…or 10 Portals Beyond New Age Delusion.

Pt. 1: The Dance of Psyche

I am passionate about the relationships between three things:

> inquiry-based practices (yoga, meditation, bodywork and ecstatic dance happen to be my favorites)

> critical thinking (also called “viveka” in yogic parlance, or discriminating wisdom)

> and shadow work (after Jung – the psychological idea that we have a “shadow” that is where we hide the emotions, experiences, thoughts and aspects of self that we would rather not face. Shadow work then is the process of courageously turning inward to bring honest awareness and compassionate attention to this place.)

Having been a yoga teacher for the last 18 years, and having spent my adult life swimming in the waters of popular spirituality, my sense is that more often than not these three elements are missing both in theory and practice. My sense is that this comes down to one revelatory observation. You may find it offensive, you may think it is untrue, or too general. My hope is that by the end of this article, perhaps you will agree that not only are these 10 obstacles quite problematic, but that they can also serve as 10 doorways or portals that lead to a more sane, integrated next stage of spiritual growth. This requires curiosity about what lies obscured from view underneath or behind each obstacle.

What is this one incendiary insight? Simply this: the basic tenets of the New Age belief system can be understood as an elaborate psychological defense system that is actually in the way of the work with which a transformative, healing and sane spirituality is concerned.

The laying out of these 10 obstacles is intended to be both humorous and instructive, and with each obstacle I will provide one general suggestion and one suggestion for teachers and healers on how to use it as a portal towards integration and sanity.

This article is broken up into two parts for ease of reading and also because obstacles 1 through 6 are more psychological in nature and 7 through 10 will be more philosophical in nature.

So here goes, Obstacles 1 through 6:

The Dance of Psyche.

1) Dissociation – I am in touch with some other reality that you all don’t see and it is more “real” than this world. I use my yoga and meditation as a way of leaving my body and traveling to other dimensions. Its hard because I am very sensitive to this world, I am not really “from here.”

General Suggestion: If this sounds familiar, practice gradually sensing every area of your body  both in savasana and in meditation, as you feel your breath moving in and out. Remind yourself that you are safe. During your asana practice focus on noticing what is grounding, calming or pleasant in each pose. Take it in.

Teachers/Healers – be aware: Dissociation is almost always a sign of unresolved trauma. This person does not need to be encouraged to be even more “out of body” – they are in need of deep healing and integration in order to really be here and live their lives. This is a common way that spirituality can perpetuate a coping mechanism that was used before the person had access to good tools and support. Knowing it for what it is can help us be effective guides toward healing, grounding and accessing real resources.

More here.

2) Denial – now that I believe this new idea I can see how there is nothing bad ever, anywhere, and everything in my life has always been perfect.

This one is also usually a way of pushing out of awareness anything that is painful or evokes fear, shame, helplessness. Once we have done the awareness and healing work we can have a more grounded and less one sided perspective on reality and our lives.

There is literally a split here that has to make “everything” ok/good by denying that “anything” could be otherwise…

General Suggestion: In your practices, allow space for experiencing whichever sensations or emotions may be present for you – without the overlay of any agenda, belief or spiritual identification of how you are “supposed to feel.” Trust the powerful medicine of open, receptive awareness to your own authentic experience.

Teachers/Healers – be aware: This person needs resources to be able to face and work through all that has been left out/denied here. The greater the denial, the greater the pain being obscured by it! Support them in using their practice and community to cultivate the compassion and courage necessary to face their shadow.

More here.

3) Rationalization – karma explains why poor people suffer and how there really are no victims, my last relationship didn’t work out because my partner was a Pisces with a Leo moon and I think she may have been my jailer in a past life, I lost my job because spirit has other plans for me – I just don’t know what they are yet, but I am trusting that the universe has a perfect plan and  is always taking care of me….

Think about how often we hear such BIG statements about everything and always and never and the whole universe etc – think about the sheer size of what is being asserted – how big therefore must the unconscious perception of the pain/fear be that there is this much overcompensation?

General Suggestion: In your practices, stay present with the specific details of your own life, while recognizing that everyone experiences loss, disappointment, and uncertainty. Cultivate a compassionate, accepting attitude that can be present with this reality without having to tell yourself a metaphysical story about it.

Teachers/Healers – be aware: A lot of rationalizing explanations for why things happen and how absolutely everything is part of a big metaphysical plan is usually covering over a sense of helplessness or panic – an inability to tolerate uncertainty or guilt/shame about mistakes and failures.

All of us can learn to courageously tolerate the unpredictable nature of life and the risks we  take again and again when putting ourselves out there. In the words of contemporary poet David Whyte, “Human life is so magnificent precisely because you can fail at it…”

Being supported in owning how we really feel and seeing events without a rationalizing overlay actually helps us be more effective in relating our inner and outer worlds and taking the necessary risks in life while accepting that things may not always turn out as we’d hoped, and exploring what that does and does not mean from a grounded place. It also allows us to access a deeper sense of compassion for the reality of suffering, victimization, unfairness and injustice that is part of the world we live in and of the lives of so many people.

