Are you Ultra-Spiritual? It's a made-up term that I heard in a yoga satire video. This YouTube channel Awakening with JP pokes fun at the spiritual community. He'd say things like "I'm not stealing because you and I are one. Therefore it's not yours to begin with." He twists and manipulates yogic teachings for humor, but I think it is also a cautionary tale for how we may misuse the spiritual tools we've come to learn.
Our yoga practice, meditation practice, spirituality, religion, self-help tools etc can be very potent. They have the power to transform our perspective, show us what is truly important, make us realize our responsibility in the world. But they also have the tendency to be misused. When we use the tools of spiritual practice to advance our ego, then it becomes spiritual materialism. The competition, judgment, desire to look good, projection to appear enlightened, etc within the misinterpreted context of spirituality do nothing for our freedom and only keep us trapped in our ego-centric personal agenda. The focus of the month Behind the Facade can be taken as a call-to-action: to investigate, to examine, to question everything, including not just what we practice but how we practice. To determine whether our yoga practice is working for us, we need to look beyond appearances. It is not how perfect our "performances" in asanas are, but how unattached we are as me move in and out of the poses. It is not about how spiritual others perceive us to be, but it is about how we truly think of others in the confines of our very private mind. It is not about who is better at yoga and how many hours we chalked up practicing, but it is about a genuine interest in treating others with gentle and loving kindness. When there is no public to watch our actions, when we are completely alone in our thoughts, are we truly free?
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