Walking Through the Flames

We are being called now to Be that rare Bodhisattva that walks through the flames without their robes catching on fire.

Photo credit Roy Gould

Recently I have been really questioning the meaning of ‘Discernment in Spirituality’ so I have done a bit of studying on Spiritual Bypassing.

I know that I am not alone in thinking about such things as I am seeing more and more of you writing about the concept. Today I want to share some of what I found and perhaps I can also convey some of my own personal observations in hopes that my sharing might spark conversation or create an ‘Ah Ha Moment.’

First of all, I started by finding the definition of Spiritual Bypass.

“Spiritual Bypass is defined as a widespread tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.

When we are spiritually bypassing, we often use the goal of awakening or liberation to rationalize what I call premature transcendence: trying to rise above the raw and messy side of our humanness before we have fully faced the raw and messy side of our our personal, unique humanness and have made peace with it. We tend to use absolute truth to disparage or dismiss relative human needs, feelings, psychological problems, relational difficulties, and developmental deficits.” ~ concept introduced by John Wellwood

Basically, what I have come to believe is that spiritual bypass is a defense mechanism wrapped in a pretty spiritual package. Although the spiritual bypass defense sure looks a lot prettier than other defenses, it serves the same purpose. Spiritual bypass shields us from the truth, it disconnects us from our feelings, and helps us avoid the big picture and the harsh realities that we are now facing as a planet.

I find that I am running into and working with more and more people who say to me that all the chaos in the world:

Is all an Illusion
None of it really exists
It’s all just Maya
I exist in a different dimension than them and of course there are many of the I’m spiritual “fill in the blank” story
I’m spiritual and you’re 3D
because my religion told me we were superior
because I studied with ‘so and so’ for years
because my God ‘fill in the blank’ will take care of everything
I’ve been on this spiritual path for ‘fill in the blank’ year
I served close to the guru, teacher, saint, savior so it’s not necessary for me to learn what is happening in the world.

I am watching these beliefs being used as an excuse time and time again instead of having the courage to take solid action to work on mending the Dualities within. The times in which we currently find ourselves demands that we live from an extremely balanced state beyond duality. The times in which we currently find ourselves demands tremendous Courage of the Heart and Action to look within.

Feeling as I do which is that there is a huge difference between Absolute Truth and Relative Truth makes it all even more difficult for me to understand, so this is my attempt to work it out and hopefully my process might spark something within you.

Either you react very strongly in defense, which is always a great indicator that something is unbalanced within or you have also had this experience and have perhaps moved beyond religion and spirituality as we have know it to be until now.

I don’t think many of you would disagree that the majority of our collective consciousness’s remains restricted to a single plane of reality which is one of dualistic perception. This whole ‘Designer Reality’ as I call it was fabricated by the conditioned and programmed dualistic mind, which sets up a solid division between the separate self over here and everything else over there. Us/Them Victim/Tyrant etc. All of our main patterns of self-defense — repression, resistance, denial, avoidance, withdrawal, projection, judgment, rejection, dissociation, aggression — are ways of separating ourselves from this Designer reality.

What I am seeing is that as push comes to shove I think MOST of many of my ‘Religious/Spiritual’ type friends have jumped ship because somehow Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. I think many have been convinced that death or transcendence or rapture is better than being present in the NOW and having the courage to educate yourself and stand up against oppression in all it’s many forms.

I am watching as so many are running from teacher to teacher or program to program right now looking for answers, someone to fix them and/or that illusive burst of enlightenment, shakti, samadhi, spirit or whatever you wish to call it. It seems that so many are existing in a denial of the Relative Truth that requires action on our part in order to even know and sustain some semblance of Absolute Truth.

I don’t think Spirituality or Peace is achieved by simply stating “It’s all an Illusion” because as long as the dualites still remain in your human form then you will still be acting them out in your thoughts, deeds and actions.

Yes, I do know and believe that Absolute Truth is possible but there are no shortcuts to getting there. It requires a great deal of courage to look within and first discover the Relative Truth of what this life has given you. Most spiritual teachings simply were not designed to really go deep into the wounding that is caused by the types of trauma’s that many like myself experienced in this Western world.

I have been lucky enough to interact with 1000’s of you all around the world in the past decade. In doing so I can clearly see that many of us have come from broken dysfunctional homes and families and are completely disconnected from ourselves because of the media’s influence of what we should be or look like. We are disconnected from mother earth and it’s rape and pillage because of consumerism/greed and have been alienated from true spirituality which I believe is something that can only exist within and is very individual and unique to each of us.

I have come to believe that religion as a whole does not help us to understand that which is the Real (that we are divine) because most are essentially based, not on the abandonment of the self, but on the improvement, the refinement of the self. Teaching us that we are flawed and sinners who have been disgraced since the original ‘Fall from Grace.’

The good news is that millions are awakening from this propaganda and the lies and are no longer falling for the outward trappings of society and the duality of good/evil. They are awakening to the fact that our current world is set up as a ‘Designer Reality’ which is based on consumerism and the propaganda that convinces us and manipulates our consciousness at every turn if we are now awake. This ‘Designer Reality’ has taught us to fear each other, to hate each other, to envy, to compare ourselves against each other and oh that lovely drive of competition.

The Matrix of the Designer Reality

This ‘Designer Reality’ has one purpose and that is to condition the mind to a particular pattern of thought, the pattern of self-improvement, self-adjustment, self-sacrifice, and only those who are capable of breaking away from all conditioning can discover That Which Is Not Measurable by the mind.

Take a look at what the 80’s did for our society in the push for Self Help/Self Improvement. Two huge concepts that suddenly became paramount were the terms ‘Codependent and Narcissism’ which ultimately taught us that to depend on others meant you were ill and to believe in yourself and love yourself meant that you were full of ego and ill. Don’t get me wrong, I do realize and acknowledge that there are extreme examples always, yet in order to truly awakening, we must look be willing to look at all the ways that have been spoon-fed to us to keep us under control, separate and in fear to step into our own divinity.

It falls right in line with the ‘Crab in the Bucket’ theory which keeps us pulling each other down, every time one of us has the courage to pull ourselves up. It’s a constant spiral that prevents us from owning our own divinity and capital S ~ Self.

I believe that it is vital that we as teachers and seekers really take a close look at how our Spiritual Ego keeps up trapped and hinders Unity Consciousness in the name of God.

Lots to think about for sure and my personal intention is that “I choose to live and participate in this world and to dedicate my life to self-knowledge, self-consciousness and most importantly the continual service to humanity."