T2E13: The Dark Side of Spirituality

The other day I was reading an article titled “The Hypocritical Corporate Meditation of Silicon Valley” and it caught my attention because it connects a lot with a topic that had been circling in my head over the last few days, one I wanted to share with you. The article I found described how several companies, mainly Silicon Valley startups and corporations that people associate with ‘millennial’ culture, have recently been incorporating into their human resources activities the promotion of meditation and “mindfulness”, which is nothing other than the moment-to-moment observation I told you about in past episodes, as a way to improve the quality of life of their employees.

The problem, according to the article, is that although promoting mental health through practices that no one can argue are beneficial is something positive, these companies seem to be using these resources to avoid having to improve their employees’ working conditions. One example the article cites is Starbucks, the international coffee chain, where at the beginning of this year, when the effects of the pandemic were beginning to be felt, many employees complained to management about the increased workload and the resulting stress they were experiencing. The baristas were demanding wage increases and more staff at many locations in the United States where the situation was already critical.

As a response, the company gave all its employees free access to the mobile app “Headspace”, an app for assisted meditation and relaxation. As you can imagine, there were no pay raises and no additional hires[1].

This, as I said before, made me reaffirm the importance of discussing a topic that is practically a taboo in spiritual communities and schools, at least the ones I know: spirituality is not necessary for everyone, nor is it effective on all occasions, nor is it the best solution in some cases.

There is no doubt that the techniques and practices we have talked about have many benefits and can become fundamental for many people who are going through difficult times or have not been able to free themselves from emotional burdens in any other way. However, like everything else in the human experience, not even spiritual knowledge is exempt from the chaotic and unpredictable reality of existence.

Many spiritual walkers, especially when they have only recently come to know this wisdom, fall into the error — and I say fall because of course I have been there too — of seeing spirituality as a panacea, or a magic formula that works for everyone, for everything, and at all times.

According to the article on the hypocrisy of corporate meditation, the top executives of many companies are adopting the belief that stress exists only in our heads — which is true — and that its cause is the inability to pay attention to the present moment. In other words, that capitalist economics, the invasive and manipulative effect of social media, and physical exhaustion have nothing to do with it; rather, it is our own brain that must be trained and tamed in order to achieve well-being and happiness.

It is very clear that the logic used by those promoters of mindfulness as a cure-all to fix any damage to the mind is completely wrong. What we see here is an oversimplification of the teaching of spirituality and also of the functioning of the human mind and society.

The first thing I want to clarify is that meditation and any other technique to free ourselves from suffering only work if there are minimum conditions of well-being and minimum guarantees of freedom that allow the person to exercise their individuality and self-determination.

In the previous episode on Aceptología we said that suffering arises when our mind clings to something that is not real: a danger that is not imminent, or a reality that has not happened, or one that already happened but is behind us. Spirituality is a balm that helps heal and scar over, not a magic potion that protects against every evil and makes us invulnerable.

Expecting a person not to feel pain when misfortune strikes or they suffer an injury is not the mindset of spiritual people but the delusion of cruel people. We initiates feel the same fear, the same pain, the same anguish and, many times, the same anger as anyone else. The difference is that, having the means and leaving behind the event that caused the pain, we spiritual people have a tool to pick ourselves up, heal, and move forward with the least possible suffering.

But this is not much more than what a non-initiate with other tools to get back up can achieve: self-confidence, optimism, a loving family that supports them and helps them move forward, a pet that licks their wounds (emotionally speaking, I mean), or even a religious person who clings to their God, their church or their pastor. What makes spirituality different is that it is a power that arises from within the person, one that does not require an external entity to provide the peace of mind they seek. But even so, many spiritual people break down and surrender to suffering when circumstances overwhelm them. At least until their own tenacity leads them to find their way back to center.

One of the most difficult moments for someone who has begun a spiritual path is the supposed “setback” they suffer after having achieved some victories, feeling better as a person, and suddenly finding themselves in a conflict situation in which the initiate behaves even worse than they would have before beginning their path. It can be an outburst of unjustified anger, discovering oneself consumed by a tremendous feeling of envy, or leading a hidden life due to an infidelity or some other kind of lie.

It can also happen that the person feels entitled to “discharge” the pressure of being so disciplined in everything else and therefore should allow themselves to let loose in one or two little things.

