563. The Key to Accelerating Your Spiritual Growth & Avoiding Spiritual Traps

Kara Goodwin: Hello, welcome to Soul Elevation Guiding Your Ascension to New Heights. I'm Kara Goodwin and I'm excited to be here with you today on Monday, March 9th, 2020. I wanna talk today about your spiritual development, your spiritual evolution, and that's really what it is. It's an evolution. There's really no end point that you're trying to get to.

I was talking about this with a group, uh, yesterday where we were talking about transcendental experiences and. They're amazing when you feel that you've tapped into something that is deep and [00:01:00] eternal and you feel that you have exited the matrix, so to speak, that you are peering into the true reality beyond the illusion and.

It's amazing how those experiences are fleeting, and there's that old adage, you know, what do you do before enlightenment? Chop wood, carry water. What do you do after enlightenment? Chop wood, carry water. We're here having a physical experience, so even when if you get those tastes of. The divine of eternity of infinity, it's still really not, um, it, it's really difficult to hold that [00:02:00] expanded state of consciousness that truly allows you to experience something like that and go about with the practicalities of life.

Because we are here in the physical world and we're having a physical experience, and you may, you may even, um, you know, it, it could be said that that's the purpose of why we had a human experience. It, it is to have. Physical and that the, those beautiful more transcendental experiences are the human us getting a glimpse of what we experience in the spirit form.

But we deliberately came out of that and we're still there. There's still a part of us that's there. It's just that our human consciousness is, um, is not able to. [00:03:00] Access it consciously. I think it's where I think we go there often when we dream or when we're sleeping, I should say. I call, a lot of times I call dreams that I have, uh, you know, dreams, screens, because.

A lot of times I have the sense that there was more going on behind it, but then it seems that there is this, um, form that was put over something else that helps my human mind to be able to, it's kind of a bridge. The dream screen is like a bridge between my human mind and what I'm experiencing at the spirit level.

But all of that to say that even if. You've had a transcendental experience or some transcendental experiences, you always come back and ultimately life happens and, and [00:04:00] I think that that is the point. The point is for your human life to happen. And so how do we utilize the human life in. A way that it helps our spiritual development.

I believe that we are here to experience spiritual development. I believe that our soul decided to come to a human life, and the reason that it chose to do that is because there is opportunity. In the human experience for our soul to grow. And so sometimes some, some humans are, are taking the opportunity to experience their life with a spiritual perspective in favor of growing their soul.

And some people may not look like they're doing that. They may look like they're really caught [00:05:00] up in the human experience and they're not taking any. Any viewpoint from the spiritual, and that might be part of their soul growth. That may be what they came to do as a soul. I'm, I can't say, they may have decided as a soul, I wanna come and have a really intensively physical experience.

I wanna only care about what I look like. I want to. Know what it's like to follow the masses and to always be looking outside of myself for my happiness. I want to feel empty. I want to be obsessed by money, and they came as a soul to experience that in order to realize that. That's not actually fulfilling all of these different markers that we have in our human, at least in Western society.

But really, you know, [00:06:00] I, I don't think we're that unique. Um, but those are the ways that society says that we're gonna be happy and fulfilled is if we have all of these, you know, if we have all the money, if we have power, if we have fame, if we have beauty, uh, if we have youth. Those are the keys to happiness.

And if we have the opposite of any of those, then we're gonna be not having a happy life experience. And so there could be souls that are here that deliberately chose to have that experience so that at a soul level, they could understand the contrast or through contrast. So it's not for me to say that if other people are not.

Interested in spirituality or they're not growing themselves spiritually, that that's not that they're not doing what they came here to do, but for people who do feel that that desire to grow themselves at the [00:07:00] spirit level in a positive way there, I believe that the best way to do that is to follow.

What you naturally are drawn to and pursue that what naturally lights you up inside? And pursue that and follow your joy. This is something that if you've, um, if you ever listened to Bahar, this is Daryl Anka. He channels Bahar. I'm not a huge, I'm not hugely into Bahar, but I know he has a formula. I've actually seen him live a few times and he always talks about the formula, always comes back to the formula.

And I don't know exactly, I think there are maybe like four steps to the formula. I could be wrong, but, but the main crux of the formula. Is, learn what excites you, what lights you up, and do that. [00:08:00] Follow your joy. Follow what makes you happy. And if you are living a life that you are, you know, somewhat spiritually minded, then that should be something that lights you up.

And of course is not detrimental to anyone else. You know, we could always. Play the devil's advocate and say, well, what if somebody really gets off on, you know, knocking other people down? You know, I would say, I would challenge that to say it's not, that's not genuinely making them happy. That's coming from a place of.

