I'm Too Spiritual To Be Angry
I'm Too Spiritual To Be Angry
There's a thing I've seen that I'd like to name, with hopes we can all be sane! Call it a syndrome because it plagues many spiritual, self-improvement, yoga, meditation, religious and other communities of high-minded, well-meaning and good-hearted people.
"I'm too spiritual to be angry." There are many versions, in the form: "Good people (or your membership group here) don't (bad thought/ feeling/ action here)."
Yogis don't judge, liberals aren't racist, priests aren't lustful, Christians all love, friends don't lie, soldiers aren't scared. No one says it and most don't even know they believe it. The real truth is humans think, feel and do EVERYTHING! This is a better place to start.
"I'm too____ to _____" is very harmful because it makes our emotional reactions invisible to us. And in denial there can be no honest dealing with the truth, no progress, no healing.
The assumption is that if I aspire to a higher state of consciousness, it is unbefitting, demeaning, inconsistent and not allowed to also sometimes be afraid, depressed, impassioned, mistaken and overtaken by a less conscious state which may seem the opposite of my commitment. It is a duality that arises from non-acceptance of polarities. So we may cover it up from others, and deny it in ourselves. When we mask that which we wish to transcend, it remains quite fixed, hidden from view yet fully active.
I am all for socially acceptable behavior! We know that people behave better when they know they can be seen. But in the quiet intimacy of our meditations we can be real with the darker parts, face the fears and work things out. Otherwise, repressed qualities work their way out from behind our polite façade and can tragically bring down the personal development we have long worked to achieve.
It is by comparative study that we learn. Embracing rather than ignoring whatever we fear or loathe in our psyche is the work. Let's measure our work and worth not by how good and virtuous we are alone, but also by how much of the bad stuff we face, embrace and thereby are free to choose not to do.
A yoga teacher studying Emotional Liberation with me wrote:
"It dawned on me that usually I will meditate to escape my emotions. I think that is why I am having so much resistance to SOS. This course has a different angle, to acknowledge them, go deep and deal with them."
And she found this from Yogi Bhajan to encourage her new approach:
"You have to confront yourself to become the sage. Anybody who cannot confront himself or herself shall never be wise, no matter if he is religious or if God Himself comes on the Earth to help, because God is bound by the law of nature. And the law of nature is that you are self in the beginning, you are self in the middle, and you are self in the end." Yogi Bhajan 6/22/97
Blessings, GuruMeher
