Spiritual Bypassing Quotes

When transcendence of our personal history takes precedence over intimacy with our personal history, spiritual bypassing is inevitable. To not be intimate with our past—to not be deeply and thoroughly acquainted with our conditioning and its originating factors—keeps it undigested and unintegrated and therefore very much present,

Spiritual bypassing—the use of spiritual beliefs to avoid dealing with painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs—is so pervasive that it goes largely unnoticed. The spiritual ideals of any tradition, whether Christian commandments or Buddhist precepts, can provide easy justification for practitioners to duck uncomfortable feelings in favor of more seemingly enlightened activity. When split off from fundamental psychological needs, such actions often do much more harm than good. ROBERT AUGUSTUS MASTERS, Spiritual Bypassing: When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters

Having a symbol to represent something is a very powerful way to draw it to you. Symbols work on a deeper level of consciousness than words and bypass belief systems.

Spiritual bypassing is a term I coined to describe a process I saw happening in the Buddhist community I was in, and also in myself. Although most of us were sincerely trying to work on ourselves, I noticed 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 and made peace with it. And then we tend to use absolute truth to disparage or dismiss relative human needs, feelings, psychological problems, relational difficulties, and developmental deficits. I see this as an ‘occupational hazard’ of the spiritual path, in that spirituality does involve a vision of going beyond our current karmic situation.

To this day, I remain awestruck by the fact that human beings are capable of this type of metamorphosis. We don’t have to stay stuck displaying the same personality traits over the course of our lifetime but are free to transform into higher expressions of ourselves. Today I can honestly say that I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that human beings are capable of making radical and lasting change. After a decade of coaching individuals and leading groups, I have discovered that if I don’t buy into people’s perceptions of who they are and what they are capable of, I can bypass their public personas and see who they are in their highest expression. With a little effort, I can see their magnificence and their potential no matter what they look like or what condition their emotional, spiritual, or financial world is in. I can see through their acts, their personas, their fears and insecurities. I can see who they are apart from the baggage they carry around. The undeniable fact is that underneath all of our public personas, we already are that which we desire to be. Our only job is to see past our own limitations so that we can return to that which we already are.

clearly healing and potently integrative. What spiritual bypassing would have us rise above is precisely what we need to enter, and enter deeply, with as little self-numbing as possible. To this end, it is crucial that we see through whatever practices we have, spiritual or otherwise, that tranquilize rather than illuminate and awaken us. Despite

To begin with, this is not a mindfulness book on how to bypass anger and focus on happiness. Nor is this a book about using any other spiritual path to transform the nature of anger into something more profound or transcendent. This book is about facing our anger and welcoming it as a teacher and friend so it can help us to benefit ourselves and others.

The heart carries the beat of life. It makes existence meaningful and beautiful. The heart bypasses language. It doesn’t lie. Everything moving and powerful has heart.

We can never control truth. We can only control ourselves to be deceptive, and deny being aware of the truth.

My wife used to say that her idea of hell would be marrying Ghandi," Ben said ... "Think about it: Ghandi was always the good one. Everyone else looked so rude and loud and self-centered by comparison.

The new gurus have taught us to embrace our light bodies, shunning the darkness, and focusing purely on love and light, constant happiness and extreme optimism. But, as Karin L. Burke astutely points out: “In our efforts to feel better, many of us start shutting it off, in favor of pop psychology or easy spirituality. It’s called spiritual bypass. It’s an attempt to avoid painful feelings, unresolved issues, or developmental needs.

In short: all the woo is keeping us from dealing with our poo. Instead of medicating with Marlboros and martinis, we might be doing it with metaphysics and macrobiotics. And unlike boozing it up to drown our pain, the side effects of neurotic psychoanalyzing or forced flexibility are difficult to spot. We don't end up in rehab from too much meditation or therapy -- we just end up in more workshops. Think of that friend you have who has a not-so-loving relationship with her body, but because she eats "health foods" and talks a good "body positive" talk about just wanting to be strong, we cheer her on. But really, she's got self-destructive motivations and a mild eating disorder disguised as a holistic wellness routine. On the surface, positivity and wellness goalkeeping present so nicely that it can be hard to see when healthy actions are hooked to unhealthy ambitions. Like too much of anything, spiritual bypassing can numb us out from our Truth -- which is where the healing answers wait to be found.

