OF THE
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"A moment of enlightenment is of no use to someone who needs a good week of it." ~Idries ShahWe may need more than a week of enlightenment, yet in our modern cultures all we get are bite-sized Youtube-compatible fleeting moments. The prevailing mood of our times is one where the 'spirit' is like the radio-friendly three-minute pop song. It is a digestible burst that we can chew on without it giving us indigestion. We have literally thousands of online videos showing us how to improve almost every aspect of our lives by breathing, body postures, mental exercises, visualizations, and the good old self-to-mirror pep talks. We are told that we 'create our own reality,' despite the obvious fact that in many countries we have accepted sociopaths in power - or perhaps we voted them into office? If that is our reality, then what does it say about ourselves - that most of us are latent sociopaths with a hidden agenda for inflicting suffering upon others? If this is creating our own reality, then most of us must also be secretly longing for therapy.
"Spiritual Bypassing: A term first coined by author John Welwood. The spiritual bypass is the tendency to jump to spirit prematurely, usually in an effort to avoid various aspects of earthly reality (practical challenges, unresolved emotions and memories). The bypass has many symptoms - the starry-eyed bliss trip, radical detachment from one's self-identifications, premature forgiveness, ungrounded behaviors, wish-full thinking etc." - Jeff BrownSee also:
Comment: Addictions of any kind are multi-faceted and rooted in psychological, emotional, physical and spiritual matters. Purpose, connection, trauma, emptiness, selfishness, love, self-loathing, instant gratification and pain & suffering all play a role on whether we become susceptible to addictions or not. In some ways it represents an extreme form of the human condition that just about everyone experiences. 5 rules aren't enough to offset this, but you need to start somewhere and it's good to have some guidelines to help a person get started or fall back on and reaffirm your values when you fall of the wagon or lose your way. See also: