If I had to choose one neurosis that we all hold as a collective, it would be the understanding of ourselves as separate from source. Throughout history and until the current moment humanity is known for enduring strife and challenges that have led to profound cognitive distortions. The idea that we are separate from the ever-unfolding creative energy that exists in all the universe has become an embodied reality.

How Did This Neurosis Unfold?

Whether it is due to an orchestrated amnesia or the seeds of ignorance, we have all been vulnerable to a false power that is the influence of the mind; the very thing that breeds separation, illusion, and fear.

Throughout history – religious, scientific, industrial, and social movements have all moved beyond the natural and organic. This has been coined as evolution, however, without the heart leading the way it has undoubtedly altered our ability to perceive ourselves as part of the whole.

What we understand instead is a system that keeps our minds in shackles and tension under the illusion of security and control. The neurosis that something is unquestionably wrong with us, society, our world as we know it plagues us in a way that we seldom recognize. The need to fix, improve, calculate, and just push towards a better something has kept us in perpetual unease. Our need to avoid discomfort and suffering has irrevocably separated us from the grace of divine order.

“The fear of experiencing that which we judge wrong keeps us from experiencing the love that truly does protect us from all things.”

We do not feel safe, held, or supported, and as the Samsara wheel churns, many fall further and further away from the tree of life. Instead of experiencing the self as part of a vast and organic whole, the tendency is to reside in a deep unconscious state where the appeal for a false sense of control has become prominent. The fear of experiencing that which we judge wrong keeps us from experiencing the love that truly does protect us from all things.

There is fixed enmeshment with this man-made reality that profoundly disconnects all from the truth and from the vibration that is unconditional love, which indeed emanates from in every sparkle of an eye, every speck of sand, every Tsunami and every other materialized construct within the infinite universes that exist.

What Happened to Faith?

Faith is a word that has lost its true context – it is now loosely understood as believing in or trusting that an outside force may or may not meet one’s intended desire. This notion of faith is a diluted interpretation of the vitality in which the word truly resides.

Faith, as it has revealed itself to me, is the actual embodiment of union and it is not limited to the concepts of the mind nor is it something to be manipulated by demand. Faith speaks of an enlightened expression of the union with the source of all that is.

“There is truly an emancipation held for all by the mathematical perfection that are the universes. Suffering breeds from not feeling worthy of this and being attached to that which we believe is our identity and yet is not our true nature.”

The term, enlightenment in this prose refers to a conscious awareness of the small self as well as the Self that is attuned to the love that is the whole. The paradox itself is hard to grasp- it defies all things defined in the polarity in which we believe ourselves to exist, and it challenges the fixed status quo. However, this conundrum is the very place where we can find peace from the endless chatter that speaks of unrest in the mind, in the body, and most importantly in the self.

There is truly an emancipation held for all by the mathematical perfection that are the universes. Suffering breeds from not feeling worthy of this and being attached to that which we believe is our identity and yet is not our true nature. We were born beyond the endless constraints of logic and calculated manipulation and still we walk in those very shackles forgetting ourselves as boundless and infinite creative expression- this of course superseding even death.

We stopped trusting our intuitive nature and instead allowed our minds to become masters. Still, the field beyond right and wrong as our beloved lover and poet, Rumi would say; truly does exist.

Divine Union Is Not In the External

Divine union is not a choice but an absolute truth that can only be experienced through the liberation of the small self. It is not about attracting the ideal quantum partner nor is it in the glory of a manifested desire. It means transcending the alleged separation and surrendering to the simplicity of being.

Freedom comes from allowing ourselves to embody our union with the divine as paint on a canvas would trust the strokes of its artist. There is a masterpiece that we are all part of and yet because of universal free will, we continue to lose sight of it.

