The Journey

For a long time I have ascribed to the belief that this life is about lessons. And indeed, the lessons are here if/when we choose to learn them. I decided 14 years ago that I wanted to approach and “tackle” those lessons consciously. Well…I kind of did. They just weren’t always what I thought at the time. And there are many more to go. But for today, I’m taking a look at my lessons as they stand now.

Back in 2015 I wrote a post on here where I touched on the early trauma I experienced around the idea of God, and spirituality itself, due to religious extremism. That early training pushed me away from the idea of God and spirituality altogether. Reading that post now is a kick in the face as I can so clearly see how this cycle of trauma has continued in my life.

Back then I wrote:
“My misguided feelings about God were a result of nothing less than a great deal of religious abuse. I’m going to go ahead and coin that term right here. Religious abuse taught me that God is fearful, that God is judgmental, that God is distant. At an extremely early and impressionable age, and for many, many years to follow, I was subjected to an ongoing litany, an ever-present diatribe of misinformation about God. This is what I now refer to as ‘religious abuse.’ There is no shortage of men (and women!) on this earth who claim to be “Men (and Women!) of God” and who are all too eager to tell you—preach to you, even—about their version of God, their beliefs about God, and their teachings of God. And they will share these ideas with such conviction and such ardor as to convince you that not only do they know what they are talking about but their words are truth. These teachings are full of judgement, laced with fear, fraught with contradiction, and they are poisonous to your heart. That is, if you allow them to be. I did. I allowed the lies I heard to enter my mind and my heart until I hated and feared God so much that I could barely bring myself to utter His name. These were the darkest, scariest, and saddest days of my life.”

But even at the time those words were written, I was reliving much of the same experience only with a different face, a new name and a whole different set of terminology encasing it. And little did I know that the darkest, scariest and saddest days of my life were yet to come. I can now only hope they are behind me.

Lesson: We only see when we truly want to see.

I am so goddamn sick and tired of other men telling me who God is, how to get to Him, that they speak for Him or represent Him to me and that they hear Him more clearly than I do. I have actually been told that I can’t listen to, or “trust,” my OWN inner voice because my own mind is a “bad neighborhood” to be in.

I call bullshit. NO MORE.

I don’t “know” God any better or any more than the next spiritual seeker or master or guru does. AND…I know the Force that we call “God” just as well as the next spiritual seeker or master or guru does. I am no longer interested in “enlightenment.” I am interested in being a truly good, healthy, compassionate and happy person.

There is an old quote from a Chinese Buddhist Monk that I once heard and which has always stuck with me: “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” While shocking at first glance, these wise words deeply resonate with me and I have often thought back on them with an inner knowing that this was my task. These words contain an important admonition as well as a sobering caution. They speak to both killing the “spiritual ego” within ourselves as well as cautioning the seeker from placing “spiritual authority” on other men. A very dangerous road, as I have learned.

Lesson: I (and you) have as much direct access to the energy, experience, Being and Voice of God as any other entity in the multiverse. It is called your intuition. Trust it and never let anyone tell you otherwise. Anyone who does is a scammer.

Beware, they may not say it to you outright and directly. But I have learned to identify this scam with these tell tale signs: if you sense that someone else wears a persona in which they seem to “know better” than you, if they claim or behave as if they have clearer access to (or communication with) God than you, or if they somehow receive more special favor from Him than you do. This attitude is just one of the dead giveaways of a spiritual con artist.

I have read articles that refer to this behavior as “spiritual narcissism.” Like religious abuse, it is a lot more prevalent than I realized. In reality, I did not coin the term “religious abuse.” I simply had not heard of it before I wrote that piece back in 2015. But as it turns out, there is a great deal more attention and light being thrown on this issue today than ever before. I am not the first to experience this trauma, and sadly, I won’t be the last. So many souls have been preyed upon by “spiritual” abusers. (The Bible refers to them as “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”) But it is a very real and intensely damaging form of abuse that drives a stake right through the very core of our beings. Recovery is a long term process just as with recovery from any complex trauma. It takes work, care and attention.

Don’t get me wrong. I have learned so much over all these years and I have shifted my view of God and spirituality significantly. And it is for that reason that I will never walk away from the path of Truth again, as I did in my earlier post-trauma years. In fact, it is that very path that keeps me going, that gives me real comfort, that gives this whole life meaning for me.

But I will also no longer allow others to manipulate me with spiritual-ease, with their self-serving versions of Truth, with their misunderstandings and twistings of spiritual teachings. I will no longer tolerate abuse, being used and being taken advantage of in the name of…”lessons.”

Lesson: God does not require us to suffer or endure abuse for the sake of spiritual growth, for the learning of Truth or for the remembrance of our connection to Him. God does not condone abuse. No true spiritual teaching will advocate for staying in toxic or abusive situations. Anyone who tries to twist spirituality for that purpose is attempting to deceive you.

One of the brightest lights along my path has been A Course In Miracles. I have been asked repeatedly by those who are familiar with my past and with my path, “But what about A Course In Miracles? Do you still believe it? What do you think about it now?”

