Spiritual communities are a disaster

[Buck Edwards]

7 hours ago, Princess Arabia said:

@Buck EdwardsYou also have to realize that just about everything in life is that way. It's all about perception. Anything that is perceivable will have it's challenges and differences of opinions. We are all looking at Reality through different lenses and it depends on the type of lens you're looking through. If you're looking through tainted lens, you will view what you're looking at as tainted. Yes, these lens can change their colors but it still depends on the state of consciousness one is in that will determine the transformation. 

You are like a projector and are projecting from within unto without. That's how consciousness and awareness works. It's impossible to be any other way. If you change what's within, what's without has no choice but to also change. That change is also going to be interpreted by a limited mind blinded by it's conditionings and programming. There are going to be upsides and downsides TO EVERYTHING. Yin and yang. What you focus on you expand so if you're focused on the downsides, you'll become aware of more downsides, not forgetting that it's the mind that is determining either sides and not the truth.

We cannot escape these polarities as long as we see ourselves as a separate entity who is in a world that is apart from us. Everywhere you go you're there and there's nothing on the outside that determines what you see when you look, it is always coming from the lens you're viewing from.

I guess it's important to have the power of discernment - the lens. We would virtually die without it. You could run into a cult and not know that they have systematically brainwashed you and you run the risk of ruining your life. Brainwashing is a powerful thing where you could lose the will to live life or accept exploitation and bad treatment. There is a certain value for good things because they lead to good results. Similarly if you surround yourself with high consciousness people, they will give you love and high vibration and it will transform you to your best version, your highest potential being reached in their presence, instead of degrading you'll upgrade. But if you surround yourself with spiritual ego,then your changes will be minimal and you will practically stay the same person. Yes there are upsides and downsides to everything but it's the upsides that we want the max advantage  of and also the true nature of work. 

You gotta ask yourself - what am I getting? Am I doing the true nature of this work? Otherwise it's like ordering chamomile tea and instead being delivered yellow colored water in a bottle. You have to make it worth your time. Ask yourself if you would settle for a low quality relationship that's degrading you. The true nature of spiritual work is the highest form of upgrading, the highest energy and not mindless human bullshit games that lead to no real growth. We're here for wisdom and not hollow vaccum just passing time. No that won't do justice to so many who deserve better. There's a reason why people save their money and buy a rolex watch and don't get ordinary stuff that breaks within a week. Money is hard earned. Time is hard earned too. Attention is hard earned too. If you spent your time on true teachings and embodiment, your time and attention are well spent. You also earned for it. In a way you decided that you deserve nothing but the best. If you are able to create that in every moment, you are able to elevate yourself to extremely high states of existence and these states you really start healing and breathing and thriving and achieving fruitful result - your highest potential, your own beauty. 

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Chadders said:

I think what is absolutely crucial is that any spiritual community allows members to explore spirit in their own way

How about when someone's way involves hijacking your community by proclaiming himself to be the reincarnation of Jesus and having sex with all the hotties and taking their money?

Edited March 18 by Leo Gura

[Buck Edwards]

7 hours ago, ExplorerMystic said:

@Buck EdwardsIf this comment (trying to convey things from a POV that you have written above) in any way helps you then take it or just leave this blabbering.

-  Take a break from the spiritual community if it reaching to a point where it's too much/overwhelming. Everybody's genetic makeup + Brain neuron setup is different. Somebody understands it differently and when it is conveyed to you will not get it

Yea 

7 hours ago, ExplorerMystic said:

-  Yes “Spiritual Ego” is prevalent on this path. It simply means integration has not fully happened (This person also believes that total integration is very rare). You have to see this “Spiritual Ego” and leave them alone out of compassion as they are also on this journey. Identifying them comes with experience.

I have to kinda stay miles from it. It can be toxic. 

7 hours ago, ExplorerMystic said:

-  Remember always there is no “Spirituality Oscar” at the end of this path. As the person giving it or receiving it both are dead / disappeared / illusory (take whatever damn word you want).  The first sign of “Spiritual Ego” is a kind of chase to reach somewhere or get the “Spirituality Oscar”.

Also one upping. Flexing. Making it sound competitive. 

7 hours ago, ExplorerMystic said:

- Sometimes we look for answers for mental health & other health ailments in spiritual communities which is a deception we are creating for ourselves. Doesn’t “spirituality” mean searching for “truth” and it starts with our problems first?

