hypocrite

If you do not want to be a spiritual hypocrite, you need to get your act together before you start projecting and preaching your light. The crash and self-loathing will come hard if you don’t. It’s okay, we all have our moments where we are pieces of shit. We all have our needs, wants, and desires. If you do not master your desires, they will forever harangue you and influence your behaviour. They will present at the most inopportune times. The spiritual path blueprint, if I were to draw one up, starts at going into the darkness and the depths of your being.

No one wants to do that, we all of course head for the light. I wouldn’t say it’s a shortcut but it is a shiny object on the spiritual path which attracts us like a magnet. Being holy is a way to be successful in life as it’s the same life game we always play, just transferred onto the spiritual path. Eventually, we plant medicine users all get a taste of the darkness and call it the bad trip, therefore we develop strategies to avoid a repeat of that journey. Some of us get good at it and others tap out. The result of this behaviour is that we anesthetize the whole experience. Love and light baby!

Plant medicine experiences present the extremes which encompass the love and bliss of an exalted state and the hauntingly dreadful darkness of self. So here’s the thing: The darkness is present for a reason. It’s demanding reconciliation. It offers shortcuts out and this easy power is taken at your own peril because you never end up mastering the darkness; instead you become its puppet. I now have hindsight and I know I made all the decisions one would expect except these ones: I kept my freedom, never took the darkness up on offers of power, nor did I play the holy man game. Being free allowed me to eventually explore this darkness and subsequently I went through its ringer of tests and came out the other side. I know in 2008 I started poking around at the meaning of life and in 2013 I started perturbing consciousness. It’s only now in 2020 that I can say I’ve risen from the depths of self. I have finally mastered self. If I could go back in time that’s what I’d tell myself back in 2008. Master your own inner desires because until you do that you will be a slave to them and it will constantly set you back and for some it will destroy you. That’s the thing about your demons; if you follow them they will end you or make you a monster however they are ultimately teachers. Otherworldly teachers whom we demonize! It’s a bad rap as shouldn’t teachings have dire consequences in order to enable supreme efficacy? If you fail in our society, it’s met by a shoulder shrug, a pat on the head, and a try to do better next time. How about if you fail you lose everything and face death? That’s pretty motivating. The darkness as a teacher is the most demanding and worthwhile teacher I have ever encountered. I misread him for the longest time and treated him as a mortal adversary. In a way, it’s true. He would have destroyed my life or even killed me if I failed and I would have cursed him for this result. Many times he came for me, forced me to do better, to search for answers, until finally I got it.

The spiritual path, when engaged, leads immediately to a pursuit of the light. We strive to become good and shed the selfish behaviours of our past. With the wave of our spiritual wand, all of the dubious traits of our former persona vanishes. With plant medicines it actually does happen. It all vanishes and we go on the trip. We feel good about what we have embarked on and we are radiating our new found enlightenment. When we return home we still have it and we let others know. And then it starts to wear off and we are challenged by our old habits and avenues of misfortune which leads back to the darkness and desires. A taste of the light is intoxicating however to live in that state permanently requires some deep shadow work. There is a need for self-mastery and without it, the cycle of despair will continue forever. High and low. Elation and self-loathing. Light and dark.

We end up hiding our darkness within our new found spirituality, hoping that we can contain it this way. Turning towards the light allows us a reprieve from all those desires we used to chase and we go all in on the spiritual trip. Eventually, they will come back even stronger; they aren’t going anywhere. The only way out is through. Heading towards the light without first integrating the darkness is a fool’s errand. Do not suppress nor try to defeat desire or one up darkness. Instead, the answer is to master the self.