Whatever the reasoning may be, what the initiate cannot overlook is that the true victory of the spiritual warrior is not being good or having control over every action in their life, but being AWARE of all of them. That means that if you are giving in to anger or injustice, or if you are lying or envying, you are aware of it. The non-initiate does not notice because they do not observe themselves, and that is why they do not seek something better, because they simply assume they are the way they are and that the rest of the world must change. The initiate knows they are not acting from their being, and sooner or later they will have to act accordingly.

But this awareness of our being also makes us aware of the world around us, of the injustices that happen, of other people’s pain, of the dangers that surround us. For this reason, the true spiritual person acts against those injustices when their heart dictates it and denounces the lie when they feel they must bring light to the darkness. That includes recognizing and denouncing when there are objective causes for suffering.

That vision of spiritual people as folks who don't walk but levitate and are always in perfect balance no matter what happens around them is a prejudice whose origin lies more in film and literature than in reality. Many people who have awakened from the world of illusions and discovered spirituality proclaim that the world will not be free until all humans become spiritual beings devoted to meditation and inner work. That is a fantasy: the ascetic life of monks can only be afforded by a few, and those few need the rest of us to labor, build, manufacture, and sustain society.

If there were no people devoted to worldly tasks, the world would probably regress to the Middle Ages, and then the monks would have to arm themselves and take care of their monastery, sew their own robes, and prepare their own food.

There was another moment on my path when I realized that my new spiritual beliefs were not, after all, bulletproof. A few years ago I was reading Bill Gates' book recommendation list — he always publishes the books he has liked the most and writes a review of each one. On this occasion, the review was about a book called “Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved”. In it, the author, Kate Bowler, recounts her experience after being diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer at 35 years old, with a young son.

Kate was a religious woman who grew up in a Mennonite family that always believed God rewarded his faithful with health and prosperity. Facing the imminence of her own death, she had to confront her own beliefs and search for an explanation. The question she asked herself was: why her? And whether this was a test of her character.

Like many people going through a situation such as the one she had to live through, Kate had to face the flood of pitying advice and unsolicited opinions about the cause of her illness. From it being a test from God so that she could show her strength, in the style of poor Job from the Old Testament, to the possibility that the cancer had been caused by some guilt from her past and that she had to “atone” for it with her illness.

Being an academic and researcher, the writer did her own research and, after analyzing the subject, resolved to rebel against this school of thought that decrees that everything bad that happens has a good cause, or that there is some kind of divine justice ensuring that the good will be rewarded and the bad will receive their punishment.

A few years before finding Bill Gates' recommendation, I had studied the topic of the Spiritual Origin of Diseases with great enthusiasm, and I remember that on one occasion I shared on a personal blog I had a list of physical illnesses with the supposed spiritual origin associated with each one. Thus, ovarian cancer was caused by an unhealed sentimental pain or by refusing to let go of one's children.

I'm going to read you a few pearls of insubstantial wisdom so you can see that at first it seems to make sense, but then, when you think about it for two more seconds, you realize it has neither rhyme nor reason:

Alzheimer's: An illness frequently related to the desire to flee from the realities of this world and to avoid taking responsibility.

Appendicitis: Frequently related to anger because I feel I am in a “dead end”.

Diarrhea: Frequently related to wanting to reject the solutions or situations offered to me to progress in life. (About as related as figs and arequipe after a bandeja paisa...)

Flu: Frequently related to anger because I have someone or something “stuck in my craw”. (More likely because I got in the way of someone who coughed right in my face[2].)

Needless to say, none of those supposed “spiritual causes” of illnesses has any kind of scientific basis; rather, they follow a logic similar to that of homeopathy, where the similar “cures” the similar. So if the illness affects the heart, it must be something related to romantic matters; if it affects the eyes, then it is something one doesn't want to see; or something one doesn't want to hear if it's an ear ailment, and so on.

There are many illnesses that certainly have a mental origin. These are what are known as psychosomatic illnesses, or ones that have been somatized by the mind. And just as we know that the mind has the capacity to heal certain afflictions of the body, as we discussed in the previous episode on meditation and mindfulness, it also has the capacity to cause physical reactions such as fever, pain, cramps, indigestion, migraine, and even allergies.

The problem is that many popularizers of spiritual or esoteric topics, by asserting that all illnesses have a spiritual origin, impose an additional burden on the person on top of the illness itself, implying that, besides having to endure the discomforts inherent to the condition, they must also devote themselves to resolving the affairs of their emotional life that they had not been able to resolve even when they were in full health.