Blind compassion is rooted in the belief that we are all doing the best that we can. When we are driven by blind compassion, we cut everyone far too much slack, making excuses for others’ behavior and making nice in situations that require a forceful “no,” an unmistakable voicing of displeasure, or a firm setting and maintaining of boundaries. These things can, and often should, be done out of love, but blind compassion keeps love too meek, sentenced to wearing a kind face. This is not the kindness of the Dalai Lama, which is rooted in courage, but rather a kindness rooted in fear, and not just the fear of confrontation, but also the fear of not coming across as a good or spiritual person. When we are engaged in blind compassion we rarely show any anger, for we not only believe that compassion has to be gentle, we are also frightened of upsetting anyone, especially to the point of their confronting us.

When leaders claim that God bypasses their followers and speaks directly to them, they greatly diminish all God does through the lives of believers. Leaders who begrudge people the opportunity to seek God themselves and who do not actively teach their people how to hear God's voice have disqualified themselves as spiritual leaders.

Toxic positivity in spirituality is often called "spiritual bypassing." John Welwood coined the term and defined it as "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 asks." Welwood noticed that many people were using spirituality as a way to avoid painful emotions and experiences. This continues today in many spiritual practices or communities worldwide that offer countless ways to create "unlimited" happiness and manifest everything you've ever wanted without ever acknowledging the internal and systemic barriers that may get in the way.

It is our duty to use whatever corrective tools and disciplines are available to us to resolve errors that might be compromising our health. In this way, we work to create optimal health in both mind and body to benefit our yoga practice. It is ill advised to use a spiritual goal to bypass what is our duty to correct with human effort. If

At times you may believe that you are at wits’ end and feel that God has bypassed you for a more urgent petition or a needier person. Perhaps He has “too many children” to take care of and is “too busy for you.” However, just as the examples above indicate, God prepares a good outcome before the situation arises; He is not surprised at the trouble and at your reaction to it, and He can and is planning a way of escape before you ever get into the crisis.

Hammered into the Heart In the Sufi tradition light and knowledge are reflected from heart to heart. The heart is the organ of the higher consciousness — the consciousness of the Self. Spiritual teachings can be reflected or impressed directly into the heart, bypassing the limitations of the mind. . . . A further part of the Sufi training is to bring the mind into the heart, the mind 'hammered into the heart' as the Sufis say, so that the teachings given to the heart can be assimilated into everyday consciousness. A mind that has been brought into the heart can understand the ways of oneness, which are often paradoxical, sometimes even nonsensical, to the rational self.

Hammered into the Heart In the Sufi tradition light and knowledge are reflected from heart to heart. The heart is the organ of the higher consciousness — the consciousness of the Self. Spiritual teachings can be reflected or impressed directly into the heart, bypassing the limitations of the mind. . . . A further part of the Sufi training is to bring the mind into the heart, the mind 'hammered into the heart' as the Sufis say, so that the teachings given to the heart can be assimilated into everyday consciousness. A mind that has been brought into the heart can understand the ways of oneness, which are often paradoxical, sometimes even nonsensical, to the rational self.

Kierkegaard stands against every form of thinking that bypasses the individual or enables the individual to escape his responsibility before God. He also made an absolute demand that “idea” should be translated into existence (being and doing), which is exactly what his contemporaries, in his opinion, failed to do: “Most systematizers stand in the same relation to their systems as the man who builds a great castle and lives in an adjoining shack; they do not live in their great systematic structure. But in spiritual matters this will always be a crucial objection. Metaphorically speaking, a person’s ideas must be the building he lives in – otherwise there is something terribly wrong.

The Bible is an ancient book and we shouldn’t be surprised to see it act like one. So seeing God portrayed as a violent, tribal warrior is not how God is but how he was understood to be by the ancient Israelites communing with God in their time and place. The biblical writers were storytellers. Writing about the past was never simply about understanding the past for its own sake, but about shaping, molding, and creating the past to speak to the present. “Getting the past right” wasn’t the driving issue. “Who are we now?” was. The Bible presents a variety of points of view about God and what it means to walk in his ways. This stands to reason, since the biblical writers lived at different times, in different places, and wrote for different reasons. In reading the Bible we are watching the spiritual journeys of people long ago. Jesus, like other Jews of the first century, read his Bible creatively, seeking deeper meaning that transcended or simply bypassed the boundaries of the words of scripture. Where Jesus ran afoul of the official interpreters of the Bible of his day was not in his creative handling of the Bible, but in drawing attention to his own authority and status in doing so. A crucified and resurrected messiah was a surprise ending to Israel’s story. To spread the word of this messiah, the earliest Christian writers both respected Israel’s story while also going beyond that story. They transformed it from a story of Israel centered on Torah to a story of humanity centered on Jesus.

