The #1 Pitfall of New Spiritual Seekers
Avoid this pitfall to alchemize your spiritual inquiry
Defining Spirituality
The term “spiritual” can have an array of varying meaning from person to person.
For this sake, I will use the term loosely to refer to people who are striving to find a deeper meaning in life, are thinking about divinity, are curious about the nature of reality, are seeking to find truth, want to live a profound and purposeful life, and/or want to help the collective in some way.
If you find yourself in this boat, listen up, because this one-sentence piece of advice can radically improve your spiritual inquiry.
The Golden Insight
Here it is:
No belief system is the truth.
Let that sink in.
Christianity is not the truth. Islam is not the truth. Buddhism is not the truth. Hinduism is not the truth. Atheism is not the truth. No philosophical school of thought is the Truth. A purely scientific worldview is not the Truth.
I want to make it clear that I am not bashing any particular religion or school of thought. I believe all schools of thoughts have value in them, but it is the way people orient themselves towards these domains that I am calling out.
The number one pitfall of new spiritual seekers is that they move from one belief system to another all while doing very little to no inner work.
To provide an example, I don’t know how many times I have heard of people leave Christianity, only to adopt a new belief system, often a New Age form of spirituality, where they wind up treating the new school of thought as absolute truth.
I’ve seen people even place atheism on a pedastal, believing it to be the most correct school of thought and that all religion is hogwash.
I’ve seen people fall into conspiracy theories that make no sense and worship gurus that clearly don’t deserve to be worshipped.
But through it all, they think that their way is the one correct way, and that all the others are wrong.
Jumping from one belief system to another is not spirituality. It is merely a changing of the content of our minds. With spirituality, we are primarily seeking a changing of the structure.
I view a key component of spirituality as being the transcendence of beliefs that have held us back from being our most authentic selves, have caused ourselves and others to suffer as a result, and ultimately have kept us from realizing our true nature, which is enlightenment.
The Nature of Beliefs
First and foremost, It is important to recognize what a belief is.
A belief is simply a hunch about what is true.
It is an ideal about what is true that exists solely within one’s own mind, but it is NOT the truth itself.
“Belief means not wanting to know what it is true.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
Think of beliefs as spells, like how a witch casts a spell on people.
When we are under the spell of belief, whatever we believe becomes reality for us, and then every action we take and every thought we have will align with this reality the spell has put us in.
Going from one belief system to another without changing much internally does not free us from the spell, it just puts us under a new spell.
To break free of the entirety of these spells, it is important to become content with being in a state of not-knowing.
The Role of Ego on Beliefs
Most people are not content with not knowing. Most people unconsciously (or consciously) feel like they have to know, they have to feel certain about what this world is and who they are, leading them to cling to whatever meaning gives them this sense of comfort and permanence. This is just the ego biting them in the ass.
It is the ego that finds comfort in its sense of knowing. The ego wants to feel like it has the answers, like it has the Truth. It hates not knowing. It hates uncertainty.
And who can blame the ego for this? The ego just wants to survive and feel secure.
But in this inquiry, we must rise above our own egos and work towards something higher. When we bite the bullet and walk our own deeper, spiritual path, we must allow ourselves to be free from the need to believe in anything.
This is the whole point of spirituality. It is about taking on a greater, more holistic perspective of the world and our own relation to it, and through this inquiry, our mindset, worldview, values identity, and yes, eventually our beliefs, align in a way that is more selfless and more loving, and less selfish and less identified with ego.
Conclusion
Remember, beliefs exist to fill in the unknown. They are merely hunches about what is true.
I hope you come away from this article viewing beliefs not as a bad thing, but rather able to recognize their nature and use this knowledge to further your spiritual inquiry.
I hope you can also see how beliefs can serve as a function of our ego, which put simply is our mind’s operating program. We believe what we must in order to survive, fit in, and thrive.
The groundlessness of not-knowing can be uncomfortable, but I promise learning to be content with this state of mind will absolutely alchemize your spiritual journey.
With love and intention,
Wyeth
