Do people pursue spirituality only to feel good ?

[Cosmin_Visan]

I see lots of people declaring how they pursue spirituality and talk about elevated stuff, how everything is love, etc., but in practice they are the same mean people as everybody else. So does people pursue spirituality only to feed their ego and to feel good about themselves ?

[No Self]

The highest purpose is discovering what is true beyond superficial appearances.

'Feeling good' could be a motivator, since the masters describe all sorts of bliss, but in the short term, there is the destruction of comfort zones, chaotic confusion and the loss of all familiar identity. Certain movements (New Age, Western religion) are there for people who want to merge some aspects of spirituality whilst keeping the ego alive and well.

Edited November 16, 2020 by No Self

[Shin]

7 minutes ago, Cosmin_Visan said:

I see lots of people declaring how they pursue spirituality and talk about elevated stuff, how everything is love, etc., but in practice they are the same mean people as everybody else. So does people pursue spirituality only to feed their ego and to feel good about themselves ?

For most people it's just another ideology.

They aren't serious about it.

[seeking_brilliance]

what if there is happiness in failure? does that count?

[PurpleTree]

i think people usually get drawn to "spirituality" because they want to suffer less

 

 

so generally people who are into spirituality might have even more anger/depression/repressed feelings/trauma etc. than people who aren't drawn to it.

 

i know this yoga woman teacher for example, she's really not woke and easily triggered imo, it's actually quite funny

[Breakingthewall]

escaping from suffering, having a more pleasant life, is usually the first motivation of a spiritual search, since at first that of the "truth" does not mean much, at least for me, but now I see that it is very possible that it exists. I'm still working with 5 meo, for me there is still a barrier: nothing. my ego dissolves 99%, I am no longer there, there is nothing, empty. but my 1% is still holding on, I perceive a resistance, something that does not want to die totally. with lower doses I have realizations of love, the illusion of the ego and more, but when I raise the dose, only emptiness. It no longer scares me as before but I perceive a resistance, and that after that resistance is death. beyond the void. Now my motivation is to get there, to the" truth". I wonder how someone can get to that without the help of psychedelics. it seems impossible to me even arrive closer

[Preety_India]

Being spiritual does not always mean that you have to be this overly polite sweet person who never gets angry. 

That's putting a lot of pressure and expecting saintly behavior out of people. 

Nobody owes anyone anything. 

If someone gets angry in a store because they got cheated, I wouldn't mind even if that person was practicing spirituality. 

They are just being human and I will respect their humanity 

 

[Nahm]

3 hours ago, Cosmin_Visan said:

I see lots of people declaring how they pursue spirituality and talk about elevated stuff, how everything is love, etc., but in practice they are the same mean people as everybody else. So does people pursue spirituality only to feed their ego and to feel good about themselves ?

Seeing people as mean, feeding their ego, and only trying to feel good about themselves, is mean, feeding the ego, and only trying to feel good about yourself. Spirituality could be said to be the recognition of this, in an initial recognition sense. More so, the recognition this story about other people transpires only in thinking, that it has no actuality. 

[Seraphim]

Not everyone. Some people have no reason, they just do it because it's who they are, we should be true to ourselves. What does your intuition and feeling tell you to do?
 

 

[abrakamowse]

11 hours ago, Cosmin_Visan said:

I see lots of people declaring how they pursue spirituality and talk about elevated stuff, how everything is love, etc., but in practice they are the same mean people as everybody else. So does people pursue spirituality only to feed their ego and to feel good about themselves ?

Some people do it because they pursue spirituality for real.

Other people do it to feed their ego.

Some people are mean, others not...

:-)

 

There's not a one and only answer for that, like any other thing people does it for different reasons.

[Moksha]

@Breakingthewall The ego eats itself to death, without realizing it. It thrives on suffering, but eventually, the suffering becomes so large that the ego suffocates. It's a normal curve. The challenge is that most people only experience the first part of the suffering curve, before they physically die.

I approach the mirror,
My image looming,
I enter the mirror,
My image merging,
I leave the mirror,
My image diminishing,
I abandon the mirror,
My image dissolving.

[Byun Sean]

yeah I feel like a lot of people do spiritual practice to feel better or to end suffering because they suffered so much in their life.

 

I feel like its a lot more fun and exciting though when the motivation is on exploring deeper dimensions of what reality is on an existential level.

 

For me new levels of consciousness is not just about feeling good although that is one benefit. Your entire life transforms from the inside out since your changes in your consciousness affect your personality, relationships, career, diet, passion and love for life, understanding of the human mind etc. 

 

I have also heard that people who pursue awakening to end suffering or just to feel happy usually actually end up having very hard paths filled with suffering and hardship.

 

@Cosmin_Visan

Yeah a lot of people involved in spirituality develop whats called a spiritual ego. In doing this they

separate themselves as being "more conscious" or "more awake/ evolved" than normal people. 

 

This is actually very common and might not fade away until that person fully awakens and sheds that last layer of ego.

A lot of these people on the spiritual path have just began to tap into direct awareness of the spiritual truths that they

speak of but have not quite grown enough to be able to communicate them to people who don't have spiritual

experience in a way that makes sense to them.

 

Edited November 16, 2020 by Byun Sean

[Cosmin_Visan]

19 hours ago, Nahm said:

Seeing people as mean, feeding their ego, and only trying to feel good about themselves, is mean, feeding the ego, and only trying to feel good about yourself.

Seeing someone that sees people as mean, feeding their ego, and only trying to feel good about themselves, as mean, feeding his ego and only trying to feel good about himself, is mean, feeding the ego, and only trying to feel good about yourself.

[Nahm]

@Cosmin_Visan

Amen. 

[Leo Gura]

On 11/16/2020 at 2:13 AM, Cosmin_Visan said:

but in practice they are the same mean people as everybody else.

That's an absurdly broad generalization.

Who said that's true?

[Cosmin_Visan]

22 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

That's an absurdly broad generalization.

Who said that's true?

For example I knew a guy who's been to an ayahuasca retreat, took also 5-meo, and told me all those things about infinite love, etc., and at the end: "Hey, dude, I bought some ayahuasca pills from the retreat. Want to buy at double the price ?"

[Leo Gura]

@Cosmin_Visan So? That's called business. Maybe you should question why you expect him to give you shit for free.

Wherever your paycheck comes from, you do the same thing. You sell something for profit so that you could feed yourself. And you better understand that enlightened gurus are not above selling you shit. Because survival requires money.