Are You Spiritual Or Just Coping
We all know that person who says "love and light" as they walk with their Salt And Straw cone, down to the Venice Beach drum circle to meet their tribe for some self-involved universal chatter; they refuse to do anything or go anywhere that doesn't feed their "vibration" or seemingly narcissistic spiritual ideology. Instagram is the bible of choice and gaining followers is more relevant than self-actuality. He or she wouldn't be caughtdead in a soup kitchen unless it's some overpriced vegan take out joint, and serves and celebrates others in exchange for good karma points that knowingly feed an inflated ego. Beware the spiritual bypasser!
Spiritual bypassing is the tendency to use spiritual ideas or practices to avoidfacing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.The term was introduced in the 1980s by John Welwood, a Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist. Spiritual bypassing is nothing more than a defense mechanism. It feels copacetic to some because its better than some, but remember, light and dark live in everything, including faith. According to psychology today, the shorthand for spiritual bypass is grasping rather than gratitude, arriving rather than being and avoiding rather than accepting.It can become a practice in the service of repression, because we can not tolerate what we are feeling, or think that we shouldn't be experiencing what we are feeling. The truth is, lighting a candle won't relieve us of trauma, attending a sound healing won't ultimately dissolve us of depression and the excuse of not resonating will keep us from resonating. Understand, I am not judging these kinds of people, as I know and adore a fewmyself! The thing is, most often those that are self-proclaimed gurus or "old souls" are more in the company of the little babies breaking out of the egg shells during the "Come out, come out wherever you are" song in the Wizard Of Oz, than TichNahtHanh. They hide from the witch, and without the good fairy's powers protecting them, they are petrified. They crave a following most often to feed their personality disorders and encourage others to take on their erroneous beliefs. Anyone who is seeking a true spiritual direction should avoid this person's shortcut!
Living in Los Angeles I see this everywhere. The future of the higher consciousness community is more concerned with their "hot yoga bodies" than encompassing the true teachings of Yogananda. More interested in drug or herb induced desert festivals then facing the realities of our current spiritual climate. Placing more value in transcending the mind and body than being alive in the truth of what being an earth bound spiritual being truly means. Perhaps lowest on the self-help book stack is the wish to use their divine connectivity to inspire real change within someone, expecting nothing in return. Let me say this, incorporealityis by no means and should never be defined as an escape. If to be spiritual is to falsify the truth by keeping ourselves in a glitter bubble, then we sure as hell shouldn't be on earth! Spirituality is the indigenous guidebook on how to be physically, emotionally, and god-lovingly free as we appropriate, affect, relate and learn though each other, also the cause of why we are here and the reason we will depart.
I remember this one time my dear friend and I went to this pendulum workshop at the Open Center in New York City. I remember feeling an immediate overwhelming sense of chaos in the room. People were loud and on edge. No one, not even the instructor could get the class to simmer down and listen to the presentation as they were more interested in when the free pendulum was being handed out. Out of nowhere a loud cry clambered from a woman and alleged that her wallet had been stolen. The entire room began to scramble to find it as no one wanted to be convicted as the perpetrator. A tall man in the front row wearing what looked like a flower tiara shouted out "Let us ask Tara to help us locate the wallet"! I looked at my friend, and we both assumed Tara was the front desk clerk. I asked the man where I may find this Tara person to ask her if she found the wallet. To my surprise he looked at me in horror. "Tara is the GODESSS OF FINDING THINGS!", he said in an elitist voice. He then picked up his jacket and left the room acting as if he were too good to be surrounded by armatures, at least that is how I perceived it. I first thought about how Tara should help him find the reason why he was such an a-hole, but then I realized; people create a spiritual mold for themselves based upon whatever they believe to be true formed by their conditioning. Anyone who doesn't fit within that mold may be ignored, looked down upon and criticized. One thing I can't stand, its spiritual snobbery! What is the difference between this and the ultra conservative christian movement? Both condemn others for not being in the true right of God's love and both have missed the mark on how to exemplify it themselves! Not one of us is above another, and if the opposite feels true, check into a spirituality 101 class.
My healing journey began not because I wanted to be a spiritual celebrity (that was the farthest from my truth), but because I was what some called, a hot mess! I had zero idea of who I was, what I wanted or how to cope with my humanness. I was holding onto so much repressed pain and trauma, that it poured out of me unconsciously, causing depression, anxiety and the belief that I wasn't good enough.
My childhood was not ideal. I had issues at school, at home and in my then limited spiritual consciousness. I felt on the edge of nowhere yet at the door of somewhere. Being 23 was too much and I felt l wouldn't make it to 24. My need for acceptance led me into the arms of a maladapdave reality. At times, the abuse of sex, drugs, and even food kept me blind from my truth and I loved the elopement it provided until my untutored self had nowhere else to go, but come up!
You know when people speak of having some sort of spiritual awakening? I can say without a shadow of doubt that I am the same. God rushed in to save me and when this happened my eyes were blasted wide open; I woke the hell up! Funny enough, I thought that within this new-found reality, my life would magically fall into place. I sooner realized that I felt even more estranged than before, so I started saying affirmations and using the law of attraction; wasn't that the secret to life? I mean a best-selling book can't be wrong, right?...yet my trauma and pain still existed and without my former coping mechanisms to keep me unexposed, I had no way to cope.
Going inward without a lifeline is a painful experience! I attended yoga classes, ceremonies, purchased books, crystals, incense and Buddha statues by the dozens. Visited shamans, psychics and anyone who I thought could comfort me. I became glue and yearned for anything esoteric to stick. I was awake, but couldn't realize that I was meteorically falling back to sleep, as my new-found "spirituality" was morphing into a glittering hole in which I found a new way to escape. Iwas in the grips of spiritual bypassing, and until I had my second wake up call, I stayed.
The process of spiritual enlightenment is a long journey and should not be replaced by the tools within it. Spiritual tools are actions planned or used at the moment to relive symptoms of despair, depression, imbalance or to connect with the higher self and sit with God. They exist to quiet the mind and lift the spirit so that we can venture into ourselves. They allow change to be possible by allowing us to "feel" better. When we feel better, even if for a fewmoments, we realize change is possible. Don't get me wrong, I myself am a healer, teacher and a guide. I consider myself the empty faucet and the divine the water. Together we nudge the little duckling from the banks and into the river so that faced with the choice to sink or swim. He or she must choose that on his own through the work! This is not an easy psychological or metaphysical task and it will not be attained by one simple developmental tool. It must be looked at holistically and without the standards of attaining perfection or the idea of a "perfect" outcome placed upon it.
Being spiritual is not about reaching higher realms of consciousness or enlightenment.Not about becoming, but rather about being. In itself, a tool... a beacon of light that allows us to see ourselves as love so that we may share that love freely. If love is not present, we lean upon God, the universe, or any form of Christ consciousness to find grace and serenity in hopes we heal all that is holding us back. There isno other way out, but through. Anything else is a bypasss...an unwillingness to acknowledge truth, which in the end, leads to phony projections of spiritual consciousness that blurs reality for those who project and for those who are impressed.
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