Dear awakened being, beware of the ‘spiritual arrogance’ that catches even the most enlightened of us. It goes like this… you’ve done several trainings, read lots of books, have found ‘your’ guy or girl, and you set yourself onward and upward to higher levels.
None of which is bad. What I find tends to happen on the journey, however, when we start to awaken, we have this euphoria of progress. We see things differently. We feel different. People and things that used to interest us suddenly don’t. We desperately want to leave our old selves behind. And we look for markers to confirm our awakening desires.
And this can lead us to falling flat on our spiritual faces.
How do I know? Been there, done that. Our ego so wants to be right, so wants to be the shining light on the right path that we often lose perspective. It’s easy to, without any effort at all, look down upon those who haven’t taken the same spiritual journey we have.
And I see it all the time. Here are some ‘tells’ that you are suffering at least the first green shoots of spiritual arrogance:
- Zealous allegiance to a ‘guru’
- Strident explanations about and defence of your guru’s stance
- You hear yourself saying, “I’ve already dealt with that”
- A speaker at an online or live spiritual event triggers you
- You resent a person you’ve always resented muscling in on your spiritual territory
- You feel yourself rolling your eyes when you hear someone explaining a spiritual concept you grasped ages ago
- You stop learning because you feel you’ve ‘made it’ spiritually
- You stop mid-sentence when you realise your rushed and gushing explanation to a ‘newbie’ is just that, rushing and gushing
And more… you get the idea
What’s happening here is that we feel unsafe at this part of the journey such that our ego jostles with others to create a spiritual pecking order. You’ll hear yourself thinking… I’ve done XYZ and ABC trainings I know more than you. I read that book ages ago. That’s basic stuff (and therefore I’m spiritually superior).
Like I said, it can happen to the nicest of us.
When this spiritual arrogance strikes, it’s merely confirmation there is more stuff shoved down in your Shadow that you need to shine a light on and love. The key is to be honest with yourself. Then acknowledge where you’re at. Then love this “ugly” part of you that needs to feel superior.
The worst thing you can do is ignore this part of you, squash it down and pretend it doesn’t exist.
A good tool to help with your Shadow work is my book Finding You. Through words and structured reflection exercises I help you to dive into your Shadow Self and love all of you. It’s a liberating journey.