Spiritual Highs Come with Crashes.
The mind finds its balance.
I’ve been finding that the more I interact with the local Balinese ceremonies and feel those extended moments of spiritual bliss the more depleted I feel the next day.
Some of this makes biological sense. I’m practicing a state of hyper-awareness and mindfulness for hours on things that are completely new to me.
That’s draining and it focuses a lot of neurochemicals.
I’ve noticed though that the next day is more than just tired. My body and mind find old habits they want to slip back into, things that some may call “grounding” but they’re the old ways of grounding that aren’t as healthy in the long run: eating a ton of food, vegging, indulging.
This seems to be the opposite of the spiritual highs played out the very next day.
As I work more and more with the unconscious in myself and others I notice how much it loves to find a balance.
Spiritual Polarization
The unconscious doesn’t always succeed in securing a balance. Sometimes the ego creates a polarization.
There are those who seek spiritual ecstasy at the cost of all else. They’ll discover transcendent states but often find the rest of life slipping or cut away.
Family and lovers find it difficult to connect when the attention is always on the subtle realm with little to relate to here. Sometimes these loved ones are cut away for their “negativity” or lack of “understanding.”
Jobs may slip through the spiritual seeker’s hands and financial stability may become just one more “worldly” concern. Sometimes the individual is particularly privileged in which case the polarity can continue at full force until something crashes down.
On the opposite end of this polarity is the atheistic materialist with no spiritual concern. They may achieve wonders in the modern world while feeling like something else is missing.
Different systems have applied various methods of referring to the dichotomies. In Ayurvedic medicine vata, pitta, and kapha may determine a person’s “earthiness” versus their ability to take spiritual flight.
In astrology, the concerns of the material are the concerns of the earth, that of the spiritual is the concern of the fire or air elements.
In most systems, we are called to bring a balance to these polarities.
What goes up must come down.
When we allow ourselves to be polarized in our experience we open the door for the world to cause a balance for us. The headlong flight for new spiritual highs runs us into a financial or emotional wall.
Rent comes due or we find we need the people we cut out for being less than perfect.
Or, we achieve career success and find ourselves depressed or alone.
When we work on self-growth and integration we invoke this act of balancing within.
This doesn’t make it easier. The tension between the dualities comes to reside within us and we have to work hard to discover how to strike a new balance.
I haven’t figured that out yet when it comes to the spiritual highs and the following crash. I have suspicions of what might work and I have the hurdle of getting myself to start something new.
Integration is an endless learning lesson not only about what techniques can work but how we can actually get ourselves to do them.
For me, it’s always a matter of testing things out and seeing what works while trying to remember to start small and work my way up.
I think for this one I’ll work on increasing my exercise through yoga, a methodology designed for grounding spiritual states.
What about you?
Is there anything in your life that is currently falling on the world to balance?
Or are there things that cause a swing in you? The balancing of an internal polarity?
Is this disruptive? How can you help yourself find a point of harmony?
Love and share.
I’m starting something new. Writing every day as I put my random thoughts down on binary paper.
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