The Distracting Nature of Spiritual Communities
Spiritual communities are where people come together to yoke themselves with one another energetically, most often with a random intention formed by the collective
While so many people strongly encourage the need for community, one by one, I’ve stepped away from spiritual communities. It’s true that we are a social species, that we need each other, that we need to belong and feel kinship and closeness with people. But at what cost?
Maria and I love people, while we mostly avoid them. We avoid them because we’ve become such introverts that too much time with too many people and we come away feeling drained. We were invited to a potluck a few months back, but when we inquired as to how many people were anticipated and the number was something like 40 to 50, we bowed out.
The more people we’re around, the more we feel drained. We love small intimate get- togethers with one or two people, maybe three. But then we have this other problem, which is that we don’t know how to do small talk for very long. We can’t help ourselves but to eventually direct the conversation to something deeper, like a person’s life journey or challenges and tragedies they’ve overcome or childhood trauma or addiction or spirituality.
We’ve found rare few individuals who enjoy going where we go. Mostly, I think we make them feel uncomfortable. We’ve had people break down in tears at the dinner table. And when that happens we feel gratitude, respect, empathy, and trust for such an individual. But they may leave feeling a little raw and vulnerable, which few are used to and even less choose to embrace as a way of life.
Which brings us to the topic of spiritual communities. What are they for? Why do people form them? I don’t think they’re formed for the assumed reasons. I don’t think people seek to be in spiritual communities to do transformational work. Well, maybe a small number do, but most seek the same thing everyone else seeks in any kind of community: belonging.
Even The West Side Camaro Club or the Westminster Shooting Club or the Monster Car Mud Run. Even your local church, synagogue, mosque, or temple. It’s mostly about belonging. Which is to fill something within. Something deep actually. That when we belong, we also matter. That when people like us, we feel worthwhile. That when we have fun with people our lives have meaning.
But what if what we seek is to grow and transform? What if we seek to touch the divine and commune with the Oneness? Will a spiritual community assist us in such a pursuit? I think not.
If our desire for growth is genuine and deep, we will more likely find ourselves distracted by a spiritual community. The reason for the distraction, however, is not so obvious. In fact, it’s taken me years to understand.
The awareness that I’ve very gradually grown into is that being in community requires that we align with a group of people. We don’t have to agree on everything, but we do have to agree on some important tenets of the community. If not, our time in community will quickly come to an end.
I’m not talking about Republican or Democrat, or vegetarian or omnivore, but rather the unspoken intention of the community. I’ve never once heard a group of people in community sit and discuss their reason for being in community with one another, and whenever I’ve suggested to a community that we have such a conversation I was energetically thrown out.
It seems that to discuss our reason for being in community with one another is intimidating or somehow unsettling for most. Maybe it’s threatening. I’m not entirely sure, but such a conversation is sure to cause upheaval and dismay in a group.
In one such community I was asked to lead a discussion, which I did. For weeks afterward people kept thanking me for what I shared. That is, until I called a meeting to revisit our principles and suddenly I was the odd man out. Without a willingness to merely revisit and discuss the group’s principles and witnessing some fairly strong reactions to my prompts I realized I could no longer be a part of the community.
I achieved huge healing and growth through Native American ceremonies. For years I participated in ceremonies across the country. Traditional Navajo sweat ceremonies that take place underground, above ground sweat lodges, tipi ceremonies, Sundance’s, pipe ceremonies, stomp dances, and so on. In the early days I was a mess. Which is to say that my life was a mess, and I was miserable. I didn’t really know how to pray. I watched my Native friends sit so strongly in ceremony and I felt inadequate by comparison.
But over time, as I healed I changed. I began to sit strongly like my Native friends. I began to do more than just sit in ceremony, but to contribute to them in various ways. Eventually, I came to see each ceremony as a living prayer, formulated by a sponsor or medicine person, communicated at the outset, and maintained through the consistent vigilant attentiveness of those conducting and supporting the ceremony.
Ceremonies, like spiritual communities, is a time and a place where a group of people come together to yoke themselves with one another. If even for a day or a night, or for eight days as is the case with Sundance ceremonies. When we pray and sing together, when we laugh together, eat together, dance together, there is a yoking — an energetic connection that takes place.
Mostly the connection is enjoyable and even beautiful. But not for those who seek a deeper kind of healing and growth. The reason is because in every community there will always be those who are not there for the assumed or presumed reason, but rather for more egoic reasons, or merely for the social aspects, or in some instances for dating.
I’m not saying this is a bad thing. It’s just the way humanity works. We all have our reasons and agendas. What’s missing are conversations around intention. And so instead, the intention of a community is almost always random, formed through a melding of the individuals present.
I’ve participated in precious few ceremonies where there was a strong alignment of purpose. And those ceremonies were incredibly powerful and life changing. But they are so rare. Because everyone comes with what they come with. We never know who will show up, but we all meld together and energetically yoke with one another, for better or for worse.
It’s not just in ceremony, church, or synagogue. It’s in every community. We come together and meld. Again, there is nothing wrong with this. It’s just the way of things.
But . . .
. . . if what we seek is healing and growth we will butt up against the energies of those who do not seek such change, and that butting up of energies will drain us. It will feel like swimming across a lake while pulling a bag of rocks. It would be so much easier to swim to the other side if we didn’t desire a deeper kind of healing and growth. If we lessen the power and clarity of our intention we can have a grand time in spiritual communities, yoking with those of like mind. But if we strengthen our intention, then we’re swimming with rocks. And if we remain in community with those who resist change it will ultimately distract us from our path of healing and growth.
“My teachings are a raft, meant to help you cross over the river. Once you reach the other shore, set the raft down and go on with your life.” — Buddha
In my early days in ceremony my intention was simple — I just wanted to feel better. And for that, the ceremonies were a welcomed and beautiful salve to the malaise and depression that I felt. But as I progressed, my intention became stronger and more focused, which is when I began to feel a misalignment with the collective, which is when I began to feel more drained than fed by the spiritual communities. Which is also when my time in the ceremonies began to wind down. Maria saw it before me. Or rather I resisted the knowing and it’s taken me longer to move from awareness to acceptance.
If we try to pull a spiritual community along toward a deeper and more focused intention (dragging those who resist change) we will feel constantly drained. But it doesn’t have to mean loneliness either. It’s just that we seek community with single individuals more so than groups. Our quest for community becomes more about alignment than number of people. It’s more about holding space for each other in a context of realness, than merely supporting each other in what every form of stasis we find ourselves in.
Spiritual communities are powerful stepping stones on a path of healing and growth but not a destination. They help us grow through alignment with a group’s purpose and the entrainment that occurs when we align with people who are further along than us. Spiritual communities become distracting, however, when we endeavor to move beyond the level of growth and healing a community is aligned with.
It’s always a choice as to what kind of life we want to live. Not better or worse, only a choice. And knowing the potentially distracting nature of spiritual communities is an important understanding to have.
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