Ever since I started up as an entrepreneur in spiritual land in the mid nineties, I have been noticing how spirituality can be big business.
Having been fortunate enough to have mostly found teachers with integrity on my path, which is not always a given, I’m a lucky camper on the spiritual market. Some might state that you always get what you go looking for, but outside of my self-chosen training courses I have also encountered teachers in my life who have given me experiences which, – had I known in advance what they would do to me- , I would definitely never have chosen to have.
When finding your way around in life you basically never know where you’ll end up. If we knew in advance what we were going to experience most of us would say ‘Thank you!’ and book an all inclusive holiday to the Caribbean, which.- to be truthful- is what many of us are doing. And when we can’t afford such a holiday we make sure something else is occupying our lives.
I’m always happy to quote one of my favorite sayings of Sogyal Rinpoche;
Western laziness consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so there is no time left to address the real issues.
But having said all that, plenty of people these days are mending their ways and looking for the spiritual experience. Courses, workshops, live stream podcast and people going live on Facebook offer a wide variety of solutions in love, life, weightloss, sixpacks and enlightenment.
When I was working as a yoga teacher I noticed how some yoga institutes would have very little in common with the original 5000 year plus old version. Yoga is a philosophy; its a way of life; not something you do hopping up and down on Lady Gaga in the one hour class of the local gym.
Sorry, I am not usually this blunt, and again there are plenty spiritual teachers out there today who are grounded, genuine and do what they do with integrity. But just like in the rest of life, there are some who are simply and only after the money.
While doing my posts today I came across an unsollicited advertisiment on my Facebook page, that triggered me to write this blog. The post carried some title or other: ‘The Abundance of Money” accompanied by a picture of a “Ken- good looking guy”, (Ken as in Barbie and Ken, so basically an artificial good looking guy) with a dark blue starry sky behind is head where only the finger of God touching him seemed to be missing. I get these sort of advertisements because cookies tracks my spiritual surfing behavior on the web, but dear o dear do I disapprove of that sort of money making.
So my reminder this week to you and myself is to please watch out when you go and do your personal development shopping. While I totally agree everyone has a right to an income that serves their purposes, do not be tempted by workshops that sell enlightenment to you; go for the ones that guide you.
There is a huge difference.
Ingrid Schippers, February 2017
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This blog is featured as spoken end note of the Dutchbuzz edition of February 28, 2017 and broadcasted on The Hague FM from 10.00 tot 11.00 pm every Tuesday or can be heard as a closing note at the end of the Dutchbuzz podcast of February 28 2017