That is without counting that many people feel guilty about their illness and carry the feeling of not being at the same level as those who do enjoy good health.

If you think like my mom or like me, you may have been thinking: “It's not that bad things happen FOR a reason but FOR a purpose” — that is, a beneficial purpose waiting in the future. In general, I consider this way of thinking more beneficial, but in my opinion it still has a drawback, and that is that it implies an external will, or a predetermination of our lives. Thinking that we must “discover” the “purpose” of a painful situation can make us waste time trying to unveil a mystery, or in some cases, it leads people to wait patiently for life to show what that providential purpose was for the trial they went through.

What I believe at this stage of my life is that the “purpose” of the difficult moments we live through is not a question but a challenge. We don't have to figure out the purpose of a difficult situation but rather see it as an opportunity to learn, to value the positive things in our lives, and to motivate ourselves to achieve something better for ourselves. Something we perhaps had not had the courage to try before.

In this way, losing a loved one can serve to make us value the other people in our lives more, to honor the memory of the one who left by embodying and living the beautiful things they taught us, and above all to do what that person surely would have wanted for us: to get through the grief soon and reach an even greater happiness than the one we had.

A physical illness, even a terminal one, sometimes gives the person experiencing it the freedom to do what they always wanted with their life, while they still enjoy it. Some people use their convalescence to motivate their loved ones to fight for their dreams and seek happiness. Some artists have even gifted humanity their most beautiful works, right before dying.

In the spiritual groups I have come to know over the last few years I have found other beliefs and practices that I consider harmful, but I will speak specifically about those when I share with you the stories related to those experiences. However, today I am going to talk about another “spiritual” belief that I think we should view with skepticism.

It is closely related to the one I was just commenting on: that “everything happens for a reason” means “there are no coincidences”. This is another way of saying that everything is predestined by a superior wisdom and that everything has a purpose. With this belief we must also be careful about how we understand our role before destiny and causality.

If we assume a passive role and believe there is someone up there organizing things so that everything turns out the way we want, we run the risk of becoming weather vanes blown by the wind of “coincidences”, because “if God put this or that or that other thing in my path, it must be for a reason.” I have known people who become obsessed with coincidences and are constantly seeing divine messages everywhere. The license plate of the bus they were riding, whether it rained when they were going to meet someone, and so on.

This reminds me of an anecdote that happened to me a few years ago when I was strolling through downtown Medellín. I was walking unsuspectingly when I found a lottery ticket on the ground. I picked it up, looked around, and noticed there was a lottery vendor right next to me. I asked him if the ticket was his, and he took it back thanking me and laughing at his own carelessness. Then he said to me, “Hey, that ticket must have some magic to it, look how you just found it like that. Take it, that's good luck.”

Me, who had never been one to buy lottery tickets, fell for the tale of the miraculous coincidence and bought the ticket — at more than double its real price, on top of that! When I met up with my mother-in-law and told her about the curious coincidence, she couldn't stop laughing at how I had fallen for such an old scam. Apparently, my rolo face had made me the ideal victim for the unscrupulous lottery vendor, who just seconds before I passed by had placed the ticket on the ground as bait.

The point is that coincidences exist and happen all the time. There are fortunate ones, like finding a bill (of money, not a lottery ticket) on the street, or showing up to a job interview exactly on the day when an interviewer very attuned to your personality is scheduled to interview you. But there are also unfortunate coincidences, like passing by the side of a mountain just when there is a landslide, or suffering a small genetic mutation that causes type IV colon cancer.

Our universe is dominated by random processes at the quantum level, and reality is formed by millions of variables occurring around us; fortunately, most of them are predictable, but there are many with variances and complexities so intricate that they are not quantifiable. This does not mean we have no control at all, but it does mean we do not have absolute control. Neither the religious with their gods, nor the spiritual with their mantras, nor the scientists with their mathematics can avoid the assault of chance in many moments of life.

But that does not mean we cannot tip the balance in our favor: being kind, cultured, efficient, and emotionally intelligent can carry some negative aspects, but in general our society rewards these characteristics with better personal relationships and, frequently, better jobs and prosperity. Eating a balanced diet, exercising, and sleeping well may not exempt anyone from suffering certain illnesses or dying at an early age, but they do greatly reduce the odds of it.