Divine union is within every breath we take, we need only provide the space for it to bloom the way a flower unfolds in the Spring; petal by petal, not worried about the contours of its shape. She simply becomes its full radiance with focused intention allotted to her by her very existence, and the most subtle of expressions that derive from her simply being. Its vibrancy trusts; it does not fear decay, nor does it try to manipulate the direction or the speed at which it will flourish. Without knowing she embraces the pure fluid state that by default is all of existence; mankind included.

“Freedom comes from allowing ourselves to embody our union with the divine as paint on a canvas would trust the strokes of its artist.”

Re-union Is Definite

The labyrinth that our egos journey through paves the way for remembrance. All paths lead home as the slogan goes. There is no bypassing the organic process from our forgetting to the collective unraveling of our true essence. The enigma brings forth a rise in consciousness where we can feel into that which lies beyond the veils of our manifested reality. With the shift of the ages, we now have additional support through the more expansive access to higher dimensional frequencies that supersede the matrix consciousness.

There is a light pouring in from the cosmos that is summoning us from our sleep state. It is bringing great awareness to the depths of the collective complex of perceived abandonment. The gates of heaven are now truly accessible to all – the journey there is within. In the stillness of the mind and emptiness of the small self, the subtle whispers of conscious awareness ripple through and beloved to ourselves we become.

“The gates of heaven are now truly accessible to all – the journey there is within.”

The Bottom Line

I like to remind my clients of how fortunate they are to have incarnated at this time. Although they may perceive me with questioning eyes at such a statement while they are still deeply enmeshed with their severance; there is something that stirs in them. It is then that the invitation to remembrance becomes alive.

If they choose to answer they are ignited to explore the alchemy that is life from a higher perspective; one that doesn’t undermine the organic process that is life but instead highlights the beauty in the complexity of its nature and the absolute safety of its colorful landscape.

The heart is the gateway – we need only seek in that direction and recall that it is not a pragmatic excursion. Remembrance transcends the confines of the logical mind and calls forth the frequency that has and will always permeate above all – love.

About Ishtar

Ishtar is a psychotherapist (LCSW) who earned her masters’ degree from New York University in 2006. She is also a KRI certified Kundalini Yoga instructor; licensed in 2013 at Goldenbridge, New York City. Prior to this training, in 2008 she experienced what she coins as divine remembrance and has spent the last 13 years in service to others as a wayshower in the ascension process. As a Christed pillar of light embodying the solar crystalline frequencies; she carries the codes of gnosis and sacred transformation. Ishtar is a Rose priestess of cosmic lineage and holds a multidimensional awareness that guides clients from all walks of life into divine union. Currently, she resides with her daughter Ixchel Inanna in the city New York and remains committed to activating divine remembrance through a myriad of sacred tools.  ​

About Luminous Magik

Luminous Magik practice focuses on traditional integrative psychotherapy infused with an array of healing modalities intuitively tailored to your specific needs. The sessions can include Kundalini yoga and Meditation, Energetic Alignments, Light Language, Shadow Work, Ancestral Clearing, Womb Activations & Cosmic Coding. For more information, visit Ishtar’s website luminousmagik.com.

How do you react to misfortunes or sad phases in your life? Do you deal with the pain or remain with unresolved wounds for fear of becoming vulnerable? Well, chances are, you are spiritually bypassing.

The Origin

Spiritual bypassing is an old term coined by John Welwood, a Buddhist teacher, author, and psychotherapist, in 1984. It refers to the tendency for persons to avoid, sidestep, or escape uncomfortable issues facing them. Welwood noted that persons resorted to this behavior to rise above their shaky emotional or personal foundation, hence, obtaining enlightenment.

What of Today?

Spiritual bypassing is quite common in the 21st century. Here, we see people covering up their low self-esteem, loneliness, or anger with spiritual practice. The only difference is it is a short-term cover-up. Spiritual bypassing facilitates a buildup of negative emotions into full-blown unrest and uncertainty.

Is Spiritual Bypassing Negative?