Darkness and trauma and, um, them not loving themselves first and foremost to be so focused on tearing other people down. There definitely are people in this world. I remember, um, Swami was Sri Ri Tech, Sri Tewar, who is Par Yogananda's guru [00:09:00] talking about there are people who. Make themselves taller by cutting off the heads of others.

And you know, I, I always found that really powerful. So of course, we're doing things that light us up, but are in favor of life and of in favor of other people lighting up as well. Um, one of the ways, one of the things to keep in mind is, especially early on in your journey. When you start having a spiritual focus and start seeing the world in a spiritually minded way, you might feel new to the scene.

You know, so you're, you're feeling things out. You're, you're listening to different teachers, you're listening to different modalities. You might be reading different books, and some people in organizations have very. Specific protocols. [00:10:00] And I found myself in this situation early on in my path, in fact, a couple of times in my path.

Um, and this is where, you know, you wanna watch out for cults because cults can be, they can be very directive. So you can really feel like, oh, okay, if I just do A, B, C, D every day, then I'm gonna grow spiritually. I'm gonna become enlightened. And while it can be helpful to have somebody telling you what to do and to really feel that you have a, a map laid out in front of you, it can be very easy to be taken advantage of in that, in that case, it can be easy to be siphoned from, but you also eventually, I hope, will recognize that you, that that's somebody else's formula.

And it's not really designed for you. So again, going back to my experience early on in my, in my spiritual [00:11:00] awakening, I joined an organization and they were, they were really nice people and they were following, they were following true spiritual, um, practices and methods, but. It was, it was a, a really different world than what I was li than how I lived and how I saw everybody around me living.

So I had this one part of me that was engaging in the spiritual community, and these people were, um, you know, everything, the, the, the aesthetic of it was. Um, not really. It didn't draw me in. I didn't really like the, the aesthetic. It was just a very homely, folksy, um, kind of vibe. The music that they, they would create music and it would have that [00:12:00] same sort of.

Feel to it that they would do artwork. And there that still had the same, just a, a kind of an old fashioned, um, there, and there were a lot of older people. There was a, it was a different, mostly a different generation of people and then a very folksy style. And I, and funnily enough, I like folk rock. I really like folk rock, uh, music.

But it was just like, it didn't appeal to me. In that sense, it didn't draw me in in that sense, but I felt like I had to like that. So the point isn't that they were wrong and I was right. You know, it's it's style, it's um, it's your preference, right? So there isn't a right or wrong, it's just what I'm drawn to and it's not right for other people.

Like the way that the. Way that I dress the colors I like the way I style, like decorate my home. It's not right or wrong, it's just [00:13:00] more pleasing to me. It's a reflection of me and what catches my attention. It's not right. It's not that I would expect everybody to be interested in the things that I'm interested in to decorate their house the way that I decorate my house or anything.

We're all unique expressions and that's the whole point. When I was learning my spiritual, uh, when I was opening myself up spiritually and I was a part of this group, I equated what I saw with this group with spirituality, and that's not true. It's, there is not. A way to be spiritual. You can be growing spiritually and not have crystals.

You're gonna see a lot of crystals in my house, but that doesn't, you can not be into crystals and be a really [00:14:00] beautiful spiritual person. I have people in my life who are, I can't talk to them about, about spirituality. They're not into it. They, they just. If they go blank, they have no interest in it. And they are beautifully amazing people.

They are so kind. They are so heart focused. They wanna do the right thing. They're, I am sure that in other lives they have been deeply spiritual, but in this life they have no interest in it. But I can see in them that they are a very solid. Person and just because they're not interested in learning about spirituality and they're not interested in spiritual practices, doesn't take away from the amazing spirit that is, that they are embodying.

And again, you know, they've got lifetimes of [00:15:00] spiritual growth. But I, I say that because it's not about your. Appearances. It's not about your preferences. It's not about you adopting, like you listening to spiritual music all the time and, you know, wearing the, the flowing, you know, uh, goddess dresses or I don't even know, like flowers in your hair.

Like, what, what would spiritual people I get, oh, there's that really. Funny guy, what's his name? JP something. Oh, I can't remember what his name is. There's a guy who like, um, does some parodies of like really spiritual, like yogis and stuff like that. And, um, that's, he nails it where, you know, you kind of, the words that you say, the clothes that you wear, like there are ways that we think that we're presenting ourselves in a spiritual way.

And so, especially early on, we may think. [00:16:00] Well, if I want to develop this side of myself, let me look to what other people are doing, what organizations are telling me to do, and I'm gonna form myself around that. But truly, what you're here to do for your spiritual growth is to embody who you are and let that lead.

