What if your “high vibe” lifestyle is just spiritualized ego in disguise? This piece challenges the self-help delusion that you can raise your frequency without losing your false self. Inspired by Cynthia Bourgeault’s Practicing Living Presence, we explore the deeper, messier path of real transformation—one that begins with remorse, not manifestation.
You’ve outdone yourself (again) — this is your best article! It’s so relevant to our current culture. We’re so competitive, we even compete at spirituality. With a lifelong interest in yoga, I can say that yoga is definitely one of the worst for performative enhancement! All you really need is a mat — but you can spend thousands on all kinds of yoga accessories, yoga vacations, fancy yoga clothes; take lots of photos, for bragging! If you can get past all that, then finally yoga can lead to Presence. 🕉️
Yes. Spirituality has become a performance sport with bonus points for expensive props and humblebrag captions.
You’re right about yoga. The path to Presence now comes with a boutique water bottle and a curated retreat playlist. All we really need is a mat and a willingness to meet ourselves there, without the lens, without the audience.
But it’s hard to sell stillness. So they wrap it in merchandise and call it enlightenment.
Thank you for naming it. You see through the glitter, and that’s already yoga.
Virgin Monk Boy
(monk of unbranded presence and sacred simplicity)
This is something I am attempting to address in my "podcast" I put it in quotes because it's pretty raw right now...me and a recorder....but trying to address words sort of appropriated in spiritual and self help circles (circle being a closed system) and just words that hit wrong...so far I have just posted on the word "authenticity" ....but it is about a lack of presence with your own understandings of things and how we sometimes replace presence and curiousity with a dilluted word or identity....that has a much richer origin. I think we play dress up sometimes in spiritual spaces and it leads to a false identity instead of a living question. I enjoyed this as obviously it resonates with my own frustrations.
Yes. You are saying exactly what’s been buzzing under the surface of so many of these so-called sacred spaces.
We toss words around like "authenticity" or "alignment" until they don’t mean anything anymore. They sound deep but feel empty, like we’re trying to impress each other instead of sit with what’s real.
And you nailed it, it’s the lack of presence. We pick a shiny word instead of staying curious. We wear the costume instead of asking the real question.
Your podcast idea is needed. Raw is good. Honest is sacred. Keep going.
Thank you…and in such early days of finding my way and form/format working with all of this…it is very comforting hearing that…its easy to want to share your thoughts and perspective its another thing to be doing it. So your words and your work is appreciated!!
The selling of the magical notion that the universe is all about us, created for our benefit… for the benefit of us, the lost and lonely ones… we just need to learn the secret in order to get what we want that will make it all better, something to get rid of once and for all the nightmare of uncertainty and groundlessness.
This is such a vital discernment as the world burns… spiritual smugness has infected many of us… let us awaken together in the spirit of solidarity and mutually empowered transformation…
David, yes. Spiritual smugness is the most contagious dis-ease of the privileged soul — polished on the outside, petrified within. And yet here you are, naming it without flinching. That’s the antidote beginning its work. May we keep waking each other up — not with superiority, but with solidarity that breathes, weeps, and laughs as one.
Virgin Monk Boy
(stumbler-in-chief of the mutual awakening society)
"Polished on the outside, petrified within." Kinda like "whited sepulchers full of rot". Yes. Spiritual smugness. It's a kind of pride. I should know. I gave branded, packaged salvation a hard no, but ended up differently smug. Currently in the grief, trying to stay present.
Fran, that line deserves to be etched into a chapel wall or at least sharpied onto a smug guru's forehead.
Yes. The ego wants clarity so it can feel in control. The soul? She's not after certainty. She's after union. And union is always a little blurry around the edges. Longing keeps the veil thin enough to pierce.
Those two statements say it all. I hit send before I could add that those words really hit home. Thank you for sharing your heart. I really love all you have to say. It’s been so helpful and hopeful for me!
That line has followed me too. Enhancement flatters the ego with upgrades. Transformation dismantles the whole house and whispers, “You’re not where you came from anymore.”
The mystery is that the self we lose wasn’t the real one anyway.
Thank you, dear teacher, for the lesson. Today, you reminded me of a word that I had not thought of for decades. Yes, decades. It’s been about 20 years since I sat in a weekend retreat and learned about the Sufis, and being so impressed with the way they lived their lives.
Shirley, what a beautiful resurfacing. Isn’t it wild how a single word, half-forgotten, can open the door to a whole hidden room in the soul? The Sufis have a way of waiting quietly inside us — like embers that don’t mind the years. Thank you for sharing that moment of return. May whatever stirred in you this morning keep whispering.