Often, we associate spirituality with positive aspects of our lives. You know, feelings of inner peace, contentment, or fulfillment. But, spiritual bypassing confirms that there are dark and painful areas in spirituality.  Yes, it creates a false feeling of security and satisfaction, blocking any efforts for emotional healing.

Types of Spiritual Bypassing

Do you often resort to spirituality to bypass the unpleasant phases of your life? Here are the ten possible ways: –

#1: Optimistic Bypass

An optimistic bypass will insist on seeing life as a glass half full. This person is always focusing on the sunny side of life, ignoring the other half that is not so pleasant. In turn, these persons never engage their anger, inner conflict, or aggression. For, they fail to see that life isn’t always a happy fairytale.

#2: Aggrandizement Bypass

Do you know of a spiritual leader or seeker who seems overly enlightened and superior? Chances are these individuals struggle with personal insecurities and deficiencies. For, aggrandizement bypass is a self-delusion that convinces the self-proclaimed spiritual gurus that they have achieved a level of enlightenment or higher being.

#3: Victim Bypass

Are you a victim of your gifts? If these gifts hinder you from living a healthy or happy life, you could be a victim bypass. For example, a victim bypass may identify as an empath and use their gift of compassion to others to the extent of neglecting their happiness. Likewise, a victim bypass may disguise as an indigo child, a gifted healer, or a Starseed.

#4: Psychonaut Bypass

A psychonaut bypass exploits psychedelic drugs to escape their painful reality. In turn, they get into a psycho-spiritual crisis that hinders them from pursuing personal development.

#5: Horoscope Bypass

Do you love astrology, or are you dependent on it? Well, if you struggle with fear or self-doubt to the point of living an indecisive life, you could be relying on others to predict the outcome of your life. For this, a horoscope bypass trusts the predictions of a psychic or an astrologer. It becomes destructive when this trust supersedes their inner feelings to make significant decisions in their lives. In turn, their obsession with astrology makes them incapable of coping with traumas.

#6: Saint Bypass

When growing up, kids learn that spiritual leaders are saintly, kind, and compassionate. Only, these leaders have weaknesses and dark sides like any ordinary human being. However, a saint bypass holds on to this holier-than-thou notion from their childhood, even when they are now adults. In turn, a saint bypass will sacrifice themselves to appear sweet, approachable, heavenly persons.

#7: Spirit Guide Bypass

A spirit guide, whether an angelic or godly being, serves to protect humanity, right? Well, this belief is quite soothing to the mind but constricts the soul. That is, we forgo the need to be resilient, courageous, or take charge of our safety. We become like children under the protection of the parent. Living this way deprives us of the ability to grow our spiritual character. Instead, we should look to the spirit guide to learn more about our spirituality, not babysit us.

#8: Guru Bypass

A guru bypass is overly attached to a spiritual teacher or guru, to the extent of worshipping them. They accept all the teachings from their spiritual guru as absolute truths. Eventually, the guru bypass never grows spiritually. Further, they fall prey to manipulation or any ill-intentions of their spiritual leaders.

#9: Finger-Pointing Bypass

When on a spiritual journey, we develop clarity of mind. Here, we intuitively determine when someone is lying, honest, or trying to manipulate us. More so, we can tell reality from delusions and make rational decisions. A finger-pointing bypass uses this ability to declare them as self-righteous. In turn, they are quick to finger-point anyone who has a contrary opinion or acts differently from them. In essence, a finger-pointing bypass is procrastinating. They find fault in others instead of working to correct and improve themselves.

#10: Prayer Bypass

Finally, a prayer bypass ignores their responsibility. Instead, this person entrusts a higher being to deal with their problems. For example, this person will pray about a sickness they have without taking any steps to seek medical attention.

What Next?

Does any of the above types of spiritual bypassing resonate with you? Here are some tips you can use to stop this negative tendency: –

#1: Be Open Minded

Know that all spiritual seekers are human beings, hence, bound to make mistakes at some point. Then, be willing to learn and receive correction from others.

