Category: Make the most of life

Spiritual Bypassing

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Following yesterday’s reflection on the need to assimilate the feminine and masculine dimensions within ourselves, another post on integrating the different aspects of our lives. John Welwood has written some excellent books on the links between relationships, psychology and spiritual growth. He draws attention to the need to ground our selves in the vulnerability of our human condition, not run away from it.  He reminds us that we exist on different dimensions, including the key one of close relationships with other people, and notes the difficulties we can have in bringing our full awareness to that area.   A key concern of his is understanding how we relate to love. One term he uses is “spiritual bypassing”, which happens when we use the spiritual life to run away from our actual life, or from human, psychological work which needs to be done.

While many teachers are extremely warm, loving, and personal in their own way, they often do not have much to say about the specifically personal side of human life.  Coming out of a philosophy based on traditional Asian societies, they may have a hard time recognizing or assessing the personal, developmental challenges facing Western students. They often do not understand the pervasive self-hatred, shame, and guilt, as well as the alienation and lack of confidence in these students. Still less do they detect the tendency toward spiritual bypassing— using spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep personal, emotional “unfinished business,” to shore up a shaky sense of self, or to belittle basic needs, feelings, and developmental tasks, all in the name of enlightenment. And so they often teach self-transcendence to students who first of all need to find some ground to stand on.

In this way, spirituality becomes just another way of rejecting one’s experience. When people use spiritual practice to try to compensate for low self-esteem, social alienation, or emotional problems, they corrupt the true nature of spiritual practice. Instead of loosening the manipulative ego that tries to control its experience, they are further strengthening it.

Not everything goes to plan 1: Wait

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It is the height of arrogance to prescribe a moral code or health regime or spiritual practice as an amulet to keep things from falling apart. Things do fall apart. It is in their nature to do so. When we try to protect ourselves from the inevitability of change, we are not listening to the soul. We are listening to our fear of life and death, our lack of faith, our smaller ego’s will to prevail. To listen to your soul is to stop fighting with life–to stop fighting when things fall apart; when they don’t go our away, when we get sick, when we are betrayed or mistreated or misunderstood. To listen to the soul is to slow down, to feel deeply, to see ourselves clearly, to surrender to discomfort and uncertainty and to wait.

Elisabeth Lesser

The seasons of the heart

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Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep in your heart the miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Kahil Gibran The Prophet

Not looking to others to save us

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If we want liberation, we must rewrite the Sleeping Beauty myth.

No one is coming and no one else is to blame.

Elizabeth Lesser

Noticing the strategies

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The basic practice, that underlies all practice,  as Pema Chodron reminds us,  is learning to stay. It flies against our normal instinct which is to rush towards whatever gives us a sense of security, a sense of ground. I had a lovely talk yesterday with a friend who observed that these days even much of the spiritual path is presented like products to be consumed, something which we feel compelled to get in order to deal with the deep unease within us. We can notice this because they tend to pull us outside ourselves and end up actually increasing our sense of dissatisfaction with how we actually are.

We all follow some strategy for getting away from this deep dissatisfaction within us. Sometimes this strategy can seem quite spiritual, but it is still a seeking for some sense of ground, of stability.  This shows that we have a strong fear of not being in control, and do not like not knowing what the future is. However this desire for security is deluded, because the deep truth is that we are never in control. We can never be on hundred percent sure of any thing. That’s how things are and this brings up a lot of panic and fear.

Our practice is to try and relax with this and accept that groundlessness  is actually the human condition. This means that we move to accept the fear and panic that comes with it. rather than running away from it.

Do you know which strategies you use to guarantee some sense of safety and familiarity, to avoid facing the fears—of rejection, loss, unworthiness or failure—that lie beneath the surface of your thoughts and actions?  For example, do you try to maintain a sense of order and control, to avoid feeling the fear of chaos, of things falling apart? Do you try to gain acceptance and approval, to avoid the fear of rejection, of not fitting in? Do you try to excel and attain success, to avoid the fear of feeling unworthy? Or do you seek busyness, to avoid the deep holes of longing and loneliness? All of these strategies have one thing in common: they keep us encased in our artificial or substitute life.

Ezra Bayda

All things come to an end

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One of the more frequently quoted phrases coming from different wisdom traditions is “This too will pass” It is a reminder that we can find contentment in whatever circumstance if we glimpse the truth that all things will not last forever. Change is constant, events, people, health and sickness come and go in our lives, difficult situations will end. It allows us create space between ourselves and the situation and focus instead on why the situation has been presented to us and what we can learn from it.

It’s not always easy to stay balanced but it helps me when I look at the things happening in my life as due to many causes coming together. The wisest way I can respond to them is by working with them and  not struggling with them. This does not mean that I should not fight for the things that I can change or refuse to accept it when others treat me badly. However, at times, there are things that I cannot change. “This too will pass” helps me see that all things have an ending. And when I see that endings can lead to new beginnings, I can endure difficulties more easily and let go of good things without resentment.