Nothing Is Unspiritual
Nada es no-espiritual
A question about whether engaging in practices like tarot reading or psychological work might be counterproductive to deeper spiritual understanding, by pulling one back into the story of the self.
Nothing Is Unspiritual
A question about whether engaging in practices like tarot reading or psychological work might be counterproductive to deeper spiritual understanding, by pulling one back into the story of the self.
Sometimes, for example with tarot, which I've been practicing for about ten years and offering to friends, there's a sense that it's really talking more about the self. With that, or with some psychological work, it feels like you're going deeper into the story. Is that actually unhelpful?
The parable of the prodigal son
I deeply understand what you're asking. But what comes to mind is: the Lord works in mysterious ways, so why exclude something? If there is love, if you see beauty and experience some form of love in tarot, it is completely aligned with this work. And this work will only make you a deeper tarot reader.
There is a parable that I find beautiful and very applicable to this topic: the parable of the prodigal son. Briefly, the younger son of a wealthy father leaves home and makes a mess of his life. He parties, he travels, he goes all out on a wild adventure, but ends up completely devastated and miserable because everything goes wrong. He loses everything. So he comes back in shame. And the father celebrates. He throws a party, slaughters the fattened calf. The older son is furious: "Why are you throwing a party? I've been here doing everything you wanted, and he's done everything you didn't want, and now you celebrate him while there are no parties for me." And the father says, "Don't you see? My son was lost, and now he is found."
That moves me so deeply. The key is that we need to make that journey. In a sense, we are here for that journey, and that journey is tarot, that journey is therapy, that journey is whatever we need it to be.
Everything touched by love is sacred
Tarot is not unspiritual. Therapy is not unspiritual. Partying is not unspiritual. Hollywood movies are not unspiritual. There is no place where holiness resides more than in other things, no greater sacredness in ballet than in salsa or reggaeton. If reggaeton is what moves you and fills you with love and joy, it is holy and sacred.
What matters is that there is some flavor of love in it. Because you might just be helping somebody get to that last party faster, have that big blast, and then feel so exhausted that they return home.
What does the universe want to live as you?
What really matters is the question: what does the universe want to live as you? That might be tarot. It might be therapy. It might be massage. Everything done in love is sacred.
The more you see through the narrative, the story, the illusion of self, the more deeply you can guide someone who is totally immersed in that illusion. But you have to speak in the language of that illusion for it to be heard. Calling it "illusion" is a little derogatory, and I mean it in a more positive way. It is simply the language of the human journey. I can get completely immersed in the work of the personal when I speak with people who are going through something. But I often clarify, as I do here, that the personal alone is not going to get you to the deepest possibility. Still, it is not necessarily a detour, not if where you are coming from is more and more aware of that deeper dimension.
Yes, and letting go of the need for it to be perfect.
Exactly. Because then you project onto this work a kind of perfection that no single form of work possesses. That projection is a judgment. You end up condemning therapy as not good enough to be practiced, when in fact it can be very valuable. I have done a lot of therapy, and it helped me work very, very deeply.