This is an advanced post for those who want to go deeper into self and spiritual mastery. If you haven’t heard of Spiritual Bypassing before, the wiki page explains it quite well.
There are many perspectives on what spirituality is all about — one popular perspective sees life as a curriculum for the soul implying that we are here to learn lessons and treat earth as a school for our spiritual development.
This is a helpful way to approach the challenging situations and periods in life, and an easy way to find the upside no matter what is going on. Even if you experience the worst, it’s all worth it if your soul learns something and grows, right?
This perspective looks great on the surface until we realize that this mindset becomes toxic if we don’t balance it. A lot of people use this perspective to rationalize the insanity of humanity. Sometimes it’s ok to just accept that life is painful and the world is ugly at times. That itself can be a powerful lesson. Toxic positivity includes constantly seeking a lesson and disallowing yourself to see the reality of the world.
There is another way — you can see the world for what it is and still be ecstatic. No lessons, no curriculum, no denial, no toxic positivity. You also don’t need to be a recluse or an ascetic or a pleasure denier. You can be peaceful and blissful and rich and create beauty in the world — you can have it all.
You can define yourself in a way that you can be happy and joyful even when the world is broken. To get here we need to understand the ego better and realize it is constantly seeking excuses to suffer.
The Addiction To Suffering
For those on the spiritual journey who have not yet heard about or delved deeper into the addiction to suffering, that phrase explains how we use anything and everything in life to prolong and perpetuate our suffering. Sounds crazy? That’s humanity. Once you understand this, the world starts to make a whole lot more sense.
There is a lot of talk about shadow work, and how we unconsciously perpetuate suffering. And the addiction to suffering is our biggest shadow. It’s at the root of everything. This is where we realize how much we treasure our suffering and will hold onto it till our dying breath. We tend to do everything possible to prevent the end of our suffering. This is where self-sabotage is rooted.
This becomes a trap where we never graduate school and we are always in “learning mode”. We never wake up to life and become creators. We keep reacting to life and the circumstances that trigger us. In learning mode, we are reacting.
Students see circumstances as learning opportunities.
Creators see circumstances as resources.
I have seen several students who just stay stuck in this mode and never graduate to living and creating.
This is where we realize that spirituality has another dimension — enjoying life and making it a fun adventure — a playground or a canvas for creation.
The school perspective tends to make life and people very “heavy”. It’s easy to see how these lesson-obsessed people get caught up in their own shadow of suffering. And that may be you.
Are you ready to wake up from this shadow and start enjoying life?
Healing The Addiction
I was, for a long time, deeply embedded in this addiction. It was my life partner that helped me break through. We mirrored each other to help each of us heal and wake up.
Breaking free made me realize how to use Spiritual Bypassing to skip across unnecessary suffering. Clearly you cannot skip across pain and trauma. That’s not the point here.
The point is that your addiction to suffering keeps you trapped in the pain and trauma endlessly. And it steals the joy of life. It holds you back from enjoying the journey of healing and growth. It keeps you out of creator mode.
Creation is not only about entrepreneurship or artistic endeavors. You are a creator of your life journey — your life story. You can be a creator even as a corporate employee. Creation is a mindset and a lifestyle. And the journey of creation brings about more healing and growth than any other approach. As you face life, you are confronted with every sleeping part within you.
A Different Approach
As a teacher I also started changing my approach. While deep healing and transformation is my signature, skipping needless suffering is my gift. Why suffer when you can directly get what you desire — peace, bliss, power, love. If you can go to that state directly, why drudge along in the muck forever.
I have seen enough “spiritual” people who will use astrological phenomenon, toxic relationship patterns, and anything under and over the sun as an excuse to suffer. Mercury being retrograde is not a reason to suffer or feel bad in any way. If anything, real spirituality is about transcending the effects of all circumstances and external influences to find a transcendent state within.
What is the point of all those lessons if you don’t feel a state of bliss and peace in your life?
Do you actually think that spiritual school has a graduation date? NO!
Until you decide to graduate, you can be stuck in spiritual school forever. That’s the biggest and final lesson of school. There is no one who will validate you and tell you that you are done. You have to wake up and realize you created and believed in the school framework and it can go on forever with your addiction to suffering.
It feels great to keep learning lessons and see yourself “growing”. I know, I’ve been there. For nearly a decade. Thankfully my soul was wise enough to wake up from the delusion early on. I say “early” because I’ve seen people on the spiritual journey for much longer who are still deep in suffering. People who never actually learn the lesson. The way I see it now, that is real spiritual bypassing.
People create all kinds of systems for spiritual development where there is an end goal — enlightenment. That is graduation, isn’t it? Some people also go to schools where there is endless learning. We can shift into a way of life where learning is inherent. We don’t need to keep learning explicit lessons or go to consciousness schools that teach theory. Life as a creator is inherently full of learning. And such a life can be easy.
Sure you may tell yourself that you enjoy life and you feel very connected to nature and beauty. But can you honestly say you are not addicted to suffering?
Your Last Reward
We have a deep rooted belief that our suffering is the way we will be rewarded. It’s even baked into religions and spiritual systems. That’s the whole point of seeing life as a spiritual school. The reward for suffering is either a lesson, or a heaven.
There is a “purpose” for your suffering, always.
But there is no explicit reward for being blissful or peaceful. And our dopamine-addicted minds, which are now being “hacked” by spiritual optimizers to have maximal productivity as the aim, cannot accept a reality where there is no reward.
The idea of an inherent reward in being doesn’t compute for our doing-obsessed minds that are attached to a culture rooted in suffering. This is how we create hell on earth. No one creates hell for you, other than you. It’s not politicians, nor gurus, nor scientists. It’s you. And that’s great news, because when you realize it’s you, then you can learn to stop creating your own suffering.
If you cannot experience heaven here, if you cannot enjoy life now, you will never graduate from spiritual school.
Choose Your School Wisely
The way you see and experience earth school may be a mirror of your own experience of school. For many people that means intense suffering, restriction, rules, and seriousness. Genuine play and joy is not a part of the school experience for most people.
Even if you choose to continue seeing life as a school, are you ready to change schools and join a better one? A more magical, playful, joyful school? They exist too. That’s what made the Harry Potter series such a success. The idea of school being something magical and adventurous captures everyone’s deepest desire. This is the soul’s deepest joy.
Difficult lessons come from the addiction to suffering. The exact same lesson can come in easy and fun ways when you have a playful attitude. There is plenty to learn through play and adventure, and even more so through creation.
Manifesting an epic life requires going not only through the dark shadow, it calls us to transcend the golden shadow as well. It calls you to go beyond flow, it calls you to Glow.
The Infinite Zero Experience has become just such a place. An experiential “school” for self & spiritual mastery to grow through play, adventure, joy — and magic. Join us and others in creating a magical life for yourself.