Spiritual awakening versus spiritual bypassing.

Whatever we do in the name of spirituality, if it doesn’t lead to more personal responsibility, doesn’t improve our relationships, and doesn’t make us lean into our rawest emotions, then it’s not really spiritual awakening; then it’s spiritual bypassing.

Spiritual bypassing means that we use spiritual concepts, even spiritual practices, to avoid facing parts of life and personal development.

The idea of transcendence creates an image in the mind that we can, or even should escape this ‘lesser’ world by seeking for a higher ground.

Many spiritual philosophies, if misinterpreted, will feed this idea.

There is indeed a higher ground to discover.

But it is not a free ticket out of anything.

It is more like a shift in perception, that can help us to lean deeper into all that we had a hard time leaning into.

This higher ground is not outside of us or up in the skies; it is our own awareness.

Awakening is the shift from being hypnotized by our thoughts and senses, to becoming aware of this greater awareness.

It is the revelation of our previous misidentification, and of a super-power that we always already had; the enlightenment that we always already carried.

When we recognize it, it is not so much about doing anything from that point.

It is more about undoing, about surrendering and getting out of the way to not obstruct its natural flow.

It cannot enlighten us, if we don’t allow it to penetrate its light into all our dark corners.

But it can and will enlighten us, if we allow it to shine its light on éverything.

From the greatest spiritual experience; to the most confusing and raw emotion.

From the deepest love we know, to the most buried away resentments we carry.

From being annoyed by something as silly as a fly in our room, to feeling connected to the cosmos under a starry night-sky.

Spirituality will only heal us under the circumstance that we allow it to encompass it all.

And will only satisfy us if we then courageously embody, here on planet earth, what it revealed and continues to reveal to us.