Yesterday I wrote about people using spirituality to cover up the negative aspects of their life. See post here. Today I want to address another stop to happiness, “The Spiritual Drunk Monkey”.
This is a very simple concept that causes many “spiritually evolved” people to have sucky lives (aka: I put on a happy facade to cover up my discontent).
As some point The Drunk Monkey begins to use spirituality as a survival tool. It recognizes that you are committed to a spiritual path and then begins to use spirituality to make you right and others wrong. The chatter in your head changes its tune and starts to sound something like this, “Spiritual people are the right people and non-spiritual people are the wrong people.” This is just more of the same monkey madness that makes life not functional. By the way, your opinion is the source of all your suffering.
Ultimately spirituality is a matter of surrender and acceptance which will ultimately eliminate negative emotions and fear. Therefore, if you experience any negative feelings around ideas like, “My family just doesn’t get my spirituality!” or “People just don’t get how much more powerful it is to be spiritual.” then you are not in a state of surrender and acceptance. These are statements of fear.
Give up the spiritual Drunk Monkey today. Let non-spiritual types be the way they are with no opinion one way or the other. Stop reacting to death, destruction, people being treated poorly and all the other things in the world that contradict The Drunk Monkey’s opinion. Try it for a day and see what happens.
I dare you to accept that which you can not accept.
One Comment
This is a response to both of your articles from yesterday and today.
Thank you for letting me share my insights.
Either everything is spiritual or nothing is!
If I can’t bring the Buddha* in the marketplace, then no Buddha* has awakened in me yet.
Like the guy who was known as a great saint, full of peace and serenity. Pilgrims came from far and near to honor and worship him and to receive his blessings.
One day, there was a big holy festival, one, that is visited by thousands of people.
The saint thought to himself to leave the solitude of his cave and join the celebration.
He climbed down from the high mountains, down into the valley to the river’s edge, where the people gathered for the festival. As he approached the festival grounds, it became harder and more difficult to not touch or be touched by any of the many strangers. The place was overly crowded. And then it happened, from one moment to the next, and someone stepped with full force on the saints big toe. The pain was excruciating… He screamed and he yelled and then cursed… What was this?
He never ever in his whole saintly life had encountered himself like this… He was in shock and disbelief. What happened?
It is so easy to be a saint in a cave somewhere in the mountains, yet the real test is in the market place.
A buddha* would probably have screamed too, but with awareness. He would have felt the pain of someone stepping on his toe, but not become “I”- dentified, not with being a buddha*, nor with being hurt. He would have simply accepted, surrendered to the moment, without making anybody wrong or right…
Fully aware…!
The conditioned mind (the monkey mind) is either collapsed or in a state of a glittering image. Once the conditioned mind uses spiritual aspects in order to stay alive, it’s like having a wolf in sheepskin… Or, he takes on the persona of: “I am less than the dust beneath your feet…” Beware!
Or, like the other saint said on his deathbed, when all his diciples gathered around him, praising his saintliness… “Nobody talks about my humbleness!”
Love,
Deva
* When I say Buddha, I mean someone who is conscious, someone who lives in the moment and is aware.