How did we come to be? To what do we return when we die? What is our true purpose in this life?

These fundamental metaphysical questions have been the province of spirituality, religion and philosophy for millennia, and are some of the core issues that spiritual directors and companions tackle.
And yet, for all of the verbiage written about these topics throughout the world across the ages, the answers to these questions are difficult, if not ultimately impossible, to capture with words. In this sense, what they point to remains a mystery of sorts.

“Of sorts,." because we can certainly experience deep insights concerning these queries, intuitively, experientially, profoundly, lovingly, and with unwavering intensity.

The road to this awareness is often referred to as “mystical." or, to use the term in its original Greek context, a “concealed." one. All great spiritual paths have this discernment embedded right at the heart of their practices. Nevertheless, it can often appear hidden from easy access, and can be hard to approach, and then only with deep contemplation and stillness.

Which brings us to the connection between spiritual direction and mysticism.

Spiritual directors and companions help you get closer to the insights that already lie within you. It is no accident that one of the key characteristics of our work is to listen; attentively, mindfully, and deeply. Allowing you to unspool your own discernments and strong intuition, and to put it into words that more or less approximate the level of your transcendent awareness, even though those expressions are more akin to the “finger pointing at the moon." than to the moon itself.

With a spiritual companion, access to this mystical connection with God, the infinite, the ground of all being, the Universe, beyond the beyond, or however you might choose to describe it, can become easier.
The mystery begins to reveal itself.

In the Catholic tradition in which I was raised the priests and nuns spoke to us of mysterium fidei, or the mystery of faith. Things that cannot be explained by normal means. Relevations “hidden in God.." And they told us of the importance of prayer to help us discern some of those mysteries.

In many strands of Hinduism and Buddhism, deep meditation is a central practice, meant to contemplatively connect us to the fountain head, and the wellspring of every thing.

In the Sufi tradition, whirling dervishes dance their way to this place of intimate union.
Indigenous spiritual traditions practice rites of initiation and entry into the world beyond our ordinary reach, with which we are encouraged to integrate.
And those in the growing “spiritual but not religious." category also have varying approaches: communing with nature and the universe, singing, drumming, and embodying, among myriad others.

These are but a few examples, which abound in every spiritual path.

Spiritual companions are akin to mirrors in some ways. Not here to show you “the path." or “our path.." But rather for you to more clearly see the road you are already on (and have always been), even if sometimes you may have been walking it in relative darkness, not knowing you were on it all along.

So that you can illuminate your own path, illuminating it for us, and everyone else, as well.
And as our collective intuitive attunement grows, it will continue to drive and motivate us in mysterious ways.

Occasionally nagging, disturbing and upending us. But all the while encouraging us to strive harder and further than we thought we could to reunite with our true essence. Fulfilling our otherworldly longings by reconnecting us to the undergrowth of our Being, with a capital “B.."

As we finally bathe in the infinite, we will have found our way home, describing the indescribable, thinking the unthinkable, pondering the imponderable, and experiencing something far beyond ourselves.

May it be so.

Anil Singh-Molares is the Executive Director of Spiritual Directors International, as well as a practicing spiritual director/companion and motivational speaker. He is a veteran of numerous interfaith and interspiritual efforts over the years, including Seeds of Compassion in Seattle in 2008, where he was one of the chairs, and as founder and executive director of the Compassionate Action Network. He has worked closely with noted religious author Karen Armstrong in a variety of capacities and has a Master’s in Theological Studies from Harvard University.
Anil is an accomplished speaker and university lecturer and is a key contributor for the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. In a previous life, he was also an executive at Microsoft, where he successfully grew international groups and divisions and provided leadership to multi-cultural teams around the world.

This article was previously published in SDI’s Listen magazine.