Spiritual Bypassing

This audio is part of the course "Healing Emotions with Divine Love and Surrender" which will be released soon. Spiritual bypassing is when you use a spiritual concept as an escape to avoid healing or even acknowledging difficult emotions and situations. Often this is done unconsciously. It can also be described as a way of mimicking an awakened or spiritual behaviour. It's like putting the cart before the ox which does not work. The way to reach equanimity and unconditional peace is by embracing, loving and transcending the human aspects not by denying it. Spiritual bypassing causes a lot of suffering and keeps us stuck in our healing and awakening journey.
This audio shares the different types of spiritual bypass and how to overcome this tendency. Please share your feedback.

Transcript

Spiritual bypassing.

Spiritual bypassing is when you use a spiritual concept as an escape to avoid healing or even acknowledging difficult emotions and situations.

Often this is done in an unconscious manner.

It can also be described as a way of mimicking an awakened or spiritual behavior.

This is like putting the cart before the ox which does not work.

The way to reach equanimity and unconditional peace is by embracing,

Loving and transcending the human aspects not by denying it.

The spiritual knowledge that we gain from books and teachings really help us stay committed to the path.

They motivate us and they inspire us and give us the knowledge that is needed to meditate and work on various spiritual aspects of our life.

So yes there is a lot of value in spiritual knowledge but it should not be used to veil the reality of what we are feeling or the reality of our human experience till we really and genuinely transcend it.

I will be covering various scenarios around bypassing.

The various aspects that I will be going over include over giving,

Suppressing grief,

Denying the truth of what is,

Avoidance of relationship,

Being stoic,

Denying emotional healing and the messiness of the human aspect,

Blind trust in a teacher or teaching,

Role of a teacher,

A sense of superiority,

Ignoring the relationship with money,

Tuning out subtle emotions,

Forsaking desire,

Forced forgiveness and surrender and the importance of being fully human and fully divine.

I will go over each aspect in detail now.

One,

Over giving.

Let me share two examples to illustrate this aspect of spiritual bypassing.

At work a person may be putting in more effort than their colleagues but is afraid to speak up due to the fear of conflict or maybe even the fear of losing the job.

The person may cover up the struggle with the concept of work is divine and I'm only doing the work of the divine but deep inside he or she feels overwhelmed and has emotions of anger and sadness.

Another example would be in a relationship one partner may be always giving and is afraid that if he or she stops giving the relationship will be impacted.

Here again there is a fear of conflict,

Fear of losing the relationship.

The bypass keeps the person safe but also causes suffering.

In any situation if you feel that you are the one who's over giving and hence over compromising all the time,

Question the reason behind the behavior.

Be open and honest about the fears around standing up for yourself.

Work on healing the fears with emotional healing with divine love.

The divine will heal all the fears and replace the fear with love and courage.

There is clearly pain and sadness hidden in the actions of over giving and compromising.

The pain at some time will take over and will result in an outburst.

The exception would be when the giving is really arising from the openness,

Joy and love of the heart with no expectation of return of any sort.

Any action that arises from openness,

Love and peace is from the true self.

This action is loving and blesses you and the other.

When the action arises from bypassing there are contracted or difficult emotions like anger,

Resentment,

Fear,

Sadness and other contracted emotions present along with what appears to be love.

If you have mixed emotions around a situation it would be good to be 100% honest and accept all the emotions.

Set aside all spiritual concepts.

Work on the healing of all contracted emotions.

After you feel a sense of peace re-examine the situation with love and wisdom and take the action that is needed.

Two guidelines that can help.

First guideline is you can ask yourself am I being kind to myself or is this action fair to me?

The second guideline is if your friend was going through this particular situation what would your loving guidance be?

Can the same guidance be applied to yourself?

I will go to the next aspect of bypassing now.

Two,

Suppressing grief.

Some people do not face grief over loss.

They hide behind the concept it's all God's will or everything happens for the best or I am a divine life untouched by happiness and grief.

In the case of death the grief may be suppressed by the person is in a better place.

Yes all of these concepts are true but the question is is it a lived experience?

It's very important to acknowledge and heal grief.

Grief like all contracting emotions may arise as waves.

One has to be patient and gentle during the grieving process.

Also whenever needed the person has to reach out for help.

Three,

Denying the truth of what is.

When challenging events happen faking positivity and not really facing the reality of the circumstance and the emotions around it is another form of bypass.

The spiritual path is a realistic path.

It is not a path of denial.

When something unpleasant happens it is good to see things as they are and examine the various consequences and actions that can be taken to remedy it.

At the same time the person can heal the emotions around it.