More here.

4) Grandiose Inflation – Because I am such a powerful manifestor I can have anything I want simply by focusing my mind. We are all kings and queens and our power will magnify as we approach 2012. Doing more yoga puts me more in the flow of what the universe is asking me to channel for the benefit of all humanity. On my vision board, I have a photoshopped picture of me with barack obama in a helicopter with big smiles on our faces and money spilling out of our pockets.

General Suggestion: In your practices invite a sense of genuine humility and calm. Be where you are. When setting goals, ask yourself what steps you can take today that will build toward making your life more enjoyable, rewarding and satisfying. Practice lovingkindness meditation for the part of you that might feel uncertain and afraid of failure.

Teachers/Healers – be aware: What is there to be said? Grounding, grounding, grounding – encourage  goal setting and a positive attitude without becoming completely caught up in an almost manic and fantastical grandiose inflation that overlooks vulnerability and a little thing called “reality” itself.. When positivity becomes grandiose magical thinking, there’s a problem. Ever hear of the tragic case of teacher from “The Secret” James Arthur Ray? Also: the bigger the inflation, the deeper the insecurity and unworthiness. Hold a compassionate space for the vulnerability that is underneath the grandiose posturing.

‎5) OCD – I pay close attention to the signs from the universe. All my apartments have had the number 7 in the address and amazing synchronicities happen every day – like when the song we are champions came on as I was driving to my job interview and i didn’t make it to the job because I had this car “accident” – but get this, the woman was driving a Mercury, and queen’s lead singer is Freddy Mercury and when I checked my astrology it turned out Mercury is retrograde for another 3 days! So the car crash was really a way to avoid starting a job during that inauspicious phase. I muscle tested myself to see whether I should even tell you that and it turned out on the 7th test i got three yes-es in a row, so here we are!

My sense is that a fair number of people drawn to New Age ideas have mild tendencies toward conditions like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This is then amplified by these kinds of swirling, free-associative beliefs that rabidly assign symbolic meaning and detect synchronistic signs of the pattern that connects all things in every event and detail of our daily lives. This becomes a big obstacle to genuine spiritual depth and maintains a kind of manic wheel-spinning on the surface of life, often driven by whatever we are afraid we might have to feel if we just park the car for a minute. When we do not make distinctions between what is random and what is meaningful, life becomes a flatland of tangential, speculative attempts to squeeze self-affirming significance out of nonsense. The BIG shadow side of this is also a kind of superstitious prison in which the negative/paranoid metaphysical interpretation of events can dominate.

General Suggestion: Slow down your mind. Meditate on the movement of your breath. Don’t count breaths, the numbers don’t “mean” anything – just feel the breath rising and falling as it is. Practice accepting change, uncertainty and randomness – ask yourself if there might be meaning in life that has more to do with love, work and creativity, without the hyperactive attempt to make it fit some mental pattern of numbers, signs and symbols.

Teachers/Healers – be aware: if you observe this going into hyper drive you could be dealing with a real psychiatric disorder, be it true OCD or perhaps bipolar mania. Pay attention, this person may need you to intervene and suggest they get real help. For most of us though, this kind of thinking is more of an expression of a general anxiety about what is beyond our control. Encourage acceptance. The serenity prayer is a good meditation aid.

More here and here.

6) Delusions – me and my friends are channelling a group of spirit beings from beyond the Pleidies and they have so much deep wisdom and information they are imparting. I can feel them all around me during the day, guiding me in what to do next. Sometimes I will be about to make a decision and then I feel them and one of their little alien voices says ” dont do it!” it’s amazing!

The pervasive absence of critical thinking and healthy distinctions between metaphorical or archetypal inner experience on the one hand, and literal belief in other worlds and disembodied beings on the other, makes many a newbie spiritual seeker vulnerable to some wildly delusional beliefs.

General Suggestion: During your practices ask yourself what your own inner wisdom has to say. You have emotional, embodied and intuitive wisdom that is all your own and based in your real life – all of us can train ourselves to be more in touch with these beautiful resources, in fact that is the purpose of spiritual practice. It is also important to use our mental intelligence to cultivate discrimination and critical thinking, so as to stay grounded on the path and stay balanced between our perceptions and what is objectively, demonstrably  true.

Teachers/Healers: Encourage critical thinking. Do this with humor and warmth, but model clarity and frankness at the same time. Encourage an owning of the capacity for wisdom that need not come from some far away and fantastical supernatural place. Keep supporting the gradual fluency in embodied open-hearted awareness that is not at odds with reason. Also be aware that in a small percentage of people this kind of language may indicate some kind of psychotic tendencies – very few people literally hear disembodied voices, and most of those that do  have some kind of mental illness. This person may need your help in steering them toward psychiatric support. More here.

That does it for the psychologically-based obstacles.

Part Two: What is Truth – Obstacles 7 – 10, is up now!