“No matter what the practice or teaching, ego loves to wait in ambush to appropriate spirituality for its own survival and gain.” Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
All about ‘me’.
In my last post, ‘An Unauthentic Life’, we talked about the super ego and its obsession with self, possessions, power, and control over others. One only has to observe the world without judgement, without bias to see what a hell hole it actually is. 3D reality is a playground for insane super ego’s all vying to be number one in their sphere of control. This ‘sphere of control’ is not limited to the physical world. It has its counterpart in our energetic reality. A superficial, agenda filled mindset called materialistic spirituality.
“Spiritual materialism is what happens when we use spiritual concepts, practices, and tools to reinforce the false sense of self, the ego.” Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
When our spiritual practices bolster, reinforce and inflate our sense of self, our specialness, our uniqueness, it becomes a toxic energetic thought form that does us far more harm than good. When we understand that our super ego’s, the ‘me’s’, are the source of our suffering in this world, we will see that inflating our ego through spiritual practice is a roadblock to our spiritual evolution. It is a backward step! A dead end!
I venture to say that all of us on a spiritual path have fallen prey at one time or another to materialistic spirituality. I know I have. Therefore, if we are interested in spiritual evolution and knowledge of the higher worlds, all of us need to be brutally honest with ourselves when it comes to our spiritual motivation and how we use it.
We all have a super ego, and its programme is survival at all costs even if that means exploiting spirituality for our own gain. The aim of this post is that we can learn to recognise the trap our super ego sets for us and avoid the sterile dead ends that accompany it. Here are some aspects of materialistic spirituality.
Spiritual elitism
Many people practice spiritual elitism. Telling anyone who will listen that they have special spiritual gifts that set them apart from other people: clairvoyance, clair-audience, psychic abilities, second sight, communicating with spirits, awakened kundalini, etc. This is called ‘owning’.
Owning
The practice of ‘owning’ this or that spiritual power indirectly bolsters our separate sense of self, our ‘me’ status by inflating an already inflated super ego.
Do you see this?
Along with owning comes name dropping: “I know this holy man and that guru,” and so on. Plus, the keeping of a mental list of all the important spiritual people they have met, and the workshops they have attended. A list designed to inflate self and impress others. This is a spiritual cul de sac and needs to be avoided at all costs.
Hand in hand with name droppers are those who chase endlessly after this guru and that spiritual teacher, medicine people, and influencers of different religious cultures. These folk get credentials and initiations from shamans and gurus because it bolsters their super ego, ‘me’ feels more powerful, more special, more important and spiritually aligned. Rituals and disciplines are utilized in an effort to become more intuitive, wiser and more powerful, and a mish mash of other cultural traditions are practiced for profit and self-image.
Spiritual bypass or avoidance of action
Many ‘spiritual super ego’s’ are stuck in the future. They believe that if they learn this practice, this song, this new ritual, or follow this and that guru, they will eventually attain power – they will grow into it. A lot of people have spent a lot of money trying to grow their spirituality only to find it does not exist in the future. It’s a put off, a mind fuck, a spiritual bypass of the Now, avoiding action in the only moment where change can happen and power be obtained.
Purely positive – another aspect
Another group of super ego dead enders are the love and light brigade. When we try to talk to them about the ugliness in the world, we often get shut down by those who focus on the purely positive aspects of spirituality. They tell us not to talk about the negative, that we have to keep a high vibe and love and light is all that matters.
When we cannot accept the negative, we become energetically unbalanced. This one sided energetic is another spiritual bypass, an avoidance, an escape from what is real.
Spiritual narcissism
In my experience spiritual narcissism is the icing on the cake of corrupted spirituality. Many super ego’s are so psychotic they think and act as if they are demigods. They are arrogant authorities on everything spiritual. They are often abusers, bullies, and dictators who unconsciously believe they are more awakened, more spiritually powerful than the rest of us. The super ego of this type suffer from megalomania and will do anything to reinforce and inflate their ‘specialness’ their spiritual uniqueness including harming others through fear-based information, sexual and financial abuse, arrogance, and spiritual ignorance.
The seduction of illusory power
Materialistic spirituality happens when our ‘so-called’ spirituality feeds our ego. And none of us are immune to the seduction of illusory power. Our super ego’s want to possess the power of the Source Field. They want to become the ‘light of the world’, the leader with a mass of fawning followers. And, to satisfy its cravings for self-adulation, the ego will continue to find ways of using spirituality to further its existence by any means it can.
It’s influence and delusional control over our thinking will only end when we experience the revelation of the ‘One Life,’ and can break the chains of the super ego insanity that holds the world in thrall.
So, my friends, if you wish to transcend this dense and unplugged reality, spiritual self-examination is the first step.
Ask yourself, do I practice materialistic spirituality?
And, how much ego stroking is involved with what I do?
Do I practice self-promotion or humbleness in the face of the awesome spiritual power that surrounds us, flows through us, is US? …if only we can silence the strident voice of the mad ‘I Am.’
Until next time. Stay in love with life.
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ethompson
May 16, 2023 at 11:31 pmLove you, guys.
