Is Spirituality a Scam?

Processing Doubt and Encountering Stillness

Last night in a dream I invested money in a friend’s venture only to discover it was a Ponzi scheme. When I realized what I had done, I was so mad at myself for being so naive and gullible. I woke up still feeling angry. It then occurred to me that I have done this same thing with many spiritual teachers.

I’ve spent so many years investing my time, money, attention and energy believing that self-help and spiritual teachings would make me whole. They say do this manifestation practice and all your dreams will come true, repeat these affirmations and you will achieve success, attend this seminar to receive an energetic download that will heal all of your problems, do these secret visualization practices and you will ascend to a higher dimension, focus your attention in a certain way and you will discover love and happiness, trust in the guru and you will finally transcend all suffering, practice this special form of meditation and you will become enlightened.

For the life of me I have tried and tried and tried so many different practices, followed the instructions of many teachers, trusted and believed, had faith in the teachings, followed my heart, given it my best shot. Yet none of it has brought lasting results. Depression still keeps coming back, anxiety remains, self-hatred continues to emerge again from the shadows, my life story is still a mess.

What have I been doing wrong? Why am I not getting the results they promised? Did I not try hard enough? Do I need to learn a new practice? Should I have greater faith? Did I give up too soon on certain practices? Or was it all lie? Am I just a moron for buying into all the spiritual hype? Am I just so broken, insecure and desperate that I’ll believe anyone that gives me a glimmer of hope for redemption?

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Sitting with the anger, doubt and immense disappointment, I become aware of Stillness.

Questions arise. Can this Stillness be attained? Can this Stillness be lost? Can this Stillness be given to someone? Does this Stillness belong to anyone? Can this Stillness be practiced? Is this Stillness located in a certain place or time?

Sitting with Stillness, there is a recognition that all the restless seeking over the years was simply a way of exhausting the belief in a separate-seeker.

The imagined seeker, who I often believe myself to be, is always looking for something to believe in. It wants to imagine something that it will one day gain. So if someone comes along with confidence and says, “do my special practice and you will become happy,” this is gold for the seeker. The seeker thrives off imagined futures. But the seeking never works, the seeker never actually arrives. Because how can an imagined character arrive at an imagined destination? They are imagined!

The seeker one day finally becomes utterly exhausted and disillusioned with the repetitive cycle of imagining a future, struggling to arrive, getting a temporary high when it imagines it does arrive and then blindly starting the whole thing over again. Eventually it’s seen to be utterly absurd and insane. By Grace, this pattern of imagination breaks down and the Truth begins to shine through.

This. Here. Now. Nothing to gain. Nothing to lose. No one that can arrive anywhere. No practice that can bring wholeness. We are already It.

In the Stillness of this realization, there is Peace.