Being on a spiritual path can make you long to meet others who are of like mind. But being lucky enough to know other people who are of a like mind to you is not always a cake-walk. It can sometime be hard word to maintain these friendships. Humans have become viciously competitive in this modern world and it is a human trait which can be hard to leave at the door to the temple, if you know what I mean.

This can be forgiven in someone that we know to be really and truly working on his or her spiritual path, on self-development and enlightenment. At least you know that they are working on it and can have faith that they will tackle their challenge eventually. What is most frustrating is the vicious behavior of hangers-on, people who profess the way and spout the readings but don’t walk the talk…in short there are pretenders in any faith, some of whom mean well but haven’t the wherewithal or the awareness to become true seekers.

I have seen the well-meaning individuals who eventually fall by the wayside when the going gets tough. These folks I have pity for because their enlightenment is waiting for them and seems as if it may not come to them this go ’round. But there are the others, the holier-than-thou, the judgmental finger-pointers who are generally pointing to what they themselves need to address in their own life. These people often simply mean to tear down, weaken and destroy that which they themselves can never aspire to or don’t understand.

I do not say this out of spite or conceit, but simply from a place of looking and being honest about what one sees. I acknowledge that there is such as thing as spite and competition in the spiritual society as well as society at large, I do this in the hopes of allaying the pain that any one of you out there might have felt in your trials and travels, that may have been caused by this type of door being slammed in your face.

Know that you cannot combat such ignorance or jealousy, so take it with a grain of salt and move on. Certainly, this can be hard to do. You often expect ignorance, mistreatment and derision from those in the mundane world…co-workers, family, even former clergy…but you generally do not expect it from people who profess to believe as you believe. This makes it all the more hurtful when you find it there, staring out at you, from eyes you thought had the same vision that you have. But you must let it pass.

If others must make it a competition, let them win…for they simply do not understand as you understand. A spiritual path is not a competition, it can never be “won” by anyone. This is because it is a personal journey and no two were written the same, it is a traveling tour of your soul, your origins, your talents and your ultimate goal. Though there may be universal concepts that apply to all of us, the ways that they can be applied at each turn differ exponentially. No one can take your journey for you, teach you what you will find there or expect to see what you see through your own eyes. Neither can you expect yourself, nor should you ever try to force yourself, to be exactly where another person is on their spiritual path or to learn something exactly the way that they learned it. It will never work for you if you do.

Make it a competition and you loose the point.

Still, even knowing this, dropping out of the community and escaping the competitive atmosphere altogether can be difficult. Leaving it all behind may not be necessary but there may be aspects of your interaction that no longer serve you well.

At some point in the progress of our individual spiritual growth many of us will see people and patterns for what they truly are and may reassess what we choose to include in our life at all. At this point of realization some people and concepts will seem outdated and for our own spiritual progress we will see that the only true answer is a letting go, a peaceful separation from our former networks and unnecessary baggage.

Setting things free will always be vastly more easy than setting people free. But realize that you do a good service, not only to yourself but to the other person as well. For not only will you be free from their expectations that you be who you’ve always been and continue to fill the outdated role that you’ve always filled…you will also be setting them free from your expectation that they change or evolve in a similar direction to yourself. Less pressure equals higher energy and more freedom for all involved.

If you continue to linger after the realization comes to you, each of these situations slowly begins to stagnate you, you accept that the path is a competition and you choose to halt in your tracks, to stall your own progress. Life is truly a series of beginnings and endings, it is this cycle that maintains growth for all living things, humans included.

The path of a spiritual warrior is a battle to be fought within, a battle that strengthens who you are and how you use your talents. The battle of the spiritual warrior is a difficult path to walk, but when encumbered by a battle without, the path becomes impossible to walk.

~Vera Nadine

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