#2: Deal with Any Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance arises when our beliefs are challenged or misaligned with reality. You will experience cognitive dissonance as your change your attitudes and beliefs from spiritual bypassing. That is, you may feel guilty, anxious, or ashamed for letting go of your thoughts that do not align with what you now know to be true.

When this happens, you should examine your life for areas that do not add up. For example, you should question a narcissistic leader who preaches compassion but uses physical abuse against you.

#3: Seek Honest Feedback from Others

Discuss spiritual bypassing with your friends and loved ones. Let them tell you what they see in you that suggests that you could be a spiritual bypass. View the feedback as positive criticism, and use it to grow spiritually.

The Bottom Line

Spiritual bypassing is not easy to detect. It disguises itself as a caring, compassionate person. Take time to evaluate yourself. Acknowledge the tendency and start your healing process.

In our world, everything is conditioned by the principle of cause and effect. This is reflected in many popular sayings: “What you sow, you will reap”, “What you give is what you get”, “what goes around comes around” and so on. But this is just the tip of the iceberg, a simplified understanding of the law of karma, and it is for this reason that some people ask: “Does karma exist?”.

For example, the same action, but performed in different circumstances, can lead to opposite results. And I’m sure you can find lots of examples of how “bad people” never get punished and “good people” always suffer.

In this article, I will share with you spiritual insights on why this happens by taking a deeper look at how karma works and if it’s really as simple as “what you give is what you get”?

If you’re wondering: “Does karma exist?”, this article will help you figure it out!

The Concept of Karma

Let me start with clarifying what karma is.

Karma is a Sanskrit term that literally means “action” or “doing”. In the Buddhist tradition, karma refers to action driven by intention which leads to future consequences. Each action can be analyzed through the prism of the four elements of karma:

• the object of the action;
• motivation;
• the action itself;
• the attitude to the action that has already been completed (judgment).

And only by the combination of all these four elements of karma can you fully determine what kind of action is committed, what consequences it can lead to, and even assume how soon a person will receive a reward/punishment (effect) for his action (cause).

The Four Elements of Karma

#1: The Object of the Action

This is the first thing we evaluate when we try to analyze an action. There is an opinion that our interaction with people, and in general with living beings, is due to karmic connections.

According to Vedic knowledge, anyone we can see, any living being that comes into view, has a karmic connection with us. In your life, you never meet or see people or other living creatures who wouldn’t have a karmic connection with you. Everyone we interact with in one way or another has a karmic connection with us from our past lives. It’s just that the intensity of these connections is different.

For example, a person with whom we just exchanged glances on the street has a weak karmic connection with us, and our parents are souls with whom a karmic connection has been formed over many lifetimes.

That is why in Buddhism, it is believed that we receive the most active and complete retribution for the actions committed against these three categories of beings:

1. our parents;
2. our teachers in the broad sense of this word;
3. enlightened beings.

Meaning, the actions committed against these three categories of beings will have the maximum impact on us. If we do good, this good will multiply many times and, most likely, the reward will be faster than in other cases. If we commit evil against these categories, this evil will multiply many times and the retribution will also overtake us faster.

The sutras tell the story about a woman who donated the last thing she had to the Buddha — her cape. And the Buddha said to the kings and rulers who were present at that meeting: “This woman’s donation exceeds all your donations, for she gave the last thing she had.” And immediately the woman received a reward for her act — everyone who was present at the meeting gave the woman many precious gifts.

Thus, if we perform an action in relation to those people with whom we have a strong karmic connection, the reward for such an act will be much greater and will overtake us faster. It is believed that for the actions that we perform in relation to parents, teachers, and enlightened beings, we will receive a reward in this life. And if we do bad things against them, we will not be able to develop, even if we encounter the most powerful yoga practices.

