We have all heard of sexually transmitted diseases that can be passed from one person to another, but we don’t often hear of spiritually transmitted diseases. Similar to other diseases, spiritually transmitted diseases can either arise within you organically or can be passed on to you by someone who already carries the disease.
These diseases infiltrate the mind where they take root in our psychology. Then, they start to rule over our thoughts and govern our energy field. They can completely overtake us to the point where we don’t even realize we have them anymore. Unfortunately, these diseases are not as easy to cure as physical ones. There is no magic pill or chemical solution, and to be cured from these diseases may require years of reflection, stillness, and self-honesty.
Note: I am not calling these STDs to be clever or witty. These are literal spiritual disorders that many people have suffered from, and still do. When untreated, these disorders can lead to unhappiness, broken relationships, confusion, and delusion. In the same way that we shouldn’t condemn and make fun of people with physical disorders, we need to exercise understanding and help guide them into clarity. Here are 3 common spiritually transmitted diseases you need to get tested for:
1) Fluffy-Bunny Syndrome
Fluffy-Bunny Syndrome is an STD that is caused by an unwillingness to face the negative aspects of the world because they are too emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically overwhelming. Talking about GMOs, conspiracies, animal cruelty, political corruption, and war is off limits for people with this disease, because they don’t know how to properly manage the negative feelings that arise. 100% of their attention is invested in things that make them feel good, even if it means deliberately ignoring things that don’t make them feel good.
They don’t block out the negative because they don’t believe the negative exists, nor do they block it out because they think it is a waste of time. They block it out because they don’t know how to manage the emotional and spiritual implications that come from facing the negative.
Because of their reduced ability to maintain sanity when presented with the negative aspects of our world, they pretend they do not exist. Instead of using those negative feelings to initiate positive change, they immediately turn a blind eye so they won’t have to bear the emotional and spiritual weight of accepting all aspects of reality. This applies not only to world events, but also to internal emotional and spiritual issues.
Example: Someone will refuse to believe that their government would go to war on another country for economic and political gain, because of how overwhelming the impact is on their worldview and their feeling of security and comfort. They would rather convince themselves the government is benevolent (even though they really don’t believe that), because it makes them feel more comfortable and safe.
Symptoms Include: Willful ignorance, naivety, emotional and mental instability, fear, and delusion.
Cure: Those with Fluffy-Bunny Syndrome can be cured by facing the darkness, being honest with themselves, and using their tendency towards positivity to transmute the darkness into something new. By learning to face and accept parts of the inner and outer worlds that they don’t like, they will learn to turn their fear into positive action, instead of positive ignorance. Make the darkness conscious, and utilize it as fuel for your passion for positivity.
2) Back-Door Ego Disorder
Back-Door Ego Disorder is an STD that arises when people obtain too much spiritual knowledge without having done enough self-work. It is a product of too much information and not enough wisdom. When talking with people who have this disorder (even when you are talking spiritual philosophy), you may notice that they want to put more emphasis on their correctness then on the actual issue at hand. They want you to KNOW that they know what they are talking about.
In their minds, they think they care about the truth. But in reality, they care about being recognized as caring about the truth. Similar to how the Pharisees in the Bible would do good works and pray in public to get peer-approval, people with this STD like to be seen as being spiritual, wise, and knowledgeable. Their intentions are to enhance their own self-image, not to actually reach higher consciousness. If they DO want to reach higher consciousness, it is only so that they can be seen in the eyes of others as being more evolved.
In reality, these people are dealing with a lack of self-worth, and maybe even self-hatred. By receiving external confirmation from others, they feel the validation and sense of purpose that they currently lack in their lives. For people with Back-Door Ego Disorder, ‘spirituality’ is just another way for their ego to try to prove its superiority over others. This is a spiritual disease that ultimately stems from a combination of improper spiritual practice and a feeling of deep inadequacy and insecurity.