In the same way, meditating, self-observing, and freeing yourself from attachments will not make you invulnerable to pain, nor will it prevent you from eventually having to suffer a misfortune, but it gives you tools to recover from difficulties and navigate the challenges life presents you.

The problem with not believing in coincidences and thinking that everything that happens obeys the will of someone or something, or that all the situations that affect us personally or collectively are premeditated by someone, puts us in enormous danger: paranoia. Just as human beings evolved to recognize faces with great ease and see them in clouds, in the dark, or even in the fronts of cars, we also have a tendency to see purpose in anything that happens. As I explained in the episode on digital manipulation, many spiritual people, when they wake from the dream of everyday human life, swing to the opposite extreme of believing that everything bad that happens in the world is caused by a conspiracy or a Machiavellian plan orchestrated by evil beings or powerful groups such as the Illuminati, international Communism, Bill Gates, or Satan himself.

And that is why many initiates veer off their path of inner growth to devote themselves to “studying” and unveiling conspiracies everywhere: the contrails left by airplanes, the roundness of the Earth, the use of fluoride in drinking water, 5G networks, vaccines, or the use of face masks during a global pandemic.

This paranoia reaches such incredible extremes as thinking that Donald Trump is the savior of humanity and that everything he does is part of a plan to free the world from Communism or from the claws of the Jewish, reptilian, homosexual, and pedophile elite that dominates banking, corporations, and the media.

This is happening in the world right now, but it is not the first time it has happened. We already have the experience of what occurs when a group of ignorant paranoids seizes power under the banner of destroying the races, religions, sexual orientations, and beliefs they consider responsible for the world's ills. That was the story of Nazism, which left us the Holocaust and the bloodiest war humanity has ever seen.

Finally, the other point I want to address today is the fact that, although it is said that spirituality is life itself and that everything that happens is part of the spiritual path, not all situations in life are conducive to spiritual practices. Let me explain: observing your actions and thoughts will never do any harm, but there may be moments when meditating is not timely or is not the best alternative. If you have to resolve a problem with someone you love, it is fine to meditate to calm down and center yourself, but the solution is not going to arrive while you do mantras; it will arrive by seeking an agreement, speaking honestly, and listening attentively to the other person.

I have known people who use spirituality to evade making the decisions they need to solve their problems, and instead of taking charge of their affairs, they take refuge in meditation, yagé, esotericism, or mysticism. Everyone has their own process and their own rhythms, but the truth is that real spirituality is action and decision. There are times to prepare and harmonize, but also times to work hard and do what must be done.

We must also recognize that the path of initiation is not for everyone. Not only because many people are not ready to awaken, or because there are many who are not willing to pay the price that self-realization and freeing oneself from one's own bonds entails, but because there are people who truly do not need it. I already said it in another episode: there are people who live a harmonious and happy life without needing Buddhism, yagé, angels, or yoga.

Even for many people going through difficult moments, turning to psychology, sports, art, or study can be more illuminating and therapeutic. A person of knowledge understands this and does not try to convince anyone to follow their path, but bears witness to the effect of spirituality in their life with harmony, abundance, honesty, and wisdom, like a lighthouse that lights and guides with its beam those who seek their own path amid the darkness.

[1] https://pando.com/2020/10/13/silicon-valleys-corporate-mindfulness-hypocrisy/

[2] http://z.dolcarevolucio.cat/web/Causas%20emocionales%20de%20las%20enfermedades.pdf

5 years ago Hello!!! I think the main problem with our worry about misfortunes is one of perspective. We humans are used to taking many things for granted: life, health, and tranquility seem to us the minimum we should have a “right” to, but we forget that for Millions of Kilometers around, as far as our telescopes reach, we live on a small blue dot that is the only place where life is possible. Within this small planet, we live in the only period of time in billions of years in which it has been possible for us to thrive as a species. We are already a miracle and fortunate to have the possibility of contemplating creation and asking ourselves existential questions. So much fortune has also made us arrogant, and we forget that we live in a Universe governed by physical laws and chance, so, as I commented in the episode on Aceptología, we must begin by accepting this reality; once we reconcile with it, we can appreciate its beauty and understand that night and day are two sides of the same coin, just as luck and misfortune are. This beautiful poem helped me understand this mystery: https://bajomipropiasombra.blogspot.com/2011/07/khalil-gibran.html