michaelsharrington (Hridayam)

Over the last year, I have been talking with people in various places on the earth, from Australia to Texas, to England and India. Many of these people are sincere spiritual aspirants. The main focus of their lives: the quest for enlightenment, to uncover their Soul, the true Self. So in that sense they have not wasted their lives. This quest, this yearning to know who and what one really is becomes a driving force. Yet, this turn towards the spiritual, the eternal, can become convoluted in various ways.

From my own experience, I see that many at first move towards spirituality not as a pure call but one driven by physical or emotional trauma and an attempt to escape profound feelings. Gaming addiction, alcohol, recreational and pharmaceutical drugs were once their choice but now their addiction or coverup patterns move into the spiritual realm.

Being a seeker replaces the gaming addiction, the regular shots of vodka, or the antidepressant drug they were taking. Maybe, they have given those drugs up now and only take a few tokes of cannabis “to lesson the intensity of feeling states” they tell themselves. Yet deep down the trauma and unmet and unexpressed feelings are still there. So spiritual seeking becomes a kind of addiction replacement. Really an old childhood trauma is stirred but something that is reflected in one’s current life, or it might be that anger, anxiety or fear spreads into their body.

We try to bypass and go into a pseudo-transcedance of our humanity. All the human elements we have disowned and avoided at all costs get covered up with spiritual concepts, such as: “I am not the body, not the mind…” So now the feelings and trauma are unreal and there is no need to attend to them—we tell ourselves. Yet….this game does not work. We do not feel peace and bliss palpably and reliably. Though peace and bliss are natural to us, they are still covered up with mental and emotional mechanisms, latent tendencies of the mind and repressed trauma.

We must acknowledge our humanity while seeing the reality of our Eternal Existence. The first step is to attend to the feelings, uncover the traumas and reveal them before the living presence of God, Truth, Consciousness. This must be done in a safe space with deep spiritual friend or a trained therapist (Hakomi-based is great). This can also be done with oneself to a certain degree but the Christ dictum “when two or more are gathered in my name” holds true. There is something magical when one reveals egoic tendencies, old concepts or beliefs, traumas or emotional pain in the presence. These unmet traumas and pains, neglected expressions and lies we have been told, can finally move out of our energy systems and bring forth an increased feeling of peace, gentle tears or even a profound catharsis.

Freedom results. In this way, real peace and bliss come rushing into the forefront. What else is more important?