Getting Into Spirituality Too Often Makes You Reject & Hate The World

It was never meant to be this way

Outspoken female Gurus are rare amongst our religious & spiritual leaders. It’s rarer still to encounter one committed to simply helping people, for nothing in return.

Maharishika Preeti is just that — a one-woman army of wisdom who holds free public question & answer sessions in India’s tourist hotspots. Though she often explains Vedanta philosophy, most of her audience is made of Europeans & Americans.

And the teaching that’s shared more than any other?

Cave spirituality is not something you should seek, if you’re not able to go that route.

Following teachings meant for renunciates will mean you’ll automatically drift toward that mode of being, even without robes or monasteries.

And this produces a strong conflict within you. It’s like the height of dualism: me being detached from that emotion, thought, and [temporary] world.

What are you left with? A disempowered ghoul of a being, unable to feel the vitality & joy of life. Confusion about why you’re embodied here, rather than clarity & empowerment.

I suffered this for years until I began breaking out.

Why do classical systems reject the material world?

Most of the branches of India’s Sanatan Dharma — eternal natural law — grew out of a time of incredible material prosperity.

It is strange to consider, but ancient India was much more materialistic than spiritual! The jatis (knowledge of trades & crafts passed through generations) and varnas (‘colors’ or roles in society) were a sort of capitalistic specialization.

The system of jati-varna, responsible for so much community, meaning, efficiency, and productivity, eventually degenerated into constrictive, identity-based caste.

Is it any wonder that worldly identity is the first thing Indic philosophies seek to jettison out the window?

There are practical reasons for world negation.

If the material circumstances we’re reincarnated into are the root of suffering and inequality, a sage would want to remove the root of this root.

This is internal: the subtle karmic law of energetic imprints which one mindstream carries in its final moments. After death, it traverses through the world to manifest those imprints, with a new form.

The frightening issue here is that reincarnation has been endless.

We’ve got as many seeds as past lifetimes, to produce future sufferings! We’re literally up against all the conditioning we’ve ever had.

This requires a comprehensive and intense strategy to tackle: the stopping of all egoistic karmas of body, speech, and mind. And then transcendence of causality, with purified consciousness.

The best place to do this is an ashram away from temptations, with like-minded seekers, under the guidance of a realized teacher.

And it worked. Whether the Vedic era of India, the Jain revival of Mahavira, or the Buddhists’ de-militarization of India, Tibet and Mongolia — entire civilizations were transformed by these “enlightenment factories.”

More self-realized masters were produced than with any other system, who fed gigantic advances in philosophy, engineering, medicine, linguistics, mathematics, and music.

But the times have changed.

With external invasions and colonization, the traditional societies of Asia have literally been forced to open themselves up.

• No more 1/5th of Tibet hiding away in monasteries; now they’re escaping China and spreading Dharma to Western laypeople.
• No more birth-based ‘ritual masters’ holding all yogic knowledge; now Hinduism has to become popularized to survive.

The Indian Buddhist libraries once preserved in Tibet are being translated, mostly by Americans and Chinese, for online publication.

Religion is declining, and spirituality is filling in the gap. And for dedicated seekers, specific Dharma paths are replacing hodge-podge spirituality.

But the knowledge at the root is still that of the world-escaping monks and nuns. Which is fine, if we’re as committed to supporting them as the ancients were.

It’s just that we’re amidst a modernity that forces us to interact with it (or risk starving).

The alternative is direct & simple.

What the Maharishika teaches is similar to the empowering half of the Buddha’s notion of “emptiness.” Without it, you fall into a nihilism that makes life seem worthless!

Sure, you’re not the body, mind, or emotions. They’re a changing collection of habits. But they are within your orbit. Your consciousness can influence them more than anything else in this entire universe!

Noticing — even celebrating — every single moment of this wondrous reality is the balancer to this isn’t me, I’m detached, I’m higher than this, etcetera.

Becoming the master of yourself, you master this world.

Rather than seeking a meditative state to transcend the body & mind, we dig deep within, to find the sacredness emerging from consciousness itself.

• What is your source?
• What can it do for this world?
• Why do the masters say it’s already perfectly free?

Asking these questions may lead your life somewhere else than if you simply question how to escape suffering.

Several movements in India such as Mahayana, Bhakti, and Sikhism came about relatively recently, to make all lifestyles part of the path — not just desperate yogis & monks.

It’s because awakening is not about separating yourself from the world. It is the act of embracing it, in the most skillful way possible.