I think if psychiatry is combined with spirituality there are great results. However this is to be done with precautions and wisdom. 

7 hours ago, ExplorerMystic said:

-   Taking some time alone is always a good idea. By aloneness, this person doesn’t mean which brings sadness but a time spent in understanding/comprehension/insight, etc. There may be a time when you start liking the process / or it brings joy/bliss. Some deeper aspects here are that one force that we call God/Lord/Almighty/Allah etc is Aloneness itself which is shining with infinite bliss/energy etc. See word / thought shattered here because “alone” in the human world is seen as a sadistic projection. That’s why after a certain range. It becomes impossible to describe it.

. 

I did not understand this aloneness. If you can elaborate. 

7 hours ago, ExplorerMystic said:

-  If the Spiritual community is putting you in a Cage of Certain Techniques / Culture Behaviour / Faith & belief / Cult etc. These are enough “red signal” to re-evaluate. Some people enjoy it here. For others, spirituality means freedom, LOVE, and Compassion which in itself is "infinitude".  

Yea if you feel like you can only reach a goal by so and so then it's no different from gym flexing. 

[Buck Edwards]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

How about when someone's way involves hijacking your community by proclaiming himself to be the reincarnation of Jesus and having sex with all the hotties and taking their money?

That's toxic hijacking, yet your eye of discernment should be able to detect both hijacking as well as the disengagement of real values or un-accommodation of the seeker. Careful how they feel miffed and turn away because the garden is unattended and full of weeds. 

[Buck Edwards]

@Leo Gura also what's your opinion on the true nature of work? Thanks 

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

3 hours ago, Chadders said:

@Buck Edwards I think what is absolutely crucial is that any spiritual community allows members to explore spirit in their own way and there is no right or wrong. We are all together on our own journey exploring conscious reality and the people can explore other people’s awareness's for themselves that way 

this is absolutely crucial or like you say will be toxic 

In other words, steer clear of Actualized.org?

[Yimpa]

33 minutes ago, Bazooka Jesus said:

In other words, steer clear of Actualized.org?

Steer clear of all biases

[Jordan]

I have not been exposed to many spiritual communities but it seems to me they are very deluded and cult-like. I think maybe they could benefit in helping find a teacher to teach you how to properly do practices like meditation or yoga. I would think you would want like 5% spent with a spiritual community and 95% your own solo work. 

[BlessedLion]

I live in a spiritual community and it’s very beautiful. 
 

Most of what you guys are talking about are like cults, toxic spirituality. 
 

What doesn’t get reported is that there’s plenty of spiritual communities that actually function off values of love, support, inclusion and discipline. 
 

It’s rare, and I’m lucky. Because also your “normal communities” the norm, western society is even more toxic, individual, shameful, and unloving than you could imagine. If you haven’t completely isolated yourself that is, which is equally as sad 

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

52 minutes ago, BlessedLion said:

I live in a spiritual community and it’s very beautiful.

Which one?

[Ishanga]

We have to be careful, in today's world Drama rules, most things reported on are the ugliness of society and culture, that is all You see today in the News and what feeds the hits and ratings systems, for every "Bad" thing happening out there I bet there is a "Good" thing happening that we will never hear or read about, its the same with everything, bad apples everywhere balanced out by the good ones, its just the good ones are hidden for the most part...

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

2 hours ago, Ishanga said:

We have to be careful, in today's world Drama rules, most things reported on are the ugliness of society and culture, that is all You see today in the News and what feeds the hits and ratings systems, for every "Bad" thing happening out there I bet there is a "Good" thing happening that we will never hear or read about, its the same with everything, bad apples everywhere balanced out by the good ones, its just the good ones are hidden for the most part...

That's an excellent point. 👌

[gettoefl]

family is the disaster, no one wants to hear the truth, community is when you leave home and start finding your kindred spirits, consciously preferably

community is two becoming three becoming four, like it says in the bible when two gather in my name i am in the midst

two is all that is needed for awakening, if it grows it is just sharing of love and hooking up people who will be better together

intentional community is the easiest thing ever in 2024, just decide who are the lovelies you want to invite and start doing life together

[blackchair]

On 3/18/2024 at 2:47 AM, Leo Gura said:

How about when someone's way involves hijacking your community by proclaiming himself to be the reincarnation of Jesus and having sex with all the hotties and taking their money?