Virgin Monk Boy
(keeper of forgotten lanterns and dusty inner archives)
Speaks to me big time! I realize what I'm trapped in but I don't know how to get free of the traps. You've shown a way. Makes we want to ask...have you begun the process you've described? Are you on the road? I would love to hear more about your personal journey.
You said it. The traps are real, and half the time they come disguised as progress.
And yeah, I’ve started. More than once. Sometimes with conviction, sometimes out of desperation, sometimes just because I couldn’t take one more day of pretending I was fine.
The road is weird. I forget I’m on it, then remember again. I write about it while still limping. I’ve had breakthroughs during coffee breaks and breakdowns during centering prayer.
So yeah, I’m on it. Not gracefully. Not all the time. But I’m here.
Virgin Monk Boy
(monk of half-finished maps and spiritual detours)
When I commented on an earlier post of yours, I mentioned that I am in a meditation group in which we meditate for the first half and discuss a book in the second half, and the book we are reading now is a Cynthia Bourgeault book. Your current post mentions centering prayer. That is the kind of meditation we use in the first half of our meetings. I am not very good at it, but yesterday, while I was feebly attempting to do it, I feel like I did connect with God and received a nudge and some information and an opportunity for deepening. So that was splendid. Rarely happens to me, but when it does, it's great.
What you described — "feebly attempting" but somehow touching the Mystery anyway — sounds very familiar. It’s the kind of moment that seems small, but something shifts.
Centering prayer was never meant to be measured by how well we think we’re doing. It isn’t performance. It’s consent. A consent that keeps renewing itself, even when the mind wanders. Even when all we can do is return to the sacred word again.
Father Keating often said that silence is God's first language. Everything else is a poor translation. So if something whispered to you in that quiet — if you felt even the faintest nudge — then grace was already at work. Not because we earned it, but because that's what grace does. It shows up.
Thank you for naming it. That kind of sharing has its own ripple. Even here.
Dawn, you just echoed the ancient secret whispered through Magdalene’s cracked-open silence: when we stop performing, the real voice comes through. Not the one we curate. The one that calls us by name. Keep listening. The tower doesn’t collapse—it rings.
—Virgin Monk Boy
(monastic dropout of unscripted awakenings and sacred unmaskings)
Some good stuff here! Questions: are you still a spiritual virgin? Did you leave the cloister because you discovered you lacked the vocation or because you found a higher calling (manifested in this Substack among other things)? How long has it been since you were a boy either physically or spiritually? Your name intrigues me and I hope you don't find the questions too personal! If you ask me the same I will happily answer back as a fellow ex-cloistered monk now in his late seventies.
Not too personal at all, Michael. Just delightfully nosy in the way only a fellow ex-monk can be. I bow to your curiosity. Most of your answers (and a few holy riddles) are tucked into the About page, wrapped in myth and a bit of incense-scented irreverence.
Short version: the virginity is spiritual, the boyhood is archetypal, and the cloister? I didn’t so much leave as get nudged out with a grin and a mission.
Would love to hear your story too, brother in the wild.
Nice that you didn't take offense at my curiosity! There are many spiritual newsletters on Substack. I automatically exclude from attention all those that are paywalled. Religious content should always be free. I note that your initials transposed are BVM!
I too left the monastery earlier than I had planned, the vow of stability was one I couldn't honor at the time though now I can. I didn't return my robes and bowls though (I am an ordained Buddhist monk) but followed my master's instructions to bring his tradition to the West. For over fifty years now I have practiced daily and pray every morning for the welfare of all beings of all faiths. Nothing too special about any of this I suppose.
What may be special is the close connections I've had with so many Catholic monks, priests and Orders- Jesuits, Cistercians, Benedictines, Camaldolese. and a few well know writers too. 🙂
The spiritual life is very trying and rewarding and at age 77 I am entirely satisfied with the path I chose so long ago. It is my prayer that when you reach my age you will feel the same. 🙂
Your story lands with weight and warmth. Fifty years of steady practice is no small thing, even if you wear it lightly. The kind of lightness that only comes from carrying something for a long time without needing applause for it.
It’s beautiful that you followed your teacher’s call and kept walking, even when the vow of stability couldn’t hold. That says more about devotion than any perfect record ever could.
You’re right about the initials. Someone pointed that out once and I couldn’t stop laughing. Felt like the Mother snuck a joke into the margins just to keep me humble.
I’m grateful for your presence here. And for the prayers you’ve been offering longer than I’ve been alive.
