the problem with new age spirituality
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- čas přidán 1. 07. 2024
- After years of exploring new age spirituality, one thing has become clear: this space has a tendency to attract the most wounded of us, and exploit our desperation. Those of us who are desperate to heal our pain and cannot seem to find relief through traditional institutions turn to the abstract realm of new age spirituality for answers, and those of us who are in desperate need to be validated and feel superior, likely in a bid to avoid confronting our own inner wounds, will bypass our messy human feelings to convince ourselves (and others) of our spiritual superiority.
Of course, I believe spiritual practice can be perfectly honest, and can have tremendous value, but not if it’s used to fuel our superiority complex, not if it encourages us to repress our “negative” emotions in order to manifest our dream lives, not if it represents spirituality as being all about crystals, tunics and oracle cards, and certainly not if it encourages us to save only ourselves, moving to Bali and promoting an impractical and un-relatable image of spirituality that only the most privileged of us can afford. Unsurprisingly, this has led us to recreate social class and hierarchy even within “spiritual” communities, and invite history to repeat itself in a brand new flavour.
The state of the new age today is, to me, a testament to what happens when nuance is left out of the conversation. We all want to be better than we are, which is a very positive impulse, but we often go about bettering ourselves with rigidity, and the hope that it will bring us a reward in the form of admiration. This is where the human ego hijacks our spiritual practice. Suddenly, it becomes all about vanity and perfectionism, rather than acceptance, rejecting humanity and idealizing divinity rather than making room for both on equal footing, performing compassion rather than actually confronting our own messiness enough to become truly compassionate towards others.
Let’s take a look at the problem with new age spirituality, shall we?
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⏳ Chapters ⏳
00:00 Intro
01:12 Bypassing our humanity: the problem with the law of attraction & manifestation
06:38 Faking enlightenment & performing compassion: the inauthenticity of new age influencers
11:04 Every man for himself: when spirituality becomes selfish
13:17 Recreating social class & hierarchy within spirituality
15:03 Impractical spirituality promoted by the privileged
16:58 What is true spirituality?
19:21 You don’t have to become a coach!
B-roll footage credit:
- Anastasia Shuraeva
- Kelly McLacy
- Taryn Elliott
- Cottonbro studio
#newagespirituality #spirituality #manifestation #lawofattraction #spiritualbypass
love this ❤ thank you! I agree: 'no one is truly free until everyone is free'
real enlightenment is not running away from the pain, its facing it in the most brutal direct way
This popped up almost randomly in my feed after the usual slew of videos I watch regarding similar topics to spirituality.
I appreciate your views and speaking them to power because while I have experienced a lot of what I feel is genuine connection to God and 'Oneness' I also recognize that a large swathe of that view is corrupted by people just looking to make a quick buck or shoveling whatever they were shoveled like some kind of spiritual pyramid scheme!
To quote something from the Ra materials and really its the central tenet, one I think that can very easily cut the wheat from the chaffe is this; service to self, or service to others. If you truly respect the human existence and journey then you will embrace that both paths are viable in our current existence and simply help people to reach their truth, and that truth at the end of the day I would say is Love.
Not in some wishy washy way of lets promote peace and love and kumbaya I mean true love as respect that we are all people, we are all human, deserving of respect. The biases we all have, the more you strive to observe and be aware and to strip them away the closer you get to realizing we are all on the same path but that path is infinite in time and in stages, and there's no one size fits all solution for everyone at all times of life in all ages they may have lived.
But I digress and go back to my earlier point- the path to self service is definitely one that many if not all people will go down and no one who has truly moved to a path of service to others would ridicule, demean, or put down any on that path because then it would only be serving their own ego to appear higher than others. And beyond that, it would only be putting down their own path and journey, one that they themselves would have walked.
It's a very helpful video for me, thanks a lot
yes i chased enlightenment for most of my life because of horrific child abuse and i did find that peace is mentions its keeping me alive it works extremely well sometimes can even face insane pain and be ok, compassion empathy is seeing others as yourself
I believe you are the creater of your own experience, so experience it whatever why you want too. For my experience, it's about being present in the moment as much I can be, changing old non serving habits, listening to my intuition, being grateful for having this experience, and just be kind to others ❤
All well said and accurate. The number of new age spirituality stuff that I come across that is naked selfish b.s. is maddening. Spirituality for me is part self-awareness of my own experience and part awareness of others' self-awareness of their own experience. Anything that attempts to flatten a person (politics does this a lot... especially in the states) and iron out the vast complexity within them is in the opposite direction of spirituality for me.
Totally agree!
i help others when they i can its just the right thing to do
There really is "nothing new under the sun". With that said while there are beneficial elements of new age spirituality, I would like to focus on some of its negative points: Emotional bypassing (this is related to toxic positivity), toxic positivity (not all negative emotions should be ignored or dismissed), commercialization (commodified via consumer products), and lack of historical doctrine (just has not been around as long as other philosophies). I believe this New Age movement focuses on individual self-help instead of addressing systemic society issues. And yes, wealth is a great buffer to the hardships of life.
Glad you mentioned that there are positive aspects to the new age philosophy, it’s true! But I’m with you on its limitations for sure.
@@existentialgroove you are very careful in thought and open-minded! Love that maturity about you. You also can articulate complex ideas making them understandable.
Thanks for the video. I'm not sure what spirituality even is for myself right now. I was extremely religious from childhood into the beginning of adulthood, and derived most of my meaning and spirituality from it. Nowadays I have been convinced that what I was grounding myself in is not real. Now I feel that I'm in spirituality no mans land.
I can relate to the superiority complex you described. When I was religious, I had a strong conviction that I knew the truth and it was my mission to get everyone else in on it. I absolutely thought I was smarter and more moral than others for this conviction. I now understand that this is a shitty way to treat others, thank goodness. All that to say, your thoughts are reassuring that I am on a good path away from it.
Part 2 of my comment: would you consider mindfulness to be the same as how you described spirituality? Or would you mind commenting on the differences between mindfulness and spirituality?
Cheers :)
Hi, thanks so much for sharing your experience! I totally relate to the "spirituality no man’s land" you describe. I’ve absolutely been there myself. It can feel quite empty & lonely to be in that disillusioned place, and yet I think it’s a very enriching chapter to be in. Suddenly you get to question everything, you have a reason to poke holes into every argument you’re told to accept as fact (compassionately of course), until only the most solid ones remain, and those core truths become your primary values. At least that has been my personal experience.
To answer your question about mindfulness, yes! For me mindfulness is the same as introspection, I see those as different ways of naming a process of growing in self-awareness, which I think is the essence of any honest spiritual pursuit.
But again, this is all my personal interpretation & projections, perhaps I’ll disagree with myself this time next year. Time will tell!
do agree the new age stuff is toxic as hell
Is there a specific linage or religion you are referring to by new age spirituality?
I’m referring more to the “spiritual but not religious” movements that have inspired a lot of spiritualized wellness advice on social media :) These are schools of thought that borrow from various religious traditions but don’t associate with any particular one.
no such thing as special
agreed!