Did you ever turn to your spirituality to avoid facing a painful aspect of your life ? Did you let abuse happen in the name of the compassion ? Did you hide in your highest aspirations to avoid feeling jealous or angry, for considering them emotions not spiritual ? ?
If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you are not alone. Most people who travel the spiritual path fall at some point, without realizing it, in this distortion that the American psychologist John Welwood baptized spiritual bypass. There by 1984. In fact, it is an occurrence so common in the reigning spiritual culture, that very few perceive its existence and the dangers that it entails.
Authors such as Ken Wilber and Robert Augustus Masters even warn that many religious counselors and transpersonal psychologists today promote this error, with the best of intentions, by proposing to those who seek their help spiritual solutions to problems of another origin (cognitive, psychic Logical, even bodily).
The psychotherapist Robert Masters says in his book Spiritual Bypass: when spirituality disconnects us from what really matters that our difficulty in tolerating and dealing with our personal and collective shadow is the engine that leads us to seek spirituality as a refuge or solution. Easy to our problems . In these cases, the practices or beliefs do not help to elevate us but to avoid the expensive transit by self-examination and self-observation, to silence the inner voice that tells us that something is not Well, to sweep under the carpet conflicts and difficulties that cry out to see the light of day.
This is described by John Welwood, who agreed to the term based on what he observed in his community of Buddhist practitioners, and in it: When we fall into the bypass Spiritually, we use the goal of enlightenment or liberation to rationalize what I call premature transcendence : try to rise above the raw side and sloppiness of our humanity before having truly faced it and made peace. with him. And then we try to use the absolute truth to disqualify our relative human needs, our psychological problems, our difficulties linked to developmental difficulties. I think this is a kind of 'occupational hazard' of the spiritual path, given that spirituality entails the vision of going beyond our current karmic situation. .
In what ways does this tendency manifest in people? In an attitude of excessive detachment, the repression of certain emotions (the tendency to "anesthetize" sadness or anger), or through blind compassion, an exacerbated inclination towards the positive, ignoring or insulting one's shadow (the badly seen aspects of oneself). In more extreme cases, it may even appear as delusions of illumination.
This tendency is also called "spiritual inflation", referring to the notion that everything can be transcended to pure force of light and will. But CG Jung already said: "One does not reach enlightenment by fantasizing about the light but by making the darkness conscious . "
An example of Welwood, in relation to the practice of Buddhism in the West: “ If one tries to practice detachment by denying one's need to receive love, all he achieves is to banish that need to the unconscious, where he may act and manifest in ways potentially dangerous. ”
The therapist explains: “It's easy to use concepts like 'the truth of the void' in a distorted way. The teaching is that thoughts and emotions have no true existence, that they are just illusions of Samsara (the world of forms), and therefore, we should not pay attention to them. 'You must recognize them as empty forms and, through them without further ado', is the advice the disciples receive. This may be useful in the field of practice, but in life situations, those same words can be used to suppress or deny feelings that require our attention . I've seen it happen on numerous occasions. ”
“I fear that what many Western Buddhists are practicing is not detachment, but avoidance of attachment. This is not the same as release of attachment: it is another form of attachment: they stick to the denial of their human needs, because of distrust of love, ”he emphasizes.
This phenomenon is associated in part with the explosion of interest in spirituality that occurred in the 60s and the adoption by the West of practices and knowledge of the East; and also with the deformation of these practices and beliefs in what has been called "spirituality of rapid consumption" .
But it is not exclusive to Eastern traditions or their practices; Prayer can also be used as a way to avoid contact with psychological wounds and heart aches .
The truth is that there is nothing instantaneous in the process of spiritual growth . Those who conquer maturity in this field do so by years of interior work and transparency, knowing themselves small and fallible every step of the way. In Welwood's terms, in them the fruit falls from the tree by its own weight, instead of being prematurely plucked from the branch.
There are in these spiritually aged beings - be they monks, teachers or sweepers - a quality of integrity and roots. They are not stark souls, nor do they appear to be. They are not, nor are they intended, beyond anything. For this reason, they are able to embrace the complexity of those around them with infinite love, and show the way to real transcendence, without traps or shortcuts, without illusions of holiness, with simple human vocation.
You could not wish us a better destination.
Fabiana Fondevila
SEEN IN: "The Kryon Teachings" by Mario Liani: http://38uh.com