[canajan, eh?]

This is Jen. I'd like to share a very brief version of a very long and painful personal experience that taught me some tremendously important spiritual lessons.

I didn't begin to ask penetrating spiritual questions until I was about 40 years old. At that time, I became interested in the potential of Reiki to help heal spiritual, emotional, and physical imbalance and illness. I went to see a Reiki Master. I'll call her Tabitha.

Tabitha and I became friends on the spiritual journey. At first, I was very impressed by her. She was confident, and I admired her strength of conviction. She said all the right loving things: "We are all One, we are all equal." She seemed eager to share her healing skills. To my inexperienced mind, she had her s**t together. Meanwhile, I was beginning to learn to channel. Tabitha greatly encouraged me in this. She felt she couldn't herself channel. This began to change, however, in the summer of 2000, when she suddenly claimed to be receiving a great many angelic messages.

I was a fly caught in a nasty, sticky web of spiritual narcissism, but would not come to realize this for another 3 years. For 3 years, I lived with an ongoing belief that Tabitha wanted to be on a spiritual journey, that she wanted to grow closer to God, that she wanted to be the best person she's capable of being. For 3 years, I believed I could help her on that journey by being a loving, supportive, forgiving friend. I spent countless hours being her sounding board. She had a vicious temper. She was a binge alcoholic. She loved to put other people down. She had no empathy for others. She thought everybody loved her and trusted her. She thought she was a wonderful mother (won't go into details, but let's say her grown children did not demonstrate loving kindness towards anyone, including themselves). I believed in her potential to work through these difficult challenges. I stuck with her, because I believed strongly that standing by a friend despite her ongoing abuse was something Jesus would have done. (Wow -- was I wrong.)

Meanwhile, Jesus was channelling to me, and he was using words like "psychopath" when he was referring to Tabitha. He hinted many times that Tabitha wasn't changing because she didn't want to change. Finally, I had a huge blow-out with her. I demanded she tell me why she kept treating me like a piece of crap. I didn't let up. Suddenly she blurted, "I do it because it feels good. It's like a high -- better than an orgasm."

I was stunned. Beyond stunned, actually. Jesus had been right all along. Although he loves Tabitha as an angel, and believes in her soul's beauty and integrity, he -- an angel! -- understands her human brain and its viciously unloving circuitry. He knows she's misusing her free will, and he knows she won't change unless and until she wants to change.

Make no mistake -- her brain chemisty wasn't forcing her to be an awful person. She was an awful person because she wanted to be. She wanted the high she got. This was a free will choice. Her conscious choices were controlling the way her brain was wired, not the other way around. In short, she was personally responsible for her cruelty. It was nobody else's fault. She didn't want to be a nicer person. In her view, "nice" was synonymous with "weak and wimpy." She, on the other hand, was specially chosen by God to be a healing master.

She wasn't at all loving or empathetic or even nice, but she still managed to be quite successful (for a time) as a spiritual teacher.

That doesn't mean, however, that her guardian angels didn't cry each time she treated spiritual seekers the way she treated me -- with grandiose lies, with a complete lack of self honesty, and a complete unwillingness to forgive.

The truth hurts, but only the truth helps us find the courage to change.

Thanks to my beautiful angelic friends, both here and on the Other Side. I love you!

Love Jen

[JosephM]

Hello Jen,

Interesting story. The only thing that came to mind is something I had just finished reading yesterday which I found very profound. It said "Each person does the best they can in accordance with their beliefs". When our beliefs change, feelings and behaviors change.

Love,
JM

[fatherman]

I understand this circumstance at least little bit, Jen. Perhaps I'm not accurately describing Tabitha here, but I am describing a cycle that many of us have encountered (perhaps even in ourselves). I understand the frustrated mystic. It's an easy cycle to adopt. A person has a mystical experience. They feel the direct touch of God. They share the experience or the energy of that experience with other people, who feel inspired by it (and maybe a little dazzled). Therein lies the hook. The mystic begins to dwell on the mystical experience (which is now long gone) and focus on the attention that they receive for it. They also feel the pressure of their interested friends to continue sharing.

The problem is that God's touch exists in the this very moment, not in something that happened in the past. The peaceful mystic gives thanks for God's touch and let's it go. She continues to live in the moment that is before her, knowing that the open door lies there.

May we all let go of our attachments to the past, so that we may embrace the peace of the present.

[canajan, eh?]

fatherman, on Apr 23 2007, 08:47 AM, said:

I understand this circumstance at least little bit, Jen. Perhaps I'm not accurately describing Tabitha here, but I am describing a cycle that many of us have encountered (perhaps even in ourselves). I understand the frustrated mystic. It's an easy cycle to adopt. A person has a mystical experience. They feel the direct touch of God. They share the experience or the energy of that experience with other people, who feel inspired by it (and maybe a little dazzled). Therein lies the hook. The mystic begins to dwell on the mystical experience (which is now long gone) and focus on the attention that they receive for it. They also feel the pressure of their interested friends to continue sharing.

Hi Fatherman, it's Jen here. I like what you wrote. I like it a great deal because it's honest. You describe a fairly common experience, and you describe it in a way that doesn't make excuses for it, but simply tries to convey it.

Yes, this is an easy cycle to adopt. The person I knew, Tabitha, was deeply hooked, and you're absolutely right -- she loved the attention. This would be understandable and excusable in an inexperienced spiritual seeker. Without strong, wise mentorship, a sincere seeker could quickly fall off the path of Truth simply by getting too carried away with the excitement of being a "mystic."

A sincere seeker, if firmly and lovingly guided away from the dangers of the ego as it pertains to mystical experiences, will learn from her or his mistakes, and will eventually give up the ego-driven craving to be mystically special. Such is the evolution of wisdom, of genuine humbleness, which is the mark of a Christ-in-human-form.

What made Tabitha's behaviour inexcusable was her conscious awareness that she was being asked by God to let go of her narcissistic sense of being "Special," and her outright refusal to do it.

It's one thing to make a mistake because you simply don't know. It's quite another to intentionally hurt others because you get a high out of it.

Tabitha knew at a conscious level what she was doing. She didn't care. This takes her out of the category of frustrated or misinformed mystic, and plants her squarely in the category of spiritual psychopath.

God can tell the difference. It's us poor, naive human beings who so often can't.

I'm not sure there's a harder spiritual lesson to grasp than the difference between these two categories, but I put it out there for those are feeling the same pain as I used to feel. It's possible to understand this issue with knowledge currently available in the public domain. But it's a big task, and it takes time. Plus a goodly dose of help from the Other Side.

Lots of love, Jen

[fatherman]

Very clever title, by the way!