The Dark Side of the Quest for Enlighenment

Enlightenment. Spiritual growth. Personal fulfillment. While many people pursue these aspects of growth, is there a dark side to this quest?

The following is a text version of this posting.

It’s a multi-billion-dollar industry.  People who are rich and poor alike spend huge sums of money on it.  What do they get out of their investments?  That’s difficult to measure.  But it seems to me that if people were really getting what they are paying for, then the world would already be a much better place.  Instead, people are more entrenched in their narrow worlds defined by fixed beliefs, often feeling threatened by views and opinions different from their own. 

People spend all kinds of money to be enlightened, to experience peace and fulfillment, to achieve some sort of well-being and in the process are no better off than when they started.  In fact, some may be worse off.  I understand this as the dark side of the business of enlightenment.

The business of enlightenment:  by that, I mean all the goods, products, and services sold that offer people the promise of fulfillment, peace, happiness, and, yes, enlightenment and insight.  People are thirsty.  They seek out purveyors of promises who present themselves as religious leaders, priests and gurus, spiritual teachers and readers, and individuals with special insight or power.  This is nothing new.  This has gone on for millennia.  The difference is that today people get rich from it.  Some also promise that if you follow their teachings, their principles, you’ll get rich, too. 

The dark side of the quest for enlightenment is typically built on the premise that the purpose of spiritual practice and prayer is your own fulfillment.  In other words, your practice of mindfulness, meditation, chanting, and prayer is to bring you peace.  That’s the goal.  It’s all about you.  Well, yes, inner peace is a benefit of spiritual practice, but it’s not the main point.  The main point is your growth to wholeness.  In that process, you’ll experience greater peace and happiness, but also old wounds will need to be healed.  Further, you’ll grow in compassion and want to be an active part of healing the world around you.  Authentic spirituality and spiritual practices aren’t about what you get out of it.  Instead, they change us so that we are sources of peace and compassion for others and the world.

One significant danger of the enlightenment industry is that people are told that if anything disturbs their peace, then it should be removed from their lives.  People who disturb your peace are labeled as toxic.  Those relationships should be ended.  Others who do not grow with you and at the same pace as you are simply holding you back.  Move on without them.  In this process, the dark side of the quest for enlightenment leads people to greater isolation than they experienced before.  They become more focused on their ego and sense of self-importance while becoming more detached from others.  They become, in a sense, more fragile and unable to tolerate day-to-day life.

Authentic spiritual growth is characterized by our growth in compassion.  It’s about becoming selfless and living with a deeper sense of connection with others and the world.    As our spiritual lives deepen, our capacity for compassion also grows, enabling us to experience compassion for all living beings.  That means that we acknowledge that we and all other people have shortcomings.  To that end, the limitations of others are often opportunities for us to grow.  As Sufi mystic Rumi once wrote, “If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?” 

Are you buying into the enlightenment industry?  Do you believe that the goal of your spiritual practice is to give you peace while separating yourself from others who challenge your comfort zone?  Is your spiritual practice about attracting wealth, power, opportunity, or privilege? Well, if it is, it sounds like you believe that spirituality is all about you.  That’s the message of the enlightenment industry.  You probably have embraced the dark side.