Therefore, in order to have good karma, remember to always pay respect to your parents, teachers, and enlightened beings. And this respect should be sown not just in your actions but also in your thoughts and words about them (even when they cannot hear you).

#2: Motivation

The second, no less important, component is motivation. Paradoxically, actions can often look the same, but it is the motivation that determines how a given action can be characterized.

For example, I’m sure you’ve heard about brutal methods Zen teachers have been using for helping their students on the spiritual journey. Zen teachers have been using hits, jabs, and shouts to cut off a moment of thought. For the same purpose, they could through away a student from the window. As you can see, the action itself may look cruel, however, the motivation behind the action is noble. The Masters were not hurting their students out of anger or frustration but rather from the sense of compassion.

At the same time, we can see lots of violence in the world coming from anger, jealousy, hate, etc. In such cases, the motivation creates negative karma.

Thus, you can see that the same form of action can have radically different motivations that lead to different karma.

#3: Action

Now let’s talk about the action itself. People often believe that if you have the intention to do something bad but you couldn’t do it due to circumstances beyond your control, then it doesn’t count as a bad action.

However, according to the Divine Law, any action, complete or incomplete, causes the karmic effect.

During the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ (Matthew 5:21) But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” (Matthew 5:22).

Thus, if a person has a desire to kill someone, but does not commit murder, for example, because of physical weakness or because of fear of punishment, it is not at all his choice, but rather it is just a coincidence. And if the circumstances had been different, he might well have carried out his plan.

Jesus also said: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ (Matthew 5:27) But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28)

Again, Jesus is talking about the fact that the inability to commit a vice does not release a person from responsibility.

We should always keep in mind that karma accumulates on three levels: the level of the body, speech, and mind. And if a person in his thoughts “executes” somebody — this is the same as he would do it on the physical level.

This is confirmed even by modern science – according to neuroscientist Jeremy Bennett, our brain does not distinguish real events from our fantasies and reacts to everything in the same way. Karma works the same way!

#4: Attitude to the Action

This is the final stage of creating karma. There is an opinion that even if a person committed the most terrible act against, for example, his parents and his motivation was the vilest, but after committing the act, he realized that he was wrong, and sincerely repented — this will facilitate the retribution for the committed act.

But this rule also works in the opposite way. For example, if a person made a donation, but his motivation was selfish, for example, he learned about the law of karma and purely out of commercial interests decided to donate money so that even more would return to him, then, in this case, such an attitude to the completed action will affect the final result: either the reward for the act will come much later, or in a much smaller amount.

The Philosophy Behind

There are many examples of enlightened beings and great teachers who have committed seemingly immoral and terrible acts. But it is important to understand that they see reality somewhat more broadly and act out of compassion for their students, so they sometimes use various radical means to help them develop.

For example, the story of how the great yogi Marpa “mocked” his disciple Milarepa. And at first glance, it may seem that Marpa was just a sadist. But looking at the situation from the perspective of the situation itself is the same as evaluating the overall picture from one piece of the puzzle. If we consider the entire history of Milarepa’s life, it becomes clear that by his seemingly cruel actions, Marpa freed Milarepa from his karma so that he could develop.

And perhaps the most important thing in our judgment of action is motivation. If we act out of good intentions, then our actions will always benefit others, and it is no longer so important who the objects of our actions will be and what our actions will look like for others.

And if you repent from what you have done, that can ease the accumulated karma. It is important that remorse is sincere and leads to actions that will allow you to neutralize the consequences of your “bad” actions as much as possible.

The reward from our actions, and how quickly the result will return to us, depends on the motivations and intentions mentioned above. And by analyzing your actions from the perspective of these four elements, you can manage your life.

Does Karma Exist?

Thus, karma does exist but the action itself is only the tip of the iceberg, it is only the form behind which the essence is hidden. And if you are judging actions only by the form, you can get only a very narrow perception, which may raise doubts that the law of karma even exists.