Example: When having a discussion with someone with this STD, they will want to turn the light of the conversation back around on to them to glorify themselves. Let’s say you are talking with them about how awesome your recent meditation session was after they told you about a guided meditation. By saying things like “I told you so” or “Yeah I already know that” or “That’s what I’ve been trying to say this whole time”, they are taking attention away from the topic of conversation and are investing it into the role they played at arriving at an answer. They are doing this only to massage their own egoic sense of self-worth.
Symptoms Include: Argumentative, passive aggressiveness, boastful, proud, competitive, pretentious, selfish-intentions, comparative, and judgmental.
Cure: The cure for this STD comes in two parts. The first part is to practice things like introspection, honest reflection, and meditation to expose the ego for the attention seeker that it is. Once a higher level of consciousness beyond the ego has been tapped into, the ego will no longer be able to sneak in the back door to try to gain recognition or praise because it will have been exposed. The second part comes from dealing with any past wounds and traumas that cause feelings of inadequacy and a lack of self-worth.
3) Dogmatic-Spirituality Dysfunction
This is a very common STD. Dogmatic-spirituality dysfunction is an STD which causes people to believe that the beliefs they hold in their mind is what makes them more spiritual. Believing that we are all one, that crystals have healing powers, or that there is an afterlife are beliefs these people hold dear, because it gives them the false sense of being more spiritually evolved. In their mind, to make spiritual progress is to obtain more knowledge of New Age ideas.
Someone who has this STD will refuse to change their behaviour or do internal self-work because they are convinced that believing in X, Y, and Z is sufficient for spiritual growth. When having a discussion with someone with this STD, you may notice that nothing about them has really changed outside of the beliefs they carry in their head. Similar to religious fundamentalists, they think that being “awake” meanings adopting a new belief system and looking a new way. Because they they think they have the correct set of beliefs, they feel spiritually superior to other people.
Just as religious people think that their beliefs is what saves them, dogmatic spiritualists think that their beliefs are what bring them closer to enlightenment. In the same way that religious people discriminate against people of different religious, dogmatic spiritualists discriminate against people who are still “asleep”. In their minds, being “asleep” means not holding beliefs in things like astrology, chakras, channeling, and other New Age concepts.
While beliefs can certainly compliment ones spiritual journey, spirituality is really about opening up your mind and heart, and interacting with your thoughts and emotions in a new way. It’s about creating a new relationship with yourself, not filling your head with certain propositions or investing your belief in a series of thoughts. Because people are used to using their minds and thoughts to arrive at higher understandings, they often bring this over to spiritual exploration and think that this is all that is required.
Example: Someone may get bored with spirituality, or refuse to do things like meditation because they feel they already have everything figured out. When interacting with someone who has this STD, you may notice that nothing about them has changed other than the beliefs they have in their head. Although they claim to believe in unity, they don’t act like they are unified with anything. They don’t see a problem with this though and refuse to change, because they figure the beliefs they hold is what makes them more evolved.
Symptoms Include: Argumentative, passive aggressiveness, stubborn, dogmatic, unwilling to change, defensive, inflated ego, feeling of superiority.
Cure: They can be cured by getting rid of all beliefs, and practicing meditation to get in touch with the part of themselves that doesn’t rely on beliefs to feel spiritually connected. Let spiritual experience be the catalyst. The more they practice meditation and spend time in nature, the more they realize that spirituality is about their relationship to themselves and not about what beliefs they hold. By understanding that beliefs are a product of the culture, location, time period, and knowledge base a person has been exposed to, they will be able to understand that spiritual awareness does not rely on what thoughts you belief in your head. It’s about personal depth and inner development.
There are many more spiritually transmitted diseases, but these are 3 which seem to be quite common within the conscious community. The point of this article is to encourage introspection, and see if we ourselves are infected with any of these three spiritual diseases so that we can step into higher integrity and higher consciousness. Perhaps the unwillingness to honestly look may even be another symptom of one of the diseases mentioned.
Originally published on spiritscienceandmetaphysics
No comments:
Post a Comment