When we're committed to walking a spiritual path, we've got to dismantle a lot of garbage myths and lies that get in the way of connecting to our own spiritual truth. 

 We've inherited or picked up along the way, plenty of misguided and outright wrong notions of what being spiritual actually means. Today, I want to talk about the biggest ones that I've encountered. 

If you have different ones - I'd love for you to reach out in the comments or on facebook - Twitter, IG. - DM me - I want to hear about what untruths you've had to throw out while getting to your own spiritual truth. 

The New Age Spiritual Flake

There is a definite trope used as a short hand to spiritual in our society. It's the Phoebe character, the Dude as Tao, the laid-back, burn-out, hippie, new age, crystals and incense bohemian. It's limiting and can thwart our reality and cloud the perception that everyone is spiritual, so being spiritual encompasses any and all things. 

I have a heavy bass hip hop style intro to The Church of Beloved Presence videos that my nephew thinks doesn't fit at all. (You can listen to it in the video above.)

"You should have something more ethereal - more spiritual."

NOPE. 

I'm spiritual. I love hip hop = hip hop is spiritual to me. 

Spiritual people are often judged as being flaky or crazy or kooky.

People like the traditionally religious and atheists for example,  are never going to believe us and will likely perceive us as a little bit nutty. We'll never convince them of our belief and there's no point or reason to convince anyone of what we believe. Atheists in particular, tend not to accept any kind of spiritual belief as rational in their 'pure logic' state of mind.

Click the images below to see comics I made in 2011 about the dogmatic rigidity of science.

All people and things are spiritual - it just depends on who wants to participate in that level of reality. Spiritual is heavy bass, death metal, science, horror films, math, IT, video games, gardening - whatever. It's not just angels in flowing robes and harp music. 

Spiritual people aren't finished learning

I've had people question my spiritual value because I'm fat. The idea seems to be that spiritual people have already “worked out all their sh!t”.

Well, if you're not learning you're dying, because there is no “finished”. 

For a little while I toyed with the idea of waiting to film “spiritual” videos until I was "fit" because there are balance issues in being overweight.

However, what was more important to me was having more over weight representations in media - especially connected to spiritual topics. I didn't want to wait for some unseeable future where I was "thin enough" to speak about my spiritual beliefs.

(Plus, never put off doing something until you "lose weight",  or get fit or fix our skin  - because we'll never be ready. Someone is always going to criticize us and our lives will go on and pass us by as we wait to be "perfect enough" to do whatever it is we want to do.) 

Just do it now. 

"Spiritual Safety"

For years I had an acquaintance forward me emails about disasters around the world. They were sent with the assumption that our spirituality kept us "safe" and all the poor schlubs in these natural disasters weren't… favoured by god? Ew.

Part of me liked it.

Who doesn't want to feel safe? Who doesn't want to feel like they chose the "right" team and are now safe forever? 

Of course it's not true. It's also a version of abundance gospel - that "god" protects the favoured.

It's also a bunch of unacknowledged racism and privilege.

We are LUCKY that we live in the first world and don't regularly encounter national and environmental disasters that wipe out all utilities and infrastructure. 

It's just LUCK. 

None of us are safe, okay. It's an unpopular idea and doesn't work well to convert new members (lol - we are not a cult). We are alive with a body in the world and suffering will befall us. Everyone and everything we love will die and disappear. 

Bad things are going to happen - our spiritual foundation can make it easier to handle. 

Spiritual means poor

This is probably one of the deepest, most damaging beliefs. It's got us believing that we can't have abundance, we can't live or thrive from our spirituality and that we can't even charge for spiritual gifts and talents. 

It comes from traditions of organized religions. 

There's also an ascetic tradition deeply embedded in Hinduism and Buddhism that renounces material goods and values begging for daily meals.

Money ITSELF isn’t the problem. It’s when you love and treat as your source of worship that it becomes evil. That was the message behind these proverbs that got taken too far, and misunderstood. That's the allure of asceticism - rejecting all material comforts because they are not as important as seeking union with god.

Except that god is also the material world. 

All that's required - like most things, is balance.

Allowing the energy of the material world to come to you and through you. Money and energy comes in, money and energy goes out. There's no need to hoard or stockpile coins - there's always enough, and there's always more coming. 

Learn to believe and feel the truth of this and you will never worry about your livelihood again.

The Gross Abundance Gospel 

The eastern ascetics are the flipside of the abundance gospel popular in the American south - the idea that god shows favour to his people with money and success. 

If we're not wealthy and successful, we're not valued or worthwhile. We definitely need to work on ourselves, we've got to make some changes or else we're never going to be good enough for god to shower us with money and mansions. 

If we ARE successful and wealthy - congratulations, we deserve it. 

This is a harmful belief.

It is damaging, demoralizing and deeply shaming to most members of society. It's also a message that those who have the money and power want to keep repeating.

Follow the money. Follow the power. 

If the messages of success from your religion, from your institutions, from your society do NOT acknowledge privilege and luck, then they are messages of propaganda. 

They are propaganda to justify why those with the money and power deserve to have it and deserve to keep it.  

These are just a few of the more common myths and lies we tell ourselves and each other about spirituality.

Our goal is to throw away anything that doesn't resonate with the truth of Loving Inclusion. 

Let me know what kinds of lies and myths you've had to throw out on your own journey. 

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