Is it possible to take spirituality too far?

i find spirituality delicious and an answer,
it will mend the more it grows. it's a be
in it's totality. everybody's different
spiritually.

[Ahriman]

It's not that a person can take spirituality too far, it's that spirituality takes a person too far.

[It Is]

While I don't want to discount the possibility that there were in fact "aliens" standing behind you that "abduct" you in your sleep, I think it's also quite possible that this guy was just saying a whole bunch of fancy stuff as a device to hook you in.

Frankly, you came to the class to learn meditation - not get an unsolicited psychic reading - regardless of whether it was accurate or not. So what happened doesn't sound too professional to me.

[hallow]

Originally Posted by Mystik

So I went to this place that was supposed to have meditation. However, I got more than I bargained for. I just wanted to see what it was all about and there was no charge. However, the "teacher" went on about all these deep spiritual things that don't really have much to do with meditation. At one point he asked if I was a space man or something like that and told me that aliens were standing behind me. I didn't really know what to say.

Anyway, he also said something like there's no such thing as time and everything is happening at once and that things just bounce around. I've heard the time is not linear thing before. Fine. But when he said Jewish people were volunteering for the holocaust and stuff like that(I guess he saw it as karma) as well as the aliens are standing behind me and abduct me in my sleep I think that's maybe just going a bit too far. Maybe this guy wants an emotional reaction out of people I'm not sure.

My point is that although I consider myself spiritual I get frustrated when I go to events like this and hear people say stuff that just seems to go too far and seems too far out there. Does anyone else on here think it's possible to take things too far and be so far into spirituality that you lose touch with reality?

some people can anything to far. It's good to take life and anything else in moderation. Some people focus so hard on one thing they miss the point of everything.

[Baile]

Originally Posted by Ahriman

It's not that a person can take spirituality too far, it's that spirituality takes a person too far.

Sounds wise. But is it meaningful? Really? Spirituality is just a word, it can't "do" anything. Whereas it's peole who "do"; who do things like study and follow spiritual beliefs.

In all my travels, when I've come across unhealthy spiritual stuff, it's always been in the form of unhealthy "human activity"; i.e. people who have taken their religious-spiritual beliefs too far. They've gone nuts; they've become belief-fundamentalists. The philosophy itself isn't nuts. It can sound nuts when you read it, sure. But it only has power when the individual freely chooses to believe and follow those nutty tenets.

[Lucky]

Based only on the information you gave in your initial post about attending this meditation event, I would say it sounds to me like this was more of a platform for the "teacher" to demonstrate his/her abilities. Without your permission, she/he was reading into you and telling you some frightening and confusing things that you didn't ask to know. To me, that's invading...unless of course you gave your permission to be read.

[Nature Grows]

No, its only possible to not take it far enough.

[Baile]

Originally Posted by Nature Grows

No, its only possible to not take it far enough.

That's the inner-wisdom answer. But again, spirituality in and of itself is nothing. Rather, it depends entirely on the individual. The individual who is not ready -- who is not prepared from an inner moral development perspective -- can take things to far and suffer real issues as a result. That's what fundamentalism is: it's an illness of the mind resulting from a lack of inner preparedness. It's spirituality taken too far, by the student who is simply not ready from a healthy-consciousness POV.

I am aware an argument can be made that people can't take things too far, because we are always given what we are ready to handle. But now we're adding in the karmic element, which opens things up to a much broader exploration than just the limited question presented here. Because yes, one's karmic path in this lifetime may well be to fall into the fundamentalist mind-trap, in order to learn a particular soul-lesson. In which case, the question must be asked: Does that demonstrate how a student might not be ready, and in the process take their spirituality too far? Or is all perfectly appropriate because it's aligned with that individual's karmic path?

And I can point to and suggest all of that because I went though it this lifetime! I'm now in post-fundamentalism recovery.

No it’s not.

We learn the wrong way to find the right way.
And there is only a right way for that person not for everyone.
Everyone is here to learn something specific to them. To experience something specific. So no there isn’t a “too far” and there isn’t a “not far enough”

Boxing everyone in to one category or basing what you think others should do and how they should live is not spiritual, it’s a lesson. It’s teaching you to accept that NO ONE can get to where you are the same way you did.

[Baile]

Originally Posted by Badcopyinc

So no there isn’t a “too far” and there isn’t a “not far enough”

Adolf Hitler. Pol Pot. Idi Amin. History is full of examples of human beings who took things too far. So the idea and concept of "taking something too far" is in fact quite real. It happens. And thank goodness those individuals stopped there, that was way more than far enough. Past that, the only discussion is if this fact of (external human) reality and life, also applies to (inner human) spiritual development. And I will agree that is an open question, and that further conversation on that point is needed.