Spiritual escapism: Using spiritual beliefs to avoid facing life
Channel: Quest for a Meaningful Life
Date: 2020-02-12

Just saying the word "spiritual" suddenly divides people. 
Everybody, it seems, has a different idea of what it means. 
For some people, spiritual means imaginary fantasy that is clearly not real. 
For some people, spiritual means God and the essence of a religion. 
For others, spiritual means, well, really whatever they want it to mean. 
It seems to me like "spiritual" is a way of describing anything that cannot be described in the physical, material world. 
And for many, that would mean simply it doesn't exist, because for many people, believe that the material world is everything. 
For other people, they may believe that there is a spiritual world, some kind of a world that is outside the material world, that has all these various properties that we call spiritual. 
Others might simply describe it as God Himself. 
I think of the concept as really a way of looking at things. 
Spiritual is a way of describing things that are very difficult to describe. 
I believe that to dismiss spiritual as simply imaginary fantasy because it's not material is really missing the point. 
But on the other hand, I don't see it as being sort of this separate world outside the material world, some kind of supernatural thing, but simply another perspective, a way of looking at things that cannot be materially described. 
But even what I've said so far already points to the problem with this whole thing of spiritual and being spiritual is that it is so outside definition. 
It's so much open to interpretation. [...]
Whatever you believe spiritually, you can believe that you're right forever. 
You will never be proven wrong by some kind of clear evidence. 
So then, how do you know if you are right or not about anything that you believe about spiritual matters? Well, there is no absolute standard. 
It's not to say that all beliefs are equal. 
As the meme of the Flying Spaghetti Monster demonstrates, it is an idea that, you know, why believe in God and not in the Flying Spaghetti Monster? There's no objective, definable standard to say that believing in some particular concept of God is better, more real, than believing in a Flying Spaghetti Monster, simply because nothing in spiritual matters is definable, provable, and explainable in any clear way. 
So this really presents an opportunity to get lost, to escape, into a kind of fantasy world where you can believe whatever you want. [...]
The world of spiritual things is a wonderful hiding place for anybody that wants to avoid facing difficult things in life. 
It is a convenient refuge for hiding out and believing things that make you feel comfortable. 
Endless positivity. 
Simple denial of anything that's wrong. 
You are perfect. 
Anything bad that happens to you is because of some vibrational issue, and you simply have to think positive thoughts forever, and that's all you need to do. 
Again, there's no way to directly prove that that's not true, but it seems like that can easily lead to some very bad choices. 
A kind of passive laziness, really. 
Anytime something difficult comes up, it's easy to simply hide behind visions of positivity. 
"Serenity now." "My problems don't exist in the spiritual world." "Maybe if I just invest more in my guru, do some more yoga, have another ayahuasca ceremony, just keep trying harder to connect with pure positivity and bliss, then everything will be OK." And I don't mean to dismiss any of these practices. 
Any such practice can have value, but it can also be a place to escape, a place to avoid facing honestly with real issues that should be dealt with. 
It seems to me that the real test of anything spiritual, insofar as it can be tested at all, is how it is reflected in our lives, in real life. 
Being a very spiritual person, whatever that means, it seems like it can only have meaning as it is expressed. 
In a sense, it's not something that needs to be proven at all, but to the extent that it is proven or demonstrated, it can only be through how we live our lives. 
The spiritual beliefs, spiritual practices: if they have real weight and resonance to them, they will be reflected in our actions, in the way we live our lives. 
So if you believe you are a light-working starseed earth angel: OK, what are you doing in your life, or how is it expressed in your life? Not necessarily specific things that, you know, this specific spiritual thing is being expressed, but how is your life overall reflecting your spiritual belief? OK, you believe in a traditional specific God: OK, how is that reflected? You believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster: how is that resonating through your everyday life? OK, you don't believe that anything spiritual at all is anything beyond fantasy: how are you living your life? Don't let spiritual life be some kind of escape from the everyday world, but let it be a guide that resonates through everything we do in everyday life.

#spiritualescapism #escapism #believeanything