This Is The Spiritual Ego At Work

Any seeker can get caught in the spiritual ego. It is covered up with our ideas of goodness, purity and holiness so we might even use force to implement our ideas. As soon as we are wiĺling to force something on others "for their own good" we need to step back and look at the situation. History shows us what happens when the spiritual ego runs amok. The Crusades and witch burnings are examples we can point to, but this malaise is also current day. Our only real power is to walk our talk and share kindness and compassion wherever we go.

Transcript

I just want to talk about the spiritual ego because it can be harder to see and to clear than our regular egos because it's got spiritual all over it. It's got I'm being good all over it. It's got I'm being perfect. This is the only way of all other ways are deluded or even evil. Okay and this has been a problem with a spiritual journey all along. If you look at our history, You know, It's where the witch burnings came from. It's where the Crusades came from. It's where all the violence comes from. I just want to give you an example of it so that you can be aware. So I know a very dear woman, A very good-hearted woman, And she's separated and divorced from her husband and she's gone vegetarian and she wants her kids going vegetarian but when they go stay with the husband he's not vegetarian and this really upsets her and she thinks it won't hold, That the kids will not end up being vegetarians and vegetarian is good and it's the only right way. Okay so this is the problem. You can't force anybody to go vegetarian and certainly you can't force your ex-husband to go vegetarian. Yeah and sure, You know, It's good to be mindful about killing animals but, You know, If somebody's eating vegetarian because they, Because it's being forced down their throat and they don't want to be vegetarian, One can question whether that's doing them any good, Whether their emotional response to it might disrupt their digestion even. I think we need to be really patient and wise and be really aware of what we're doing, Be able to witness what we're doing with, In a kind of dispassionate way and I'll tell you where this video has come from. In my family it was success at any cost and when I turned to the spiritual journey I had the same energy. It was like success at any cost but I couldn't see it. Yeah, So I pushed, I made a lot of mistakes with this. It wasn't all bad because in a way it kept me going and I persevered when many give up but I did trip over my own spiritual ego a few times so that's why I'm raising this. You know, The being of everybody is important, Their happiness is important. We don't really want to disturb people unnecessarily or upset them unnecessarily. Yeah, The best thing we can do is model our goodness, Like model a loving way of living. That is what does the most good and changes people the most because if they experience compassion from you they'll know what it is, Which is the first step to being able to share it and sadly I think many people have never experienced unconditional love and compassion from any other person. So that should be, I feel, You know, If we're talking about shoulds that that's what would be a good idea for that to be our goal is to working with ourselves and working with how much are we living our talk and then if we're not be very compassionate with yourself because if beating ourselves up worked we'd all be enlightened. Okay, Bless your hearts.