The Samaritans and the Jews were enemies, two tribes caught in an ancient argument about birthright and ethnicity who lived in segregated neighborhoods. By Jesus’s time they were forbidden to have contact with each other, and violent squabbles sometimes erupted. The lawyer, who was a Jew, surely knew of both the informal customs and formal laws separating the two groups. Samaritans and Jews were not good neighbors. Yet Jesus turns the ancient Jewish command to love your neighbor into a story about these hostile groups. The man in the ditch, who is Jewish, is bypassed by those close to him by tribal ties (most likely the priest and the Levite were afraid the thieves were still about in the area and that they might be the next victim) and is eventually rescued by a Samaritan. Thus Jesus enlarges the sphere of neighborhood to include those we deem objectionable.

EAGLE The East direction is represented by eagle and condor, who bring vision, clarity, and foresight. Eagle perceives the entire panorama of life without becoming bogged down in its details. The energies of eagle assist us in finding the guiding vision of our lives. The eyes of condor see into the past and the future, helping to know where we come from, and who we are becoming. When I work with a client who is stuck in the traumas of the past, I help her to connect with the spirit of eagle or condor. As this energy infuses the healing space, my client is often able to attain new clarity and insight into her life. This is not an intellectual insight, but rather a call, faint at first, hardly consciously heard. Her possibilities beckon to her and propel her out of her grief and into her destiny. I believe that while everyone has a future, only certain people have a destiny. Having a destiny means living to your fullest human potential. You don’t need to become a famous politician or poet, but your destiny has to be endowed with meaning and purpose. You could be a street sweeper and be living a destiny. You could be the president of a large corporation and be living a life bereft of meaning. One can make oneself available to destiny, but it requires a great deal of courage to do so. Otherwise our destiny bypasses us, leaving us deprived of a fulfillment known by those who choose to take the road less traveled. Eagle allows us to rise above the mundane battles that occupy our lives and consume our energy and attention. Eagle gives us wings to soar above trivial day-to-day struggles into the high peaks close to Heaven. Eagle and condor represent the self-transcending principle in nature. Biologists have identified the self-transcending principle as one of the prime agendas of evolution. Living molecules seek to transcend their selfhood to become cells, then simple organisms, which then form tissues, then organs, and then evolve into complex beings such as humans and whales. Every transcending jump is inclusive of all of the levels beneath it. Cells are inclusive of molecules, yet transcend them; organs are inclusive of cells, yet go far beyond them; whales are inclusive of organs yet cannot be described by them, as the whole transcends the sum of its parts. The transcending principle represented by eagle states that problems at a certain level are best solved by going up one step. The problems of cells are best resolved by organs, while the needs of organs are best addressed by an organism such as a butterfly or a human. The same principle operates in our lives. Think of nested Russian dolls. Material needs are the tiny doll in the center. The larger emotional doll encompasses them, and both are contained within the outermost spiritual doll. In this way, we cannot satisfy emotional needs with material things, but we can satisfy them spiritually. When we go one step up, our emotional needs are addressed in the solution. We rise above our life dilemmas on the wings of eagle and see our lives in perspective.

...I finally stopped pretending that I felt differently than I did. I'd spent my whole life trying to bypass anger, rejection, and weakness. I'd created an entire persona in order to avoid feeling those things... I started to do the thing I had been doing, which was to bypass my actual feelings and say the thing I knew I was supposed to say: the more spiritual thing, the thing I thought she wanted to hear...But I stopped myself. I breathed. Finally, I said, "Yes, I fucking miss it. I miss it every day. All the time." There it was. Everything in me wanted to take it back, or to explain more, or to qualify it with some kind of higher wisdom. But another thing happened inside me then, too. I felt a burst of expansion, like a pressure valve had been released. Most of my life up to that point had been a series of small or large acts of pretending, which made the ground I was standing on shaky and unstable. I was never going to feel whole standing on that ground, even when it appeared to be attractive, solid, and right, because it was built on falsities and my soul knew it.

