Spirituality is a journey that's rarely straightforward. It tends to twist and turn, much like life itself. You might know when and where you start your spiritual journey, but the destination is often a mystery. The experiences and lessons your soul seeks can pop up anytime and anywhere, so be ready for surprises along the way.
From my extensive time on the spiritual path and teaching others, I've noticed a few common "traps" people tend to fall into:
Motivation: Some dive into spirituality without clear reasons or just because it's trendy. For example, someone might want a kundalini awakening simply because they heard someone else had one. When new students approach me, their motivations are often disappointing. It's crucial to understand why you want to embark on this journey, or you might end up really let down.
Expectations: Too many bad spiritual books and Hollywood/Bollywood movies set unrealistic expectations. When these high goals aren't met quickly, people often give up.
Patience: This ties into expectations but deserves its own mention. Nothing worthwhile happens without effort, time, and dedication, whether in this life or past ones. The laws of creation still apply: you get out what you put in. Instant gratification doesn't mix well with spirituality. Even quick-result methods require practice to solidify those results.
Thinking only the soul matters while the body is secondary: This is a major misconception I've seen in most spiritual folks, often stemming from religious beliefs. The body is the soul's tool to experience life. If you neglect the body and focus only on meditation, how can the soul fully experience and raise its awareness if its instrument (the body) is neglected? So work to raise your body vibration as well.
Poverty and Spirituality: Some folks believe that being poor is a sign of true spirituality, but this idea often comes from religious teachings and can be manipulative. If you think about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, someone struggling to meet basic needs like food, water, and shelter is usually in survival mode. It’s hard to find time or peace for meditation when you're constantly worried about these essentials.
Procrastination and Meditation: Procrastination often ties back to motivation. Students might keep putting off meditation because other things seem more urgent or important.
One True Path: Many people are convinced that their chosen spiritual practice—be it a type of yoga or qi-gong—is the only path to enlightenment. This mindset can create separation and lower their vibration instead of helping them progress.
Sticking with Ineffective Practices: I've met many spiritual seekers who stick with a practice or school that no longer serves them, simply because they've invested so much faith in it. Even when they see no tangible results, they hesitate to move on.
Choosing a Guru: Some people choose their spiritual teachers based on others' opinions rather than their own intuition. It's crucial to find a spiritual master who resonates with your soul. For example, a beginner might not benefit from a master teaching advanced concepts.
Awareness for Enlightenment: Taking some signs of spiritual awareness for full-blown enlightenment is like believing you can do advanced math just because you learned basic addition.
Aspects Balance in Spirituality: There’s often a bias towards glorifying the Feminine aspect of creation while despising the Masculine. Both aspects have their strengths and weaknesses, and true unity requires integrating both.
Non-Linear Spiritual Progress: Spiritual growth isn’t a straight path. It comes in waves, with periods of rapid progress followed by times when nothing seems to work. Many people quit during these slower phases.
Attachment to Results: Some spiritual seekers become too focused on tangible results and stray from true awareness. This can lead them into practices like witchcraft and magic, which isn’t necessarily bad but diverge from the spiritual path.
Misunderstanding the Ego: Trying to completely erase the ego is a big mistake. Even enlightened beings like Krishna, Buddha, and Jesus had egos, but they were controlled by their souls. A small ego is necessary to function in this world.
Meditation and Beliefs: Meditation and other spiritual practices are tools, not goals. The real aim is to identify and release lower beliefs to progress spiritually.
Attachment vs. Desire: Religions often confuse attachment with desire to manipulate behavior. Desire motivates us to experience life, but we shouldn’t get overly attached to the objects of our desires.
Conclusions
There are tons of other pitfalls on a spiritual journey that can throw someone off track. I could honestly write a whole book about the ones I've come across in my own practice.
The key is to develop a kind of "compass" as you go, which I call Spiritual Discernment, to help you stay on the right path in life.
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You can learn more by reading other posts on this spiritual site that are coming from a very different and fresh angle than spiritual mainstream, and based on a very long and personal experience and hands-on research, and not from books.
You might also consider a service like Psychic Readings in the Services section of this site from the ones listed there and get a spiritual diagnostic, or attend my spiritual School of Body and Soul Ascension Mastery to raise your body and soul awareness and reach into higher dimensions.
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