This is everything 

[Razard86]

On 3/17/2024 at 7:25 AM, Buck Edwards said:

I don't know what made me write this. But I write it with a heavy heart. Like any other thing that comes with it's own set of pros and cons, spiritual communities aren't exempt from drawbacks either. I'm not specifically talking about forums although forums are a fraction of it. I'm just saying communities in general. I have reached a point where I'm seriously contemplating whether being a part of a larger community is really worth it if the results aren't really there and if things are just getting worse with the illusion that you're on a spiritual path and you are achieving something when in reality millions of people with mental and physical problems turn to spirituality only for bypassing their real issues, are barely able to cope through life and end up being and doing worse when they get on the spiritual path. They start to rot and lose interest in life and daily activities once they begin to live in a solipsistic bubble. Instead of thriving, they start rapidly degrading. The consequences can be anywhere from suicide to mental illness to death or just living like a zombie. I'm sure people in the past have also expressed such a sentiment on this forum  before. It's a routine thing, not to mention the problem of false teachings. Things that degrade your mental well being or just take you on a path of disillusionment. You gotta do the math yourself. Are you in this for the better or are things genuinely not turning out to be the way they should. 

I was barely 9 years old when I first started with spirituality. I haven't come very far because life came in between. I devoted a significant portion of my life in chasing delusions (let's put it that way). I suffered autism at a young age and in my teens I was obsessed with spirituality and religion. I always thought I was looking for something, searching for something, there was this existential crisis like thing going on with me. I was often at my wits end. Don't get me wrong. I derived a lot of benefit from this forum itself. Leo's teachings, his videos on personal development were a great starting point. But there's a problem. Everything is not so hunky dory. I still think that I suffered a bit in the process and not in a good way. It's like "invited" suffering. I don't know if this is the inherent nature of spiritual work. But I went through phases of insanity. I didn't do psychedelics (God only knows what suffering might have resulted from that). But so far not so stellar results. I have significant mental illness. I don't know if that's interfering with my spiritual stuff. 

One thing I casually noticed in spiritual communities is the huge problem of spiritual ego. People fight a lot over what's right or wrong. There's a certain dogmatism that accompanies it. This downgrades the whole spiritual process significantly. This is not alien to any community, it's to be found in every spiritual community.

Be careful with what you decide to put your energy into. I have suffered significantly. 

 

In 2021, the age-adjusted suicide rate in the United States was 14.04 per 100,000 people, which is a 16% increase from 2011. In 2021, 48,183 Americans died by suicide, which is a 3.6% increase from 2020. The suicide rate among males in 2021 was 22.8 per 100,000, which is four times higher than among females (5.7 per 100,000).

Spiritual Communities have the same issues that non Spiritual communities have. Why? Because you cannot separate people who are into Spirituality from people who aren't. Human issues are human issues. Majority of people in Spirituality are not advanced, just like majority of people who play sports are not world-class professionals. 

As such the same problems that stop a non world class professional from advancing to a higher expression of said practice are the same issues that stop someone from advancing Spiritually. There is nothing inherently wrong with Spiritual communities, there are just issues that the people in those communities have not worked out yet. How do we know this? Put a collection of mystics together and you have peace and tranquility. See how easy that is? Why label non advanced problematic people who enter Spirituality and start communities as Spiritual Communities. I wouldn't call them Spiritual Communities. I would call them Communities that are early in their practice of Spirituality. Calling them Spiritual is like calling a bunch of Junior Varsity players who created their own league of basketball, a professional league.

Profession has standards of performance. A Spiritual Community with proper development would be harmonious. If you study reality, it teaches you that the more intelligent something is, the better it is able to unionize, synchronize, large groups. Spirituality is the study of the interconnectedness of everything. It is all encompassing. Which means in essence it is the study of unionization. Oneness. If you see high amounts of dysfunctionality then they aren't Spiritual. It's why there is a saying "You will know them by their fruits."

https://biblehub.com/matthew/7-16.htm

[TheAlchemist]

The reason spiritual communities fail is not because of all these complex reasons, it's because the people who question things are not kicked out fast enough. My community will be the one exception 

Edited March 20 by TheAlchemist

[Jordan]

3 hours ago, TheAlchemist said:

The reason spiritual communities fail is not because of all these complex reasons, it's because the people who question things are not kicked out fast enough. My community will be the one exception 

Isn't a big part of spirituality about questioning things? It sounds like a good way to start a cult by only allowing people that will follow your teachings without question.

