Spiritual Competition

When you find yourself hanging around those who are on a path to enlightenment, we all have different talents, gifts, and special abilities, yet here we are, all sharing space, looking forward, and each trying to make the next step on our journey in an effort to get us from where we are to where we want to be, or closer to the desires of our hearts.

If we’re doing it right, if you’ve gathered with someone who is on their path on their own journey, that other person will have some similarities to you but be completely different in many ways. While you share a common destination: Your Highest and Best, your individual journeys and should be so-o different, and where you’re going, and how you will get there are different as well.

Back in the day, when I first started in the ministry, I found myself face-to-face with this issue of spiritual competition, and comparison.

Now, I had seen this being a problem in church projects I’d been involved in the past, and I determined that if I had a chance to be in a position of influence, to lead a church, I would have a strict policy against spiritual competition.

So, there I was, proudly leading a group of people, and every one of them agreed not to participate in spiritual competition.

Any idea how my vision came to fruition?

Yeah, it didn’t. It was a total pipe dream.

As much as I wanted to see everyone loving and accepting everyone the same. As much as I longed to lead a group of people who loved and accepted everyone just as you might love a family member. You love your sibling who may choose a different path, like I love my siblings.

It doesn’t matter to me; blood is the love-bond that can’t be broken. My relatives can do whatever they want, whether I agree with it or not, and I will fully support and love them. That’s what I expected.

Have I ever talked to you about expectation imposition? Yeah, you can have the best ideas and expectations, but sometimes things just don’t turn out the way you had planned.

Here I was surrounded by people who agreed, they promised the would do this. Yet, there they were making their own social groups. The university attendees grouped over here. The technically-inclined gathered over there. The artists were over there. Single parents were over there. The servant-hearted were over there, and the smokers were out in the parking lot.

On the surface, not so bad, because like-minded individuals are attracted to each other, and you want to hang with the people who you have things in common with.

And as soon as these groups started to form, I could hear the murmuring of the comparisons between the groups, and how our group was better than their group, espousing superiority.

That was at the basic level, but deep underneath that, spreading like a cancer amongst my fold, was each individual fighting for their own spiritual superiority, in a sense, stabbing their brethren, those within their own group in the back.

Sometimes I heard it all in specific detail in private counseling sessions, while others were stealthier in their spiritual competition and judgment of those amongst our sacred family. Not dissimilar from high school.

Nonetheless, there I was. Disappointed, feeling as though I failed.

Here it was standing me in the face: The enemy of mankind’s potential: Division and Separation.

I just don’t understand the need to exert superiority over others. Even back then, I thought we should be able to be all different and still the same, loving each other without judgment.

Once you make a statement, like, “I am more enlightened than…” (fill in the blank) or “awakened” or more “spiritually mature,” it’s a pretty good indicator, that you are not where you think you are.

Spiritual growth is not about comparison, it is not a competition. It is a uniquely individual journey, and if you’re here, experiencing life in the 3D, you are just like the rest of us.

So, get over it, and get off your high horse, and think about learning humility, for none of us are better than anyone else and we’re all in this together.