Spiritual bypass

Spiritual bypass

"You cannot bypass your responsibilities of being in the world and your service to the world."

"Many people try to use religion and spirituality as a kind of bypass. They want to leap into a new life without resolving their former life. And of course this is not successful. They simply take their old life into their new life, and they find themselves still living in the same reality even if the appearance of their life has changed."

Bypass in spirituality

"To learn an athletic sport, to learn an art, to learn any kind of skill requires wise instruction. Someone must show you, and someone must correct you as you proceed and try things out for yourself. Your education has also taught you that you must practice what you seek to learn. How obvious this is and yet how much it escapes so many people who attempt to find a quick and easy way to bypass the years of work that are required to build an awareness and to lay a foundation for Wisdom. People say, 'Give me the answer. Show me the method. Give me the secret. I can use it. I understand it. I will not fail with it.' How foolish this is and how unwise."

"So, people say, 'Why do I need a teacher when I have all of this Wisdom built in? I’ll just go to God and bypass all teachers. Teachers are a nuisance, an impediment.' That is fine.You can think that. But it does not change the reality of the fact that your Inner Teachers are initiating you into Knowledge. It just limits your access to them."

"An achievement has two aspects: the first is realization, the second is accomplishment.You cannot separate them.They must happen together. Some people want the realization without the responsibility of the accomplishment. Many people want to experience accomplishment and just bypass the realization. 'Just tell me what it is. I’ll go do it tomorrow. Or maybe I’ll do it tonight, if it is important. Just tell me what it is. Tell me what to do!'"

Further study

• Wisdom from the Greater Community Volume II, Chapter 5: Working with the Mind