever from us such fancies.  It stands there ready to pluck out such an eye which offends and keeps us from the kingdom.  And that hurts.  But Truth rejoices when there are two in a field and one is taken, two in a bed and one is taken.  It shouts praises when one of a city chooses Truth over that by which she may profit.  And it revels in the ruin that inevitably precedes rebirth.  For remember that the message of all true teachers throughout all history is that something is wrong with what the world desires.  And it is that very desire which Gods and angels stand waiting to extinguish.  But the world has given up on that in practice.  The desire now is for the end result.  We've thought to hack the system.  And that is why it's over.  You see, you don't really want Truth accept as a means to serve some lesser god who aligns with all that you've imagined for yourself...And so, what can such a person say accept
"Come sweet ruin
And crush all that I've imagined. 
Give me just the thing
That I don't want,
The thing that I can't stand to see."
In this there is hope.