[TheAlchemist]

8 hours ago, Jordan said:

Isn't a big part of spirituality about questioning things? It sounds like a good way to start a cult by only allowing people that will follow your teachings without question.

Exactly. That's one aspect of how sects and cults form. And often questioning is even to an extent highly encouraged in those groups, BUT if the questioning is directed at the core ideas which unify the group then it is seen as a problem. And for good reason, a community always functions on some shared ideas and ideals which need to seen as unquestionable so that the group can continue to exist.

Again and again new sects and cults will form, partly due to people like me who think they will be the one exception. But we need to realize that some of the problematic aspects of communities are core elements of community itself. Because of course, communities also have healthy forms and many real benefits for the participants so we shouldn't abandon them. Maybe the best we could do is have a community that has a strong shared belief system, but each member knows that fundamentally the belief is an illusion, but each member will pretend as if they believe in it fully. This way at least the questioning would not produce defensiveness, because it would not be seen as an attack on their identity, but just on an illusory idea/ideal/belief. They will of course pretend to defend it to keep the community alive.

But then again maybe, eventually the line between acting like a believer and really being a believer will dissolve, the members identities will get attached to the belief/idea and ta-da we have a well-established cult yet again ready to take on the world

Edited March 21 by TheAlchemist

[Jordan]

13 hours ago, TheAlchemist said:

Exactly. That's one aspect of how sects and cults form. And often questioning is even to an extent highly encouraged in those groups, BUT if the questioning is directed at the core ideas which unify the group then it is seen as a problem. And for good reason, a community always functions on some shared ideas and ideals which need to seen as unquestionable so that the group can continue to exist.

Again and again new sects and cults will form, partly due to people like me who think they will be the one exception. But we need to realize that some of the problematic aspects of communities are core elements of community itself. Because of course, communities also have healthy forms and many real benefits for the participants so we shouldn't abandon them. Maybe the best we could do is have a community that has a strong shared belief system, but each member knows that fundamentally the belief is an illusion, but each member will pretend as if they believe in it fully. This way at least the questioning would not produce defensiveness, because it would not be seen as an attack on their identity, but just on an illusory idea/ideal/belief. They will of course pretend to defend it to keep the community alive.

But then again maybe, eventually the line between acting like a believer and really being a believer will dissolve, the members identities will get attached to the belief/idea and ta-da we have a well-established cult yet again ready to take on the world

It seems like a tricky problem. Power corrupts people so easily. Even if the leader of a community is perfect, the 2nd or 3rd in command will still take advantage of their power right? The problem is the power difference and people being able to abuse it. I remember even for me as a kid I was much more giving and helpful when I started collecting a couple Pokémon cards then as soon as I had many, I did not even want to give any to my close friends. I think to avoid being taken advantage of or being corrupted yourself it is important to have separation from your spiritual community. Be connected with a community for a small part of your week but be separate and question your beliefs as you go about the vast majority of the time and spiritual work.

[TheAlchemist]

1 hour ago, Jordan said:

It seems like a tricky problem. Power corrupts people so easily. Even if the leader of a community is perfect, the 2nd or 3rd in command will still take advantage of their power right? The problem is the power difference and people being able to abuse it. I remember even for me as a kid I was much more giving and helpful when I started collecting a couple Pokémon cards then as soon as I had many, I did not even want to give any to my close friends. I think to avoid being taken advantage of or being corrupted yourself it is important to have separation from your spiritual community. Be connected with a community for a small part of your week but be separate and question your beliefs as you go about the vast majority of the time and spiritual work.

Yes. Having an identity that is spread through multiple focal points, each of them like a pair of glasses we wear temporarily, never fully identifying with one. Basically building a kaleidoscopic identity, but with some core values. That might be difficult to manage and may result in some hits to self-esteem/confidence but I believe it would be one way to avoid at least some of the problems. With taking distance from the community I think the community spirit might not be as strong, but ultimately it should probably be more sustainable and healthier. 

With the pokemon cards experience I think you discovered and illustrated nicely how the whole structure of corruption of the mind through money/power works.

Edited March 21 by TheAlchemist