How does spiritual narcissism manifest itself in today's spirituality market?

One spiritual practice - two possible outcomes

All spiritual practices (from mindfulness and meditation to healing and aura reading) have one key element: they reduce one's attachment to the needs of the individual Self and Ego. For example, for social approval and external success. Also, by developing a dimension of spirituality within oneself, one becomes more accepting, more open to diversity and less judgmental of oneself and others.

Ironically, spiritual practices can also result in the opposite - reactions that are not at all characteristic of enlightenment. For example, the desire to achieve external success, to be more respected, to be more loved for one's own spiritual development. Similarly, one can become so overwhelmingly enthusiastic, knowledgeable and at peace with one's ideology that this results in an ever lower openness to patterns of thought that are different from one's own belief system.

For such people, spiritual development can become an ambition - a striving for ever new levels of spiritual development, as in a career or in sport. It usually brings with it a sense of superiority over other people - over those who lack the spiritual wisdom that these people attribute to themselves, or spiritual narcissism.

Jbut by practising we don't catch that the Ego has set a trap

In summary, the search for enlightenment can create exactly the same mundane distortions as any other process aimed at "cultivating the Ego".

For example:

• self-enhancement (I can't find the translation in Latvian), or the desire to think only well of oneself and to be positively evaluated by others, with the result that one prefers favourable, flattering feedback to accurate, but possibly negative, information about oneself;
• illusory superiority (illusory superiority) - a sense of oneself as superior to others because of one's spirituality. This feeling is closely linked to narcissism.
• closed thinking (closed-mindedness) - rejection of different belief systems;
• hedonism (hedonism) or attachment to positive experiences that are hidden under the guise of supposedly "higher" values.

The irony of life

Paradoxically, the result of spiritual practices can be radically opposite to the expected "story of liberation from the Ego".

Or, as the Tibetan Buddhist meditation master said Chögyam Trungpa:

"There are many side-roads that lead to a distorted, Ego-centred version of spirituality. We can delude ourselves into thinking we are developing spiritually when in fact we are reinforcing our egocentrism through spiritual methods." and "No matter what the practice or teaching, the Ego loves to create traps to tailor spirituality for its own survival and gain."

To paraphrase briefly, the Ego tends to unconsciously adapt spiritual achievements to glorify itself.

Where is the problem?

By nature, everyone has their own "glitches" and the path of mistakes is also the path of growth, isn't it? Everyone develops and has fun as they know how, and often it is only after "going through the ditches" that you can see the right path (this is also from my own experience:)). That's okay.

However, continuing the theme of what I think is wrong (for more information see previous article)…

...to quote from the study, "In a society where exploring the inner life and developing one's uniqueness has become a common practice, a wide range of spiritual growth programmes are available, from mindfulness to new-age world creation teachings. As in any other area of mass-cultivated hype, misuse of spiritual practices, misinterpretations and shallow understanding exist and arise (shallowness). Indeed, the benefits of mindfulness and spirituality practices have now literally become materialistic, creating a billion-dollar industry (Purser, 2019; Scott, 2017; Wieczner, 2016, as mentioned in Vonk & Visser, 2020)".

...and of course this situation leads to confusion and questions about what spirituality really is and which spiritual or consciousness teacher is the "good and true" one!? So here are some characteristics of a pseudo-spiritual teacher who bases his activities on spiritual narcissism.

Self-proclaimed spiritual leadership (self-proclaimed Spiritual Guidance) 

Describes the interpersonal and behavioural aspects of a spiritual narcissist, such as reciting one's life insights, trying to help others gain the same spiritual wisdom, aspiring to be a spiritual teacher or guru to others.

Possibility of self-worth (contingency of self-worth (CSW) in the field of spirituality 

CSW is a form of self-assessment based on external validation or comparison with others. Consequently, success or failure in external situations can cause a person's self-esteem to fluctuate. In the case of healthy spirituality, CSW decreases in a person (self-esteem is less dependent on external circumstances), whereas in the case of spiritual narcissism, a person's self-esteem depends on his or her spiritual achievements.

Avoiding the current reality

A "true" spiritual path is nothing more or less than being awake or directly in touch with reality as it is here and now, including everything we don't like. The mere fact that something needs to be changed, corrected, or that we need to get away from here to a better living situation, only obscures contact with existing reality. 

However, modern spiritual teachings often include a hedonistic promise to improve our powers of influence, creativity, confidence, stress tolerance, eating habits or overall sense of happiness. The goals of pseudo-spiritual teachers may be, for example, to alleviate the suffering of others, to become inspirers and guides, to teach others to keep a cool head in the daily dynamics of life, etc. All these and motives are materialistic in nature and stem from dissatisfaction with current reality.

No misunderstandings, OK?

I am not trying to suggest here that there is anything wrong with purposefully improving your influence, creativity, confidence, stress tolerance, eating habits or overall happiness. 🙂 No. It simply has quite little to do with true spirituality. That's all.

Any striving for something other than what is now is a satisfaction of the Ego's needs. And there is nothing wrong with that either. In fact, it can even be healthy to satisfy the needs of the Ego...

I suppose this is where the "error" comes in for some, because in our culture it is constantly preached that the Ego must be abandoned, isn't it? Yes, the Ego can be got rid of - almost all spiritual teachers say that. However, few remember to mention that the natural (non-coercive) letting go of the Ego happens only after it has been cultivated and strengthened. 

Spirituality does not begin with following a spiritual leader, renouncing the self or striving for happiness, but with recognising, knowing and strengthening the Ego

This is a topic for a separate article, so I won't go into it. What I want to conclude with is - in essence: "When the Ego is functioning in a healthy and well-coordinated way, it gives us a solid sense of priorities and the ability to decide and understand for ourselves which "happiness formula" is right for us at any given time in our lives; a clear sense of what our responsibilities are and are not; a strong sense of our own ability to judge right and wrong; and an honest sense of how to learn from past mistakes in order to experience a happier future." (Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Buddhist monk).

So the more stable we are in our Ego, the fewer traps our Ego sets for ourselves, the less need we have for spiritual narcissism and spiritual superiority, both in ourselves and in our spiritual teachers.

This free content is produced in my spare time without pay. If you see value in what I do, I'd be happy to make you a coffee! It's like a spur to create new content! 🙂

Source:

Vonk, R. & Visser, A. (2020). An exploration of spiritual superiority: The paradox of self-enhancement. European Journal of Social Psychology, 51, 152-165.