A Good Spiritual Shit

Scott Bradley

Ahhh, that feels better.

There's nothing like a good spiritual shit to lighten the load.

Let's hold our noses and take a look before we flush. Goodbye Brahman. Bye God. Later, Buddha. Thanks for coming Universal Mind. It's been fun, Dao. So long Atman, True Self, Original Nature, buddha-nature, Immortal Soul. Thanks for coming. Thanks for going. Bye. Flush.

As much as I enjoy reading, thinking, writing and imagining things spiritual, it can all get to be too much after awhile. All these heavy, substantive, true concepts start to weigh one down. It's like eating; it's enjoyable and necessary, but unless one also passes most of it, the system breaks down — or blows up.

I can usually tell when I'm getting spiritually constipated; most everything I read is just too full of shit to endure. Recently, I tried to educate myself in Sufism. I couldn't manage to get past the secret teachings for the initiated only in the religion which is no religion because it is the truth in every religion. I just put down a book on Hinduism (Vedanta). I couldn't get past the sacred scriptures which not only guide us, but also guided Brahman before we ever were. I couldn't get past abnegation of self, the negation of the body and its senses, the advocacy of 'right action' and the need to be ‘morally pure’. Etc. It’s my problem; I know this. But why continue to wade in what, to my constipated mind, seems like a sewer of conceptual and religious belief?

And I start to ride a negative wave. Sorry. Time to feed on what I know. Time to suckle on nothing.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.