Spiritual Practice and Spiritual Bypassing
Práctica espiritual y bypass espiritual
A question about how to discern the difference between genuine spiritual practice and spiritual bypassing.
Spiritual Practice and Spiritual Bypassing
A question about how to discern the difference between genuine spiritual practice and spiritual bypassing.
I'm very curious about how one discerns between spiritual practice and spiritual bypassing.
That's a really good question. Spiritual bypassing, just for context, is the notion that there might be something in life that needs to be addressed, and it is avoided using some form of spiritual practice. It is the idea that we can resolve or fix something that needs to be addressed in life through a spiritual practice.
The opposite direction
I consider that there is spiritual bypassing, but there is also psychological bypassing, or therapeutic bypassing, in the sense that it can go the other way as well: we could be bypassing something that needs to be addressed through a more spiritual practice.
There isn't a rule book for which is which and when. It is more based on intuition, on seeing what is happening in your experience moment by moment, and also through hindsight. If something is being addressed through a spiritual practice and you see that it is not resolving, that is a signal. And the same applies in reverse.
What belongs to life, what belongs to practice
In general, anything that has to do with the circumstances of life needs to be addressed in life. Spiritual practice is mostly for the sense of waking up, which would mean nothing needs to change in life. But at the same time, if there is a desire to change something in life, it needs to be addressed in life, not through spiritual practice.