As the healing happens a solution will emerge.

As an example let us take a scenario where a person is employed in a company for over two decades.

The person is happy with his work.

The company is not doing well and is laying off many employees.

An employee may be in denial that his or her job could be lost too.

This person may not want to face the reality of the situation as he or she is afraid of interviewing in new companies and exploring new options.

In this scenario the person may affirm to himself or herself my job is safe.

I am now taken care by the divine.

But this affirmation is a cover for the fear unless one feels this genuinely and truly from the heart.

This denial of what is really happening is not helpful.

What is really helpful is to face the facts around the situation,

Heal the fear,

Anxiety and other emotions and take the right action.

4.

Avoidance of relationship.

Some spiritual seekers avoid relationship as there is a fear of getting hurt.

The cover-up for this could be relationship will block my spiritual progress.

It is totally okay to choose not to be in a relationship if you're feeling content and fulfilled.

The key is not to hold any position that a relationship is needed or not needed.

Neither to chase relationship nor to hide from it.

Neither hold on to the beliefs that being single is the happy state nor in the belief that having a partner is the key to happiness.

Be open and follow the flow of life.

Rest in the knowing that your happiness lies within your own heart and in your oneness with the divine.

If you are in a good,

Healthy,

Mutually respectful relationship,

It is good and the relationship can be a celebration of love.

One divine presence appears and relates as two forms.

When challenges arise in the relationship,

See it as an opportunity to see the unloved parts of you and heal it.

If you are single,

This is your reality right now and it is in your best interest.

Trust that your true self has already planned every aspect of your life for you.

5.

Being stoic.

Having a stoic attitude and not having empathy for another person's suffering is another form of spiritual bypass.

When you or another is in pain,

It is not the time to bombard yourself or others with the knowledge like you are not the body or everything is temporary.

This is the time for love,

Compassion and healing.

This is the time to hold space and at the same time comfort and empathize with yourself or them.

We are spiritual beings,

Yes,

But it's also true that we're having a human experience.

The authentic being embraces both the peace of meditation and the messiness of the human experience.

True awakening is an openness,

Allowing everything,

Condemning nothing.

6.

Denying emotional healing and the messiness of the human aspect.

For me,

After I recognized my true self,

I did not want to acknowledge difficult emotions.

I had gone through a lot of fear and other difficult emotions prior to the recognition of my true self and I was completely tired of those experiences.

My spiritual ego imagined an awakening followed by a life of only bliss and happiness.

This was far from the truth.

However,

I did not know that and hence I denied and denied the difficult emotions until the suffering forced me to explore healing.

The shadow work aspect of awakening is often not mentioned at all or only mentioned in passing by spiritual teachers.

I hope this course will be valuable in helping you work through the perceived messier parts of the spiritual journey.

We all want to hear the angel sing but we don't want to clear the blocks in being able to hear the angel sing.

7.

Blind trust in a teacher or teaching.

Sometimes fear of facing a challenge or fear around moving out of a comfort zone make people blindly follow a teacher or a teaching.

We hear the words all is well and the spiritual ego will hijack it and misinterpret as nothing needs to be done.

Sometimes teaching around positive thinking or the power of the subconscious mind will make people visualize a positive outcome and the spiritual ego stops at that and avoid seeing the reality of the challenge.

For example,

A lady in a physically abusive relationship kept visualizing the positive outcome of a happy and healthy relationship.

Meanwhile,

The husband continued with the abusive behavior.

This is harmful for her physically and emotionally.

Here action is urgently needed.

Please be aware that any teaching can be hijacked and misunderstood by the ego.

8.

Role of a teacher.

A teacher is a finger pointing to the moon.

Do not misunderstand the finger to be the moon.

The teacher and you are the one true self.

It is good to appreciate and be grateful but I would guide you to focus more on the teaching and what is being pointed to rather than the personality of the teacher.

Too much focus on the external persona of the teacher takes you away from truth.

I have been to satsangs where the students are so mesmerized by the teacher and they keep attending the satsangs with little or no progress in their spiritual growth.

This is only my opinion and my discovery.

Of course,

There could be scenarios where this does not apply.

A practical suggestion is to be real about your progress after following the teacher and the teaching.

Some signs of progress are your day-to-day life is getting more peaceful.

Your meditations are becoming more effortless.

You are recognizing the true self even if it's short glimpses.

Your ability to heal emotions are getting better and your overall awareness in life is growing.

9.

A sense of superiority.

Feeling superior to others and feeling that one knows more or is more evolved than the people who are not on the path is a spiritual seeker ego.

This may be subtle or pronounced.

