many just giving up
 

is it me or does it seem like so many are just giving up and leaving all their spiritual development behind. it's like there's a phrase going on lately. if you use youtube you will see there's endless amount of new age people and your average spiritualist people leaving testimonies. i just cant understand it as all that work, all that research and spiritual development they done over the years yeah, it's like they all closed down over time and any spirits have stepped back.
do you think it's due to it being hard to exsist when your spiritual and people just had enough of trying and sort of wanted a comfort zone to feel better?
i think that doreen virtue testimony really upset alot of lightworkers and it's like people felt they had to get rid of all those angel cards.
i feel awful at the moment like the balance isn't right.
im on a journey to discovering the bigger picture but this has made me think has it all started to die down now or will it pick up again. care to share your views at here, thanks.

You should really turn toward inside. I believe you can't really advance your spiritual quest by focusing toward outside, be it youtube, gurus, books, etc..

many people attempt to explore spirituality by diving in and neglecting the physical world, feeling it to be an affront to spiritual growth.
Then reality hits and they have to deal with the real world, so they the swing the other direction.
Often they may yoyo back and forth until they find the healthy balance they need.

For many, it is a case of attribution then attrition.

They may have had an awakening, have had certain experiences or realisations which may be quite life changing and profound...then for the next few months, nothing! Then, for the next few years or even ten years, nothing! That's all she wrote.

Eventually, they start asking themselves if they really even HAD a "spiritual experience" or were they just imagining it? Maybe they just had a one-off release of DMT or serotonin...Maybe they just experienced a hallucination they only believed was real at the time because it hasn't happened since.

So, what happens, is after a few years of "basking in the glow" they notice that it isn't really doing any good, so they go "stuff this! I am just going to forget about it and try to live a normal life. If it happens again, I will take it seriously...If not, I can pretty much conclude that it was probably a 'one off' which had some psychological or biochemical cause and nothing more than that".

Advanced spiritual development has always been a tiny minority, just look at how few enlightened people there are or have been at ANY point in history. In otherwords, most people give up on spiritual development.

Spiritual interest and disinterest comes in waves. The previous wave was called the "New Age Movement". Its all but gone now.

What are people really seeking to develop in the name of spirituality?

When you ask, is it just me, perhaps it is just the circles you have mixed in. Its just my view, but I see spirit as something within, so I do feel that learning from youtube, books or cards etc has its limits and that it is good to let that part pass when its time to.

Wisdom is born from the teachings of life combined with the understanding of the spirit. So development is a combination of walking through the life of education, jobs, health, hobbies and relationships alongside spiritual reflection and meditation. Sometimes people may yoyo between the 2 as if they are separate entities, until they find the balance in that combination. Sometimes, it may be that one phase of life has come to an end and peolle are beginning a new phase. The reason life and development are often seen as a journey is because they continuously change and change is good.

What I feel has been happening (besides that Doreen Virtue thing which I believe was totally staged from the get go) is that a LOT of emphasis has been placed on "Spiritual Bypassing" lately:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_bypass

There is also no way to ascertain whether or not one is following the Spiritual path to actually grow within themselves or to use it as a crutch to avoid responsibility or emotional trauma...there is a very fine line there.

Is it just a case of "wishful thinking"? Maybe it is just a case of creating better and more positive outcomes through behavior change. One can do that without necessarily being "spiritual" or "New Age" and all that entails.

With the advancements in noetics and neurotheology, science has also described many of the processes which lead to trance states, visions and everything that was hitherto classed as being "spiritual" thus taking the whole allure and mystery out of it.

Then, a lot of fake psychics, fortune tellers and Gurus are being exposed every day...they are all over the web...All over YouTube...added to which, nobody out there really has any interest in anything "spiritual".... it's all "yeah, yeah... whatever floats your boat".

For all of these reasons, people just give up...they don't know WHAT they want and hope this thing called "spirituality" may give them that answer...but all it does is give them more questions, until they realise they were actually doing much better without it.

At some point in one's journey, it goes well beyond externalities.

The doubt and hope and fear and confusion gives way to clear inner faith. That is hard to deny.

I don't know how you define "spirituality" but this forum demonstrates to me that some people think it means astral projection, bliss, kundalini, spirits, and the like.

Others, such as traditions established under Buddha, Mystical Christianity (Meister Eckhart and others), Sufism (Rumi / Hafiz and others), Advaita Vedanta (Ramana Mahasri and others), point to something more profound, unifying, Universal.

Those roads which lead us out of personal misery and hell are the roads that, if true, if we are true, are less likely to be influenced by people "dropping out of class", so to speak.

If those dropping out of class were of the former school of thought, I presume it is just ebbs and flows, like hobbies and interests. But then again, I doubt YouTube or any social media phenomena is representative of the world's fuller events.

Just my 2c.

JL

Thank you for a well informative reply.


Perhaps when a person comes to the realization that they don't know what they want, it can open a door towards growth, self discovery. It is as if we are trying to fill an empty void inside us and we desperately cling to anything that gives our existences artificial meaning, a sense of "self," an identity. Whether it be religion, spirituality, work, relationships, chasing dreams, etc. All gives our life meaning. Even the negatives. Some people seem too content in their misery. As if they are clinging to it.