The birth and growth of modern antisemitism has been accompanied by and interconnected with Jewish assimilation, the secularization and withering away of the old religious and spiritual values of Judaism. What actually happened was that great parts of the Jewish people were at the same time threatened by physical extinction from without and dissolution from within. In this situation, Jews concerned with the survival of their people would, in a curious and desperate misinterpretation, hit on the consoling idea that antisemitism, after all, might be an excellent means for keeping the people together so that the assumption of external antisemitism would even imply an external guarantee of Jewish existence. This superstition, a secularized travesty of the idea of eternity inherent in a faith in chosenness and a Messianic hope, has been strengthened through the fact that for many centuries the Jews experienced the Christian brand of hostility which was indeed a powerful agent of preservation, spiritually as well as politically. The Jews mistook modern anti-Christian antisemitism for the old religious Jew-hatred—and this all the more innocently because their assimilation had by-passed Christianity in its religious and cultural aspect. Confronted with an obvious symptom of the decline of Christianity, they could therefore imagine in all ignorance that this was some revival of the so-called "Dark Ages." Ignorance or misunderstanding of their own past were partly responsible for their fatal underestimation of the actual and unprecedented dangers which lay ahead. But one should also bear in mind that lack of political ability and judgment have been caused by the very nature of Jewish history, the history of a people without a government, without a country, and without a language. Jewish history offers the extraordinary spectacle of a people, unique in this respect, which began its history with a well-defined concept of history and an almost conscious resolution to achieve a well-circumscribed plan on earth and then, without giving up this concept, avoided all political action for two thousand years. The result was that the political history of the Jewish people became even more dependent upon unforeseen, accidental factors than the history of other nations, so that the Jews stumbled from one role to the other and accepted responsibility for none.

In 1935, three years before his death, Edmund Husserl gave his celebrated lectures in Vienna and Prague on the crisis of European humanity. For Husserl, the adjective "European" meant the spiritual identity that extends beyond geographical Europe (to America, for instance) and that was born with ancient Greek philosophy. In his view, this philosophy, for the first time in History, apprehended the world (the world as a whole) as a question to be answered. It interrogated the world not in order to satisfy this or that practical need but because "the passion to know had seized mankind." The crisis Husserl spoke of seemed to him so profound that he wondered whether Europe was still able to survive it. The roots of the crisis lay for him at the beginning of the Modern Era, in Galileo and Descartes, in the one-sided nature of the European sciences, which reduced the world to a mere object of technical and mathematical investigation and put the concrete world of life, die Lebenswelt as he called it, beyond their horizon. The rise of the sciences propelled man into the tunnels of the specialized disciplines. The more he advanced in knowledge, the less clearly could he see either the world as a whole or his own self, and he plunged further into what Husserl's pupil Heidegger called, in a beautiful and almost magical phrase, "the forgetting of being." Once elevated by Descartes to "master and proprietor of nature," man has now become a mere thing to the forces (of technology, of politics, of history) that bypass him, surpass him, possess him. To those forces, man's concrete being, his "world of life" (die Lebenswelt), has neither value nor interest: it is eclipsed, forgotten from the start.

But if you are not careful, spirituality can quite easily allow you to bypass the human dilemma, because spirituality can be anything you want it to be, whereas faith will challenge you. It’s not so comfortable. It carries with it the undeniable tension between your search for security and the limits of your ability to know. Faith keeps your spiritual quest relevant and connected to the heart of the human predicament.

By self-transformation, I don't mean spiritually bypassing yourself or others. I mean actual, genuine growth and transformation, which is often ugly, messy, uncomfortable, and at times painful.

