Words in Spiritual Practice

Many people might be under the impression that spiritual traditions are very strict lineages that need to be followed by the word. But I begin to reflect: can any spiritual life be reduced to words on a page? While words offer guidance to those who are practicing a contemplative activity, it can get easy to confuse the words for the practice, as well as to think in terms of rigid shoulds. It is as though I had this jewel but I was so reluctant to get it away from my sight for fear that it will be lost. Rather than focusing on the jewel, I start to focus on all the strategies that are at my disposal to ensure that the jewel is preserved and kept in my ownership. This is a bit like confusing a spiritual practice for words.
    I feel that somehow it's important to have a clear idea of the role  of words in a spiritual life. An example  of where it might alienate people to use words arises when a person tries to take 'spiritual arguments' and use them to show that they are 'right' and someone else is 'wrong'. Without reflecting on their intention, people can often use spiritual words to set themselves apart from someone else, even to the point of overly exhorting the other person to convert to their views and aspirations. While some of this might be noble and wholesome, a lot of it can create conflict and tension that doesn't necessarily attract a person to a spiritual practice.
      A different approach might be to simply start with the experience of not discriminating one's own abilities from that of another person. If I don't see myself as necessarily better or 'more learned' than you, how is that going to play out? It might be an opportunity to collaborate different ideas, or it might be the suggestion that I have something to learn from you that is equally as valuable as my own experiences. What this does it not privilege anyone's views over another's but to, rather, to presuppose that all beings are of fundamentally the same spiritual essence, or nature. In Buddhism, we call it Buddha nature, but in other traditions, it might be called something else. And the point here is to suggest that words don't privilege the being of one over another. Rather, the essential spiritual nature is already the same everywhere. In this regard, there is no competition or no valuing of one's experience over that of others.
    Certain formalities are definitely still needed for a spiritual practice to be strong. But even then, it seems important never to put the formality over the person, as though the person were put on this earth only to mold themselves into the form. The real 'form' we are seeking is actually already in us, and the rituals we use in practice are only designed to illuminate what is ideally already ours to begin with.