Rl Bucala
May 16, 2023 at 11:56 pmLove you too! Beautifully written.
ethompson
May 17, 2023 at 12:58 amMuch love, Rebecca.
markfarrar
May 17, 2023 at 6:40 amhubris , delusion and gullibility ,
have all been Achilles heels
of the human psyche , ripe
for exploitation , especially
in times of chaos and confusion .
there are always gurus fleecing fools .
if I wasn’t so lazy , I could become , The Bone Idol !….
ethompson
May 17, 2023 at 8:18 amHaha! The bone idol. That’s funny.
Iam
May 17, 2023 at 8:47 amDing! Ding! Ding!
So spot on!
Unfortunately, those who need to read this won’t allow themselves to be authentic enough about their “super egos” to truly understand the damage they are inflicting on others.
No difference between them and the religious oligarchy.
So powerful!
Sharing!
ethompson
May 17, 2023 at 8:54 amyep! And what about the damage they are inflicting upon themselves. Much love, Iam.
ariel
May 17, 2023 at 12:47 pmYou’re talking about ‘polarity’ here, in the Duality in which we currently live , EVERYTHING oscillates between poles. Ergo if we stay in the split hemisphere world, corpus callosum notwithstanding which while connecting our inbuilt polarities may be instrumental in helping us mistake one polarity for the other…..it’s funny, watching the lunatics who want to rule the world, knowing that at best we can only be vehicles for powers that Source may grant for specific purposes, whether we understand them or not.
We do not own them, and they may destroy us if we self-identify with them too closely and for too long.
‘Those whom the gods would destroy, first they make mad.’
I certainly have been shown my limitations and boundaries, and survived. It’s far too easy to get off on the attention of large numbers of people, ESPECIALLY if you have them focused on you, rather than ‘the work,’ whatever it is at the time. Ask any rock musician, and look at the ones who CRASH. You’re literally walking on air. But when the lights go down and the music stops, what then? You find out you were only a vulnerable human being, synthetic or not, after all.
We always find out maybe when it’s too late, that there are NO, ‘big people.’ no authorities in the political or religious sense. Like the rich have to have ‘protection,’ bodyguards, private armies and every security device known to technology because they are ‘shit-scared’ of a) losing what they have, and b) being found out.
Also you may or may not know that ‘Beau Nidal’ is Terry Pratchett’s ‘Death’ character (but I suspect Mark does) when he runs away and joins the Foreign Legion to escape his responsibilities, and his Step Granddaughter Susan has to temporarily take over the family firm. ‘Susan Death.’ Things are complicated when she falls in love with a young ‘music with rocks in it’ musician who is in thrall to the spirit of his instrument.
xxxxxx
markfarrar
May 17, 2023 at 5:20 pmnot me , our Mick G. is , or was , the Pratchett fan .
waaay too lazy to read so very many words ,
though I am warming to the idea of my Bone Idol
character being a new age death guru now .
markfarrar
May 18, 2023 at 2:56 ammaking the Bone Idols acolytes , N.A.D.G.ERS !
Michael
May 18, 2023 at 2:15 pmOn point, thanks for sharing.
The thing about narcissists (especially those with clinical narcissistic personality disorder) is that they will do everything in their power to preserve and defend their fragile egos. Often this is due to an out of control, out of balance Id or Super Ego.
A narcissist is unwilling or unable to look inward and self-reflect because they believe themselves to be infallible and superior, above having to look at themselves; sadly this is why many go undiagnosed and untreated because they refuse to seek therapy. He will use ego-defense mechanisms to protect his sense of self-importance: deflecting, projecting on to “other”, denial, intellectualization/ rationalization. Anything to defend the fantasy that they are like a “demigod”, above failing or reproach. They will belittle other people and lie to others and themselves to uphold their inflated sense of self.
Reality testing can help. . . Snap out of it.
Spiritual materialism and spiritual bypassing can also be difficult to address as no one wants to let go of the idea that they have reached enlightenment, when they are in fact stuck in their ego.
All good things for your constant readers to ponder and self reflect upon, may we all gain some insight and experience positive growth.. 💜
ariel
May 18, 2023 at 12:08 pmThey are giving us a drought, but that means I can do my yoga/exercise program outside. They gave us conntinuous rain, now they’re giving us weeks of dry. They spray the sky, some of it appears to vanish, some of it expands into huge trails of which one fully expanded can take over a large proportion of the sky. Then they microwave it, huge parallel frequency waves often in 3 patches at once, aligned in different directions, and they take out the whole sky with a grey/white blanket. This can happen in 20 minutes start to finish when the ‘planes’ start spraying.
In a gap in the process I sungazed upside down in the shoulder stand position. I was watching two suns, a different one with either eye. The left sun was higher than the right, but by experiment, I saw that the left sun was seen by the right eye, and the right sun by the left eye. Both of them turned blue during the gazing, and whirled. The (lower) right sun was at least a third larger than the (upper) left. The lower right sun also went black for a bit, and this time the colour distortion, after finishing, any light surface including flesh glowed bright orange, vegetation turns purple etc.
xxxxx
markfarrar
May 19, 2023 at 3:34 amwhile you were focussed on the firmament
Sol fired off eight M strength flares in one day !
its going to be a good year for the roses …
markfarrar
May 19, 2023 at 11:02 amp.s. I Love you , ariel .
you are seriously hardcore .
markfarrar
July 10, 2023 at 3:29 pmelva … I know you think that crop circles
are the Devils doodles but even you , might
appreciate the elegance and beauty of a few
new ones in Hampshire fields that you , me
and probably ariel too , have stomped on .
The Croppie.com Much Love …..