That is when we need a sense of humor and the support of real spiritual friends. As we face our obstacles to spiritual growth, there are times when it is easy to fall into a sense of despair and self-diminishment and lose our confidence on the path. We must keep the faith, in ourselves and in others, in order to really make a difference in this world.

It is a jungle out there, and it is no less true about spiritual life than

any other aspect of life. Do we really think that just because someone
has been meditating for five years, or doing 10 years of yoga practice,
that they will be any less neurotic than the next person? At best,
perhaps they will be a little bit more aware of it. A little bit.

It is for this reason that I spent the last 15 years of my life researching
and writing books on cultivating discernment on the spiritual path in
all the gritty areas—power, sex, enlightenment, gurus, scandals,
psychology, neurosis—as well as earnest, but just plain confused and
unconscious, motivations on the path.

Several years ago, I spent a summer living and working in South
Africa. Upon my arrival I was instantly confronted by the visceral
reality that I was in the country with the highest murder rate in the
world, where rape was common and more than half the population was
HIV-positive—men and women, gays and straights alike. As I have come to
know hundreds of spiritual teachers and thousands of spiritual
practitioners through my work and travels, I have been struck by the
way in which our spiritual views, perspectives, and experiences become
similarly “infected” by “conceptual contaminants”—comprising a confused
and immature relationship to complex spiritual principles—that are as
invisible, yet as insidious, as sexually transmitted disease.

The following 10 categorizations are not intended to be definitive
but are offered as a tool for becoming aware of some of the most common
spiritually transmitted diseases.

1. Fast-Food Spirituality: Mix spirituality with a
culture that celebrates speed, multitasking, and instant gratification
and the result is likely to be fast-food spirituality. Fast-food
spirituality is a product of the common and understandable fantasy that
relief from the suffering of our human condition can be quick and easy.
One thing is clear, however: spiritual transformation cannot be had in
a quick fix.

2. Faux Spirituality: Faux spirituality is the
tendency to talk, dress, and act as we imagine a spiritual person
would. It is a kind of imitation spirituality that mimics spiritual
realization in the way that leopard-skin fabric imitates the genuine
skin of a leopard.

3. Confused Motivations: Although our desire to
grow is genuine and pure, it often gets mixed with lesser motivations,
including the wish to be loved, the desire to belong, the need to fill
our internal emptiness, the belief that the spiritual path will remove
our suffering, and spiritual ambition—the wish to be special, to be
better than, to be “the one.”

4. Identifying with Spiritual Experiences: In this
disease, the ego identifies with our spiritual experience and takes it
as its own, and we begin to believe that we are embodying insights that
have arisen within us at certain times. In most cases, it does not last
indefinitely, although it tends to endure for longer periods of time in
those who believe themselves to be enlightened and/or who function as
spiritual teachers.

5. The Spiritualized Ego: This disease occurs when
the very structure of the egoic personality becomes deeply embedded
with spiritual concepts and ideas. The result is an egoic structure
that is “bullet-proof.” When the ego becomes spiritualized, we are
invulnerable to help, new input, or constructive feedback. We become
impenetrable human beings and are stunted in our spiritual growth, all
in the name of spirituality.

6. Mass Production of Spiritual Teachers: There are
a number of current trendy spiritual traditions that produce people who
believe themselves to be at a level of spiritual enlightenment, or
mastery, that is far beyond their actual level. This disease functions
like a spiritual conveyor belt: put on this glow, get that insight,
and–bam! –you’re enlightened and ready to enlighten others in similar
fashion. The problem is not that such teachers instruct but that they
represent themselves as having achieved spiritual mastery.

7. Spiritual Pride: Spiritual pride arises when the
practitioner, through years of labored effort, has actually attained a
certain level of wisdom and uses that attainment to justify shutting
down to further experience. A feeling of “spiritual superiority” is
another symptom of this spiritually transmitted disease. It manifests
as a subtle feeling that “I am better, more wise, and above others
because I am spiritual.”

8. Group Mind: Also described as groupthink, cultic
mentality, or ashram disease, group mind is an insidious virus that
contains many elements of traditional codependence. A spiritual group
makes subtle and unconscious agreements regarding the correct ways to
think, talk, dress, and act. Individuals and groups infected with
“group mind” reject individuals, attitudes, and circumstances that do
not conform to the often unwritten rules of the group.

9. The Chosen-People Complex: Unfortunately, the
chosen people complex is not limited to Jews. It is the belief that
“Our group is more spiritually evolved, powerful, enlightened and,
simply put, better  than any other group.” There is an important
distinction between the recognition that one has found the right path,
teacher, or community for themselves, and having found The One.

10. The Deadly Virus: “I Have Arrived” This disease
is so potent that it has the capacity to be terminal and deadly to our
spiritual evolution. This is the belief that “I have arrived” at the
final goal of the spiritual path. Our spiritual progress ends at the
point where this belief becomes crystallized in our psyche, for the
moment we begin to believe that we have reached the end of the path,
further growth ceases.

I believe that a critical part of learning discernment on the spiritual path is
discovering the pervasive illnesses of ego and self-deception that are
in all of us. That is when we need a sense of humor and the support of
real spiritual friends. As we face our obstacles to spiritual growth,
there are times when it is easy to fall into a sense of despair and
self-diminishment and lose our confidence on the path. We must keep the
faith, in ourselves and in others, in order to really make a difference
in this world.

[adapted from Eyes Wide Open: Cultivating Discernment on the Spiritual Path
© Sounds True, 2009]