Fuck heightened consciousness—we aren’t birds. Fuck transcendence-addiction masquerading as evolution. Fuck ‘non-duality’ that conveniently removes everything uncomfortable from the unified field. Fuck ‘enlightenment’ without integrity. Fuck patriarchal detachment models presented as ‘the’ royal road to the ‘Kingdom’ of God—what about the Queendom— our only hope. Fuck “The New Earth” as described by dissociative and disembodied pain bypassers. Fuck the yoga ‘industry’ that feigns awareness it does not hold. Fuck vertical spirituality that ignores what is happening before our very eyes. Fuck the bullshit soulebrities who don’t give a shit about humanity. Fuck the guru who imagines himself realized. Fuck the New Cage movement and its trail of lies. Fuck any version of spirituality that doesn’t SERVE humanity. Fuck the story bashers. Fuck the victim bashers. Fuck the bloodied spiritual lie. Embrace enrealment—before it’s too fucking late.

As in the Gospel of Thomas, it’s merely the “seek and you shall find” part without the confusion, wonder, and reorientation—and also, without the “sovereignty.” For all such spiritual sleepwalking bypasses that crucial first step, that moment when the heart has to find its way not through external conditioning but through a raw immediacy of presence. Only there—in “the cave of the heart,” as the mystics are fond of calling it—does a person come in contact with his or her own direct knowingness. And only out of this direct knowingness is sovereignty born, one’s own inner authority.

To this day, I remain awestruck by the fact that human beings are capable of this type of metamorphosis. We don’t have to stay stuck displaying the same personality traits over the course of our lifetime but are free to transform into higher expressions of ourselves. Today I can honestly say that I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that human beings are capable of making radical and lasting change. After a decade of coaching individuals and leading groups, I have discovered that if I don’t buy into people’s perceptions of who they are and what they are capable of, I can bypass their public personas and see who they are in their highest expression. With a little effort, I can see their magnificence and their potential no matter what they look like or what condition their emotional, spiritual, or financial world is in. I can see through their acts, their personas, their fears and insecurities. I can see who they are apart from the baggage they carry around. The undeniable fact is that underneath all of our public personas, we already are that which we desire to be. Our only job is to see past our own limitations so that we can return to that which we already are.

Star Struck Our group visited the laser light show, an attraction mixing music and beams of bright colors as they formed constellations and abstract shapes. An awe-inspiring performance, but as it ended, I noticed the stranger, eyes still focused on me. I turned away quickly. “Look--over by the door. There he is again.” I gestured for my friend to sneak a peek in the direction of the man. “Where?” She squinted, her head pointed straight at him. “I don’t see him--maybe he left.” Frustration tinged my voice. “He’s right there--hasn’t moved an inch. He’s almost smiling at me now. Please don’t try to say I’m imagining him.” Fear mounted in me. Was I being stalked? I tucked the thought away, determined to enjoy this time with my companions, to relax in the gentle warmth of the sun. As our excursion neared its end, I glanced to the left, at the wall of a building, devoid of gates or doors of any sort. The man leaned against it, looking at me. This time I stared back, determined to show a bravery I didn’t feel. Hidden in pockets, my hands trembled. A calm smile and deep compassion shone on his face as we locked eyes for what felt like minutes, but probably lasted only seconds. Then--I don’t know how to explain it--it was as though a burst of conversation swept from his mind to mine. “Everything’s going to be all right.” I felt an intense warmth head to toe, as though embraced in a spiritual hug from the inside out. “There’s work ahead.” I took a deep breath, maintaining the eye contact, listening. He continued to smile with his eyes. “I’ll be watching.” I nodded slowly, softly. I understood. And felt safe. A friend tugged on my arm, pulling me toward another monument. I turned my head back for a glimpse of the man, but he was gone. I scanned the building once more, searching for openings he could have exited through. There were none. I shook my head. I knew I’d seen him. And he’d seen me. I was certain he was real. I still felt his warmth. We headed for home, my mind filled with questions about the man, and the message I’d somehow received. Reason fought against intuition. He was just an ordinary guy. Or was he? In the months to come, I overcame my fears and visited the doctor. I underwent three cardiac catheterization operations, and a successful triple-bypass surgery. Through them all, I knew I’d be al right. Years have passed since that day. But the peace he projected has remained with me. God sent me comfort in a way I needed, in a form I could understand and trust--an ordinary-looking man. He gave me the courage and the confidence to take care of my health problems. My angel. And even though I can’t see him, I know he’s still watching. I know things are going to be all right. How can I be so sure? Because there’s still work for me to do. He told me so. -Nancy Zeider

Spiritual bypassing often adopts a rationale based on using absolute truth to deny or disparage relative truth.

