There is this tacit conceit–or I would argue misconception–among New Agey sorts, who are usually the ones talking about spirituality, that spiritual growth is about becoming nicer, that it is cheap and easy in important respects, and that those who argue otherwise–those strange souls who wonder in from time to time from the outer cold and dark–are really just being mean.
No: it’s about loving the Dalai Lama, and chanting, and being a vegetarian, and doing yoga regularly, about being nice to everyone, smiling a lot, and generally making no waves at all.
This is part of it, perhaps, but diving deep is a scary animal, and there is no way to sugarcoat that fact.
The deeper you dive, the larger your reactive capacity, and the larger your reactive capacity–the more things you can digest–the greater your spiritual capacity.
To become large, you have to internalize and deal with the fact that this world is often cruel, violent, obscene, and disgusting. You have to look and not look away.
For my part, my view is that any practicing (selling) “spiritual” person who finds the need to rationalize in pathological terms the success of Donald Trump is not really spiritual at all. They can certainly disagree with his policies, and dislike him as a person, but to misunderstand why he felt necessary to 60 million of us signifies they fundamentally do not get how this world works at all, and there is nothing spiritual about that.
Oh, and before that shining soapbox appeared before and invited me to preach, I had intended to mention that inner journeys are, to me, vastly more interesting than outer journeys, although I do get wanderlust at regular intervals. To journey inward you need nothing but curiosity and courage and focus.
Many people travel the world and return largely the same. Me, I want to blossom in one place. Then perhaps I may go experience what all is out there.