Hi M. Davies, thanks for you comment. You’ve raised a point that’s important to clarify. Nothing in this article should be read as judging or impugning the individual spiritual practice of anyone. I agree that in general, as humans, there is a collective access to divine experience that we can each explore for our own awakening, liberation, and connection. What people do in the privacy of their own homes, temples, and hearts is not a matter of concern. But when we start to teach it, it’s something else. When we start to post on Instagram about it, it’s something else. When we start to make our livelihoods from it and redefine it and innovate from it…it gets more complicated. In the first scenario, where I’m practicing meditation in my own backyard, where I’m learning in life how to embody the oneness I feel in my practice, I’m not harming anyone. On the other hand, when I decide to teach a specific tradition that I’ve learned from other white westerners like me, and I start gathering followers, saying, “This is what [insert eastern tradition here] means, I know all about it, pay me X dollars and I’ll teach you how too,” things get way more complicated. I may be harming people who are indigenous practitioners of the tradition by promoting it in ways that disrespect the tradition. I may be taking away students who would otherwise follow an indigenous teacher, and therefore taking resources from them as well. I may be misrepresenting the teachings by “interpreting” them beyond their intended meanings. And with each student I train to teach I may be reproducing the same harms. So sure, explore to your heart’s content, but let’s be thoughtful and non-harming when it comes to how we portray traditions that we were not born into. Especially ones where my ancestors harmed their ancestors.