The desire to be without core emotional experiences is just another form of craving. Using spiritual endeavor to bypass emotions is just another avoidance tendency, like workaholism, rumination, or escape through books, television, or video games.

Some signs of spiritual bypassing include1: Not focusing on the here and now, living in a spiritual realm much of the time. Overemphasizing the positive and avoiding the negative. Being self-righteous about the concept of enlightenment. Being overly detached. Being overly idealistic. Pretending that everything is OK when it’s not. With

If we don’t deal with our trauma or our sadness or our anger, it begins to deal with us. If we don’t allow ourselves to feel our feelings, they have a habit of peeking around the corners of our lives, breaking in at unexpected moments. Trauma or disruption or betrayal manifests differently for each of us—rage, anger, self-harm, self-neglect, frenzy, numbing, posturing, spiritual bypassing…Or in that particular instance, nightmares.

There's an art in being able to navigate your life with your feet on the ground, moving in the direction of a beautiful future; not being disappointed because you're not there; not bypassing and pretending that you're there when you're not. Being fully human, but not denying the remarkable, divine potential that truly exists inside us. That's where we are at the moment, and that really is the leading edge of human life.

We need not doubt that the Evangelical movement had a powerful effect in waking up eighteenth-century England from its religious apathy, or that eighteenth-century England needed it. Where it failed was in its long-term effects. Religion became identified in the popular mind with a series of moods, in which the worshipper, disposed thereto by all the arts of the revivalist, relished the flavours of spiritual peace. You needed neither a theology nor a liturgy; you did not take the strain of intellectual inquiry, nor associate yourself whole-heartedly with any historic tradition of worship. You floated, safely enough, on the little raft of your own faith, eagerly throwing out the lifeline to such drowning neighbours as were ready to catch it; meanwhile the ship was foundering. It is this by-passing of an historic tradition in favour of a personal experience that has created the modem religious situation in England, and to some extent in the English-speaking world. The Oxford Movement did but lock the door on a stolen horse. On the one hand, it is assumed that every man's religion is his own affair; it does not concern, need not alarm his neighbours. On the other hand, the Christian witness has become a sectional affair; Christianity is one of the fads which people adopt if they are interested in that kind of thing. A poster in a railway station, bidding you be prepared to meet your God, is passed by with an indulgent smile. If people are burdened with a sense of sin, by all means let them seek comfort in some conventicle which promises them release from it; the same is perhaps true of people who begin to feel lonely in old age. But always religion is thought of, instinctively, as a way of changing from one state of mind into another.

The kind of praise the Father seeks is not a cacophony of mindless pandemonium. Worship is not mere frenzy and feelings. “Those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). God “delight[s] in truth in the inward being” (Ps. 51:6 ESV). Therefore true worship (like authentic sanctification) cannot bypass the mind; it is all about the renewing of the mind (Rom. 12:1–2; cf. Eph. 4:23–24). As Jonathan Edwards said, genuine, biblical worship should bring people “to high and exalting thoughts of the divine Being and his glorious perfections [and it] works in them an admiring, delightful sense of the excellency of Jesus Christ.”58 The effect is that we become whole new persons—“renewed in knowledge” (Col. 3:10). Scripture knows nothing of any type of spirituality that bypasses intellect and operates only on feelings.

PROBLEMS ARE PART OF LIFE. They are inescapable, woven into the very fabric of this fallen world. You tend to go into problem-solving mode all too readily, acting as if you have the capacity to fix everything. This is a habitual response, so automatic that it bypasses your conscious thinking. Not only does this habit frustrate you, it also distances you from Me. Do not let fixing things be your top priority. You are ever so limited in your capacity to correct all that is wrong in the world around you. Don’t weigh yourself down with responsibilities that are not your own. Instead, make your relationship with Me your primary concern. Talk with Me about whatever is on your mind, seeking My perspective on the situation. Rather than trying to fix everything that comes to your attention, ask Me to show you what is truly important. Remember that you are en route to heaven, and let your problems fade in the Light of eternity.

The attraction of logical puzzles is the illusion that we experience a logical world. That’s a comfortable illusion, similar to what religion offers. “Spiritual bypassing” is the phrase used to describe the substitution of dogma for judgment, which results in a disabled-follower mentality.