Please be aware as this is a block to your awakening.

When you judge another,

You're unable to see the divine in the other.

There is an emotion of pride which is cutting you off from love.

Rather than dividing the world into spiritual and non-spiritual,

See the face of God in everything and everyone.

10.

Ignoring your relationship with money.

Some people feel that paying attention to finances is not spiritual.

Yet,

Money is the divine appearing as abundance.

There is only one presence appearing as all the forms.

So why the discrimination with money?

Money is a resource that can be used responsibly to improve your own and others lives.

Please be aware of your relationship with money and heal any blocks you have around it.

11.

Tuning out subtle emotions.

At times,

The contracting emotions are subtle like boredom or unease.

There is a tendency to ignore this as it is not very strong.

At one time,

I was feeling boredom for many days.

It was a very dull feeling.

I kept distracting myself with the phone,

TV and other distractions.

I then realized there was a subtle form of suffering which was happening.

I became aware of the boredom and unease and I said,

I'm sorry for ignoring you.

I see you and I love you.

As soon as I said these words,

I felt immediate relief.

I then continued with the emotional healing process.

Sometimes the relief is immediate and that is the power of love and acceptance.

Another way of bypassing is feeling that an issue is too petty or small.

If any discomfort arises in you,

It is a pointer that healing is needed.

There is no need to analyze it.

12.

Forsaking desire.

Desire is often considered bad in spiritual circles but desire is just another emotion.

When we deny it or resist it,

It is suppressed and causes suffering in various forms.

My journey with desires had three phases.

Phase one,

Running after desires for my happiness.

Phase two,

Denying or suppressing desires due to past disappointment and due to spiritual bypassing.

Phase three,

Recognizing my true self and learning how to consciously manifest desire and abundance in my life from love rather than lack.

This process of manifestation from the true self is sometimes referred to as conscious manifestation.

However,

It is not any guaranteed way of manifesting goals.

Conscious manifestation helps one give the best opportunity for the desire to manifest.

For me,

After the recognition of my true self,

Life continued to pose its challenges but the frequency of the challenges reduced and the suffering around the challenges also reduced which allowed the resolutions to arise sooner.

Also,

I noticed that living in higher levels of consciousness enabled my life to flow more harmoniously.

Regarding desires,

Many desires that I harbored in the past were met with no effort or minimal effort from me and some desires were not met or maybe not yet met.

The key is I am no longer bound by desire but neither do I deny it or shun it when it arises.

It is seen as another form of the divine,

Another manifestation of the divine.

Finding this middle ground with desire is very beneficial.

13.

Forgiveness and Surrender.

Forgiveness happens when emotions are healed and you feel you no longer want to carry the burden of blame or the burden of the past.

At a deeper level,

It can happen as a spiritual insight when you realize that there is no one to forgive.

Either way,

Forgiveness frees you.

Surrender,

According to me,

Happens in small acts like trusting silence over thoughts,

Working on the healing when triggered and any and all spiritual practices because every time you practice,

You're moving away from the ego's ways to the divine ways.

The ultimate surrender happens when there is no one left to surrender and there is a recognition only God is here,

Only presence is here.

For me,

The small acts that I mentioned led to the ultimate surrender.

Forgiveness and surrender are both very important in the spiritual journey.

However,

When the forgiveness or surrender is lip service or not authentic and deep down there are emotions that contradict the act of forgiveness or surrender,

It only causes more suffering.

Also,

Neither forgiveness nor surrender should be forced.

It should arise as a natural part of your meditations and healing.

The final aspect,

Fully human,

Fully divine.

This is a reiteration of a previous point but I think it's so important so I'm going over it again.

You are a spiritual being having a human experience.

Embrace the human messiness with grace.

The challenges that arise are only here to enable you to let go of the misunderstandings,

Limitations and lack of love and open you to a life of unconditional peace and love.

Trust the wisdom of the process.

Could you relate with any of the many ways in which spiritual bypassing happened with you?

Thank you.

Reviews

Very beneficial talk with so many clear examples of spiritual bypassing. Your guidance is divine. Thank you 🙏🏻

Very helpful and thorough explanations and examples. Thank you!

Very interesting, Susitha! A lot to digest. Is the course available yet?
Namaste,
Donna

thank you for making a separate recording of this from the course. learning and understanding spiritual bypassing is very helpful. thank you Susitha ❤️🙏

Thank Susitha for the great examples of spiritual bypassing!
Made me realize how I’ve been spiritual byspassing some of the examples in my own life

Very thorough and clear talk. All resonates with my heart and soul and Path. 🙏 Beautiful talk