Like all profound spiritual guidebooks, this one too has been used and misused by men for their own agendas. It has been “interpreted” by their own egos and weaponized for personal gain. It is unfortunate, but that seems to be the way of things in this world. Nonetheless, the Truth is still there for those who seek it. And I sought it. It requires no human teacher to interpret it for you. The Teacher is inherent in the book, and mostly, in us. The text states this quite clearly on numerous occasions.

ACIM has been largely responsible for enabling me to see the spiritual and religious abuse throughout my life. I have studied it extensively, and the insights I gained from it gave me the strength and courage to do what was right for me, to end a life of turmoil and darkness and to step forward into light and freedom. “The Course” (as it is commonly called) showed me the vast disparity between the life I was living and the Truth – with such stark clarity that I could eventually no longer “look the other way.” It is just one such tool and guidebook provided along this path, but it is one that speaks deeply to me and I will forever be grateful for the impact it has had on my healing and growth.

Lesson: Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. No one is all good or all bad, and "a broken clock is still right twice a day." Perhaps clichés, but true lessons for me. What is not cliché: God is Good, God is Truth, God is Light. No one can take that away or alter it. This is now clearer, closer and deeper in me than before.

Many have told me that I am not alone in my experience. That so many others have trodden this same path. I think this is intended to be a comfort. But as the realization of the scope and prevalence of this experience widens within me, I just feel sadness. I wish that weren’t the case. I feel sad for all who have been through this, for all who will… My heart breaks for each and every one of us.

I made choices. And they were wrong. I went along with things, things that were not right. I sat by in silence and fear, confusion and doubt for a long time. I knew that I was responsible. I blamed myself.

I now know that others were responsible too. We do not evade our responsibility for our actions, whether we claim them or not. They are held up to us, in the light of this life or the next. This is the true meaning of karma.

Lesson: It is not wrong to hold others responsible for their wrongdoings, behaviors and actions. It is not just on you to change yourself. Others must also claim true and lasting responsibility for themselves for any relationship to be healthy or whole.

I have been taught that our teachers are all around us. I do believe this. We are sent teachers to help us, in many forms, but there is only one True Teacher Who lives within each of us, guiding all of our lessons.

I have had some key teachers in my life whose roles have been extensive and who have had tremendous impact on my lessons. These are my lessons. They have been taught to me very well. I offer gratitude in my heart for these lessons and the teachers who have presented them, despite the pain through which they have been learned.

You have served your purpose well, my teacher. I bow to you.

---

“On Abuse and Spirituality”

by Jeff Foster

“You attracted pain because you desired or deserved it”.
“If you ever think there’s a problem with another’s words or behaviours,
YOU are always the one who’s confused”.
“Everything is always just your projection. Everything is in your mind”.
“Clear up your vibration and you’ll stop attracting bad things to yourself”.
“You are too attached to the body. Go beyond the body. It’s not who you are.”
“If you have doubts, fears, resistance, pain, anger, then you must be in your ego and totally unenlightened”.
“The past is an illusion. Let it go right now!”

I’m so tired of all this New Age bullsh*t.
I’m tired of ANY spirituality that doesn’t fully honour
our messy, unresolvable, first-hand, real-time, embodied human experience.
That doesn’t bow deeply to the struggle of our raw and tender hearts.
That guilt-trips us for our imperfections and shames our limitations.

No, it’s not always your projection.
Yes, sometimes other people really ARE abusive and you need to move away or set clearer boundaries.

No, everything isn’t always “in your mind”.
Yes, your body matters. Your feelings too.

No, your doubts and fears are not ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ or ‘unevolved’.
No, you do not ‘attract’ abuse through a faulty ‘vibrational frequency’.
No, you do not deserve to be violated in any way, in the name of Truth, in the name of God, in the name of Love, or IN ANY OTHER NAME.

Yes, your boundaries deserve to be respected, your ‘yes’ AND your ‘no’ too.

No, it’s not okay for spiritual teachers to abuse people “for their own good”
– to shock them into awakening, to enlighten them, to help them drop their “ego”.
Teachers that use abuse as a tool are simply abusers, not teachers.

I reject any spirituality that dismisses our tender, vulnerable, fragile humanity.
I reject any spirituality that shames us for our precious human thoughts and feelings.
I reject any spirituality that begins any sentence with “If you were enlightened…”
I reject any spirituality that divides self from no self, divine from human, sacred from profane, absolute from relative, heaven from earth, duality from nonduality, material from spiritual.

I once saw a popular spiritual teacher addressing a recently bereaved woman.
He said, “Your heartbreak is illusory and only the activity of the separate self.
One day the separate self will vanish, along with all suffering”.

And in that moment, I saw a deep, deep sickness and inhumanity at the heart of contemporary spirituality. The invalidation of trauma, the false promises, the power games, the suppression of the feminine.

And I vowed to bow to that f***ing broken heart as if it were God Herself.

Until the end of time.

Hear, hear Jeff. And thank you.