The thesis that we need to address the dangerous implications of the UFO and alien abduction phenomenon as a “psychic and symbolic reality,” as well as a “control system which acts on humans and uses humans,” contradicts certain trends in contemporary spiritual and New Age thought. These days, we find a strong tendency in many spiritual communities to focus single-mindedly on the power of positivity and affirmations of the light, based on ideas such as “The Law of Manifestation” or “The Secret.” The underlying belief is that each of us creates our own reality through our thoughts and intentions. Therefore, if we simply avoid anything dark or malevolent, nothing negative will be able to enter our field. But unfortunately, reality is not that simple, and this approach is a blatant form of spiritual bypassing. Paul Levy explores the idea that modern Anglo-European culture is infected by what the Algonquins call “wetiko,” a cannibalistic spirit driven by greed, excess, and selfish consumption. “Spiritual/New Age practitioners who endlessly affirm the light while ignoring the shadow” fall “under the spell of wetiko,” he writes. By seeking to turn away from and hide their darkness, these practitioners unwittingly reinforce “the very evil from which they are fleeing. Looking away from darkness, thus keeping it unconscious, is what evil depends upon for its existence. If we unconsciously react … to evil by turning a blind eye toward it – “seeing no evil” – we are investing the darkness with power over us.” The alternative is to permeate evil with awareness, “stalking” the shadow so we can catch and assimilate it. Carl Jung wrote, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” If the thesis developed in this essay has validity, then New Age spiritual practitioners will have to overcome their bypassing and confront the dark side of the psyche, reckoning with the occult control system. At the same time, political and ecological activists will need to interrogate their inveterate bias toward a purely materialist analysis, to acknowledge the existence of occult, hyper-dimensional, forces at work behind the scenes, influencing the course of events. And conspiracy theorists who believe in an incredibly evil, highly organized and intelligent cabal of human controllers working to bring about a New World Order surveillance society of enslavement will have to recognize that the controllers operating behind the scenes are not humans at all. Here and there, the Bible gets this right - as in Ephesians: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” If we aren’t aiming at the proper targets, we will never hit the mark.

Then there’s also spiritual gaslighting: the common tendency in conscious and wellness communities to blame oneself and others for not being able to maintain a “high vibration” state and consequently to manifest the life of one’s dreams. If you’re struggling with mental illness, having a crummy day, or stuck in a tough situation in your life—so the thinking goes—then your bad vibes and negative thinking must be the cause. This kind of thinking is yet another reason that I don’t talk about “raising your vibration.” While raising your vibration suggests overriding challenging emotions through forceful positive thinking, raising your voltage is about being fully embodied and present with whatever you are experiencing, and allowing all emotions to flow through without obstruction or suppression.

Greenspan calls this “spiritual bypassing”—using religion to dodge the dark emotions instead of letting it lead us to embrace those dark angels as the best, most demanding spiritual teachers we may ever know.

Using your non-dominant hand (in order to bypass your logical side of the brain), write yourself a letter from the perspective of your inner child. For example, if you are usually right-handed, use your left hand to write. Using your non-dominant hand will help you get more in touch with the feelings of your inner child. Here is an example of my own inner child speaking

The perception of god in the view of scientists and philosophers who do not believe in God is ‘god of the gaps’ which has to be invoked as an ad hoc presumption to bypass material explanations in certain instances where physical answers and explanations are absent for the time being. Their argument is that if a physical explanation can take us back to relying on some finite number of constant values related to forces and energy, then why to invoke god to fill the gap.

Like our Eastern counterpart’s, the goal of the Western style of meditation is that of bypassing the critical thinking mind and its processes. But instead of doing so with stillness, it accomplishes the same task with activity and imagery.

Often, asking for and seeking help from outside sources is crucial for our well-being and spiritual development. But when we habitually look outside of ourselves for help and guidance, as is with the case with horoscopes and psychics, we are failing to tap into our inner wellsprings of wisdom and strength and are allowing external predictions to control the outcome of our lives. The Horoscope Bypass is derived from fear and mistrust of ourselves, our inability to make decisions, and our inability to deal with anything tough that comes our way.

Often it is beneficial to latch onto a particular guru, shaman, or spiritual teacher to learn and grow. However, too much attachment can serve as another form of spiritual bypassing. When we begin to worship another living being, we fall in love with the rose-colored illusory image we have of the teacher rather than the essence of their teachings. Not thinking or discovering truth for ourselves by treating the words of a guru or master as scripture subtracts from our growth and our own self-mastery on our personal spiritual journeys.

