Spiritual Discernment

In this world, there is no shortage of snake oil salesmen, i.e. people who want you to commit your time, money and energy to their ideas, practices or products, and you may not always end up benefitting quite as much as they would like you to believe.

A true student of life must learn to discern between what is beneficial and what is detrimental in order to get the best use out of his or her time, money and energy.

Investigate Before You Invest

Discernment requires us to investigate before we invest. If somebody is asking for our money, time or energy we must ask ourselves questions like:

• Who will benefit?
• What’s in it for me?
• Is this a fair exchange of energy?
• What are the likely future benefits?

It seems to be hardest to discern when we are being shown ideas to live by, especially when we are feeling uneasy, sad or vulnerable, and when we are looking for spiritual teachers because then we usually do not have enough emotional strength, information or capability to be able to discern.

We would probably be better off if we stopped, pondered, and intentionally decided on our course of action before we made any such major decisions.

Choosing a Spiritual Teacher

Many teachers promote themselves as gurus, spiritual masters, religious leaders or true enlightened beings. No matter what ideology they follow, it is good to have the following questions in mind when choosing teachers or spiritual masters to study with:

• Do they follow their own teachings (most of the time)?
• Do they have a sense of humor (i.e. don’t take themselves too seriously)?
• Do their teachings correspond to the core concepts and interspiritual truths of the world’s wisdom traditions?
• Are their practices time-tested and can one be trained to use them?

Having answered these questions to a satisfactory degree, one must also learn to discern against perfection. This is difficult, but no matter how evolved a person or teacher seems to be, the human condition does not seem to allow for perfection.

It is a sad testimony to our culture, but human beings tend to look for spiritual teachers that are dead from the neck down, teachers with little or no personality, sexual or material desires. Looking for a perfect teacher can actually prevent one from learning from a sincere and less perfect soul (see the metaphor of a stain on a white piece of cloth).

Choosing Spiritual Practices

The sheer magnitude of spiritual practices that we can choose from is overwhelming. One cannot possibly do them all unless one is intent on quitting one’s job and leaving one’s family. Then the question then becomes: Which practices should one commit to and which practices can one do without (for now)?

It is good to note that doing fewer practices on a regular basis can turn out to be better in the long run than trying to do more practices with a scattered focus.

Digging Your Spiritual Well

The metaphor of digging a well can help in this respect. If you were digging for water you would (a) find the most likely spot for water, (b) start digging, and (c) keep digging until you find water. It wouldn’t make much sense to continually change spots. That approach would leave you with a bunch of shallow holes and no water.

That said, there comes a time in the process when you must ask yourself if all the digging is worth it. If many others have dug in a similar spot before you and found water or you have other similar evidence, then it is best to continue. If not, then stop and find a new spot where you are more likely to find what you are looking for.

The same goes for spiritual practices. Choose practices that have been time-tested, where others have gone before you and reported that they found what they were looking for.

Once you’ve decided on a practice, stick with it until you experience the benefits. If you are engaged in constant spiritual window shopping, i.e. continually changing disciplines on the merit of their popularity, you are never likely to practice long enough (dig deep enough) to really experience what the practice has to offer.

A General Question

A general question to remember before you engage in any new activity or commitment is: Is this in line with my purpose and goals in life?

If the answer is yes, by all means, participate. However, if the answer is no, then you will be wasting your time and energy, diverting focus away from what matters most to you.

Gudjon Bergmann
Interfaith Minister, Author, and Speaker
Founder of Harmony Interfaith Initiative

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This column was curated from my book titled, Living in the Spirit of Yoga

Picture: Pexels.com CC0 License