So again, going back to Bashar, like follow what? Really lights you up and let that be what propels you through life. And that might change, but you know, if you're really into, um, you know, breath work and that really has helped you get a, get your nervous system healed, you found such profound. Results through breath work, then you may wanna learn more about breath work.

You may wanna learn different types of breath work. You [00:17:00] may wanna become a breathwork practitioner, and that may be a way that you not only help yourself because you're learning these different modalities, you're, you're, um, learn finding different people through different courses that you're taking. Um, this is another place where I would say just giving the breathwork example.

It's a great test to yourself. Like, am I comfortable wherever you first learn breath work from, do you feel like they're the only ones who can teach you breath work? You know, are you getting like too narrow? Are you getting kind of into a cult-like mentality where it's like, okay, these are my trusted people who teach me breath work.

I see some other type of breath work that might interest me, but. My group's not teaching it. My group doesn't do it. Watch yourself with that kind of mentality and, and keep yourself open. Keep yourself free where you don't have to turn your back on anybody [00:18:00] and say, oh, well I found a new breath work now and, and I'm just using breath work.

But you can use this for anything. Um. You know, keep yourself open, keep yourself free, and keep yourself curious and you know, go and share your version, what you're picking up from these different groups. Maybe you become a breathwork practitioner and you've got different certifications from different groups that help to build your expertise and.

That may suit you for a few years, and then something else may come and you may want to explore something else. Go deep in that offer that, as you know, add that into your offerings and that is all beautiful and legitimate. Don't pigeon yourself, pigeonhole yourself into. You know, only being one thing, only expressing yourself in [00:19:00] one way.

And kind of going back to that whole, like, just be mindful about, especially early on, if you get involved with any sort of group, who is your. Who you're learning from, whether it's spiritual practices, whether it's some sort of, um, you know, maybe it's yoga, maybe it's, um, uh, learning. I don't know, d you know, different.

Maybe it's a specific spiritual group. One of the things that we, thank you, Ashley. Um. One of the issues that I found myself in with this group that I really trusted was that I asked them a question. I asked one of the elders who'd been there for a long time, um, about the Enneagram. I had just learned from somebody.

About the Enneagram and they'd gotten these amazing results from the Enneagram and they recommended that I should explore it and learn more about myself. And I asked one of the elders what they thought about the [00:20:00] Enneagram and their response was, master didn't, uh, follow the Enneagram and master has all the answers.

And Master was a, an ascended master. Um, and that. I believed them at that time and I respected that. And I didn't look into the Enneagram at that time. And then over time, when I started to wonder if this was a healthy environment, ultimately, if it was a healthy environment for me, that really, um, was that really lit up when I questioned like, is this a cult?

Does it have a cult-like tendency? And the fact that the answer to my question about if this person had ever looked into something like the Enneagram, which was not part of this organization, the answer was [00:21:00] we only pay attention to what this one specific master said. And it felt very limiting and it felt like if I was gonna carry on with this group, I was gonna have to draw myself in and keep my interests and my own.

Um. You know, I wasn't gonna be able to really follow my interests and my joy because I was gonna be very limited. I was gonna be limited to what was on the table, what was in the buffet of this specific organization. And looking outside of it was heavily discouraged. And to me, now that's a red flag. So that's something that you will come across.

If you get involved in organizations, you very likely will come across it. Um, keep them honest. Keep yourself honest in terms of, you know, a lot of times what ends up [00:22:00] happening is that, is MA much better. Like they need more, you more than you need them. You will get to a point where you have potentially learned what they have to offer you.

You have other things to learn and experience that would take you outside of that group, and if they're clutching onto you. And don't want you to look outside. You know, they're discouraging you from looking outside. That to me is a red flag. So the point of all of this is to really allow yourself to be who you are.

Allow that physical human body of yours to be filled. With your spirit, your soul essence, every day ask that pure source light fill you up and that [00:23:00] it radiate through you, and then give yourself the time, the opportunity to feel into that inner guidance. What is it that lights you up? Where are you drawn?

What is it that you really wanna know more about? And follow that. And then let that be your offering. That may turn into your offering. You may wanna end up sharing that with other people. And then you are really living who you came here to be. You are a unique. Beautiful divine being who is here to be a part of something bigger, to be your piece of a divine solution, a divine puzzle, and in order to truly be the exactly what, the divine and the pure source consciousness.

And ultimately, what you came here to do is to really be the [00:24:00] pure expression of who you are. So thank you so much for being here, for watching this and, uh, and bless you, and I'll see you next time. 

Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Soul Elevation. If someone in your life would be inspired or uplifted by what you heard today, please take a moment to share it with them. These are the kind of conversations that ripple out and elevate collective consciousness.

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