In some spiritual traditions, it is a God who protects us, in others, it is an angel, animal, or an ascended being. No matter who the Spirit Guide is, the belief that they are there to “protect” us is pleasing to the mind, but restricting to the Soul. When we place our faith in another being’s power to ward off danger and keep us safe, we are committing a classic spiritual bypass: avoiding responsibility for ourselves and our lives and sidestepping the tough development of courage and resilience. We are not children, but when we think of ourselves as being so, we mold our lives in such a way that we fail to develop strength of spiritual character. Spirit guides serve to teach us rather than to babysit us.

On our spiritual quests, we begin to see through the lies, delusions, and crazy behaviors committed by our fellow human beings, and this can make us angry, downhearted, and greatly frustrated. However, when we get caught up in “everything that is wrong” with the outside world and other people, dedicating our lives to the self-righteous quest of finger-pointing, this can be another form of spiritual bypassing. Finger-pointing instills us with a false sense of righteousness, taking away our responsibility of looking inside and working on ourselves. At its roots, the Finger-Pointing bypass is sourced from fear and avoidance and is a powerful form of procrastination. Yes, sometimes it is necessary to point out what’s wrong with others, but when that’s all we do, we are avoiding facing our own flaws and misguided behavior. Indeed,

Spiritual bypassing—the use of spiritual beliefs to avoid dealing with painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs—is so pervasive that it goes largely unnoticed. The spiritual ideals of any tradition, whether Christian commandments or Buddhist precepts, can provide easy justification for practitioners to duck uncomfortable feelings in favor of more seemingly enlightened activity. When

The spiritual life bypasses what we see, hear and know from our carnal knowledge, and simple emotions.

Learn to understand the spirit in you, because there is no bypass to what is called god. What is in you is superior to what you seek out there.

Then,” said the second instructor, “it’s time that you learned the Outward Bound motto.” “Oh, keen,” I thought. “I’m about to die, and she’s going to give me a motto!” But then she shouted ten words I hope never to forget, words whose impact and meaning I can still feel: “If you can’t get out of it, get into it!” I had long believed in the concept of “the word become flesh” but until that moment I had not experienced it. My teacher spoke words so compelling that they bypassed my mind, went into my flesh, and animated my legs and feet. No helicopter would come to rescue me; the instructor on the cliff would not pull me up with the rope; there was no parachute in my backpack to float me to the ground. There was no way out of my dilemma except to get into it—so my feet started to move and in a few minutes I made it safely down. Why would anyone want to embark on the daunting inner journey about which Annie Dillard writes? Because there is no way out of one’s inner life, so one had better get into it. On the inward and downward spiritual journey, the only way out is in and through.

Accepting yourself and others as they are is one of the greatest expressions of love one can show, and it actually has the power to energetically harmonize any relationship, no matter how broken it may be. Accepting our pain and owning it brings spiritual light into our shadow so we can become that jewel within the lotus flower. But none of this can happen if we continue to spiritually bypass our pain and avoid relationships in fearful isolation. The spiritually mature understand that isolation is only useful when seekers can bring what they have learned about themselves back into humanity.

Travis’s style of relating is an example of spiritual bypassing, a form of spiritual abuse in which real emotions and deep pain are avoided in favor of a spiritual panacea.

The pathway was raw, intimate, and honest; it required breaking shame, being relentlessly self-aware, feeling big emotions - no intellectualizing or bypassing allowed - and pushing through resistance to uncover the beauty of our true Self.

Spiritual bypassing separates us from our humanity and all its messiness and struggles and pain and It makes us feel good briefly.

When one becomes a victim of their gifts (or other people), this takes away the pressure and responsibility for shaping a satisfying life and taking responsibility for one’s happiness. This is the biggest issue with the Victim Bypass. Unfortunately, this form of spiritual bypassing is often used by spiritual seekers who believe they have extrasensory gifts of some kind – but due to their gifts, they are unable to feel happy or healthy. While understanding ourselves through labels is helpful (such as ‘empath,’ ‘old soul,’ etc.) sometimes the label can be used to reject and condemn others and reinforce our self-destructive behavior.