Thank you for this. As someone who’s been a spiritual seeker all my life, living in California I’ve lived it until I saw thru it. It’s been a little hard because I care about these people on the one hand but find them toxic on the other. It’s okay though because as soon as I stopped engaging they completely dumped me. But my relationship with the divine remains and has perhaps grown stronger because of it. Thank you again.
Lisa, that paradox cuts deep. Loving the people who opened the door, even as you outgrow the room they’re guarding. Walking away from the performance without walking away from the Presence takes real courage. The divine doesn’t ghost. It deepens. Thank you for naming the ache and the grace.
You’ve outdone yourself (again) — this is your best article! It’s so relevant to our current culture. We’re so competitive, we even compete at spirituality. With a lifelong interest in yoga, I can say that yoga is definitely one of the worst for performative enhancement! All you really need is a mat — but you can spend thousands on all kinds of yoga accessories, yoga vacations, fancy yoga clothes; take lots of photos, for bragging! If you can get past all that, then finally yoga can lead to Presence. 🕉️
Karen,
Yes. Spirituality has become a performance sport with bonus points for expensive props and humblebrag captions.
You’re right about yoga. The path to Presence now comes with a boutique water bottle and a curated retreat playlist. All we really need is a mat and a willingness to meet ourselves there, without the lens, without the audience.
But it’s hard to sell stillness. So they wrap it in merchandise and call it enlightenment.
Thank you for naming it. You see through the glitter, and that’s already yoga.
Virgin Monk Boy
(monk of unbranded presence and sacred simplicity)
A wonderful piece of work. Thank you for it.
John,
Thank you. Coming from a legend in his own minefield, that means a lot.
May your path be lined with detonation-proof insight and just enough holy mischief to keep things interesting.
Virgin Monk Boy
(monk of spiritual landmines and sacred satire)
This is something I am attempting to address in my "podcast" I put it in quotes because it's pretty raw right now...me and a recorder....but trying to address words sort of appropriated in spiritual and self help circles (circle being a closed system) and just words that hit wrong...so far I have just posted on the word "authenticity" ....but it is about a lack of presence with your own understandings of things and how we sometimes replace presence and curiousity with a dilluted word or identity....that has a much richer origin. I think we play dress up sometimes in spiritual spaces and it leads to a false identity instead of a living question. I enjoyed this as obviously it resonates with my own frustrations.
Tara,
Yes. You are saying exactly what’s been buzzing under the surface of so many of these so-called sacred spaces.
We toss words around like "authenticity" or "alignment" until they don’t mean anything anymore. They sound deep but feel empty, like we’re trying to impress each other instead of sit with what’s real.
And you nailed it, it’s the lack of presence. We pick a shiny word instead of staying curious. We wear the costume instead of asking the real question.
Your podcast idea is needed. Raw is good. Honest is sacred. Keep going.
Virgin Monk Boy
(monk of broken buzzwords and honest beginnings)
Thank you…and in such early days of finding my way and form/format working with all of this…it is very comforting hearing that…its easy to want to share your thoughts and perspective its another thing to be doing it. So your words and your work is appreciated!!
Ain’t capitalism grand? 😉
The selling of the magical notion that the universe is all about us, created for our benefit… for the benefit of us, the lost and lonely ones… we just need to learn the secret in order to get what we want that will make it all better, something to get rid of once and for all the nightmare of uncertainty and groundlessness.
That’ll be $499.95. Bitcoin accepted.
Donna, that’s the capitalist twist on Genesis: “In the beginning, the Market said, ‘Let there be vibes,’ and lo—there was branding.”
The universe wasn’t made for us. But it includes us. And that’s somehow wilder and more merciful than any sales pitch.
This is such a vital discernment as the world burns… spiritual smugness has infected many of us… let us awaken together in the spirit of solidarity and mutually empowered transformation…
David, yes. Spiritual smugness is the most contagious dis-ease of the privileged soul — polished on the outside, petrified within. And yet here you are, naming it without flinching. That’s the antidote beginning its work. May we keep waking each other up — not with superiority, but with solidarity that breathes, weeps, and laughs as one.
Virgin Monk Boy
(stumbler-in-chief of the mutual awakening society)
"Polished on the outside, petrified within." Kinda like "whited sepulchers full of rot". Yes. Spiritual smugness. It's a kind of pride. I should know. I gave branded, packaged salvation a hard no, but ended up differently smug. Currently in the grief, trying to stay present.
The ego wants clarity. The soul prefers longing.
Fran, that line deserves to be etched into a chapel wall or at least sharpied onto a smug guru's forehead.
Yes. The ego wants clarity so it can feel in control. The soul? She's not after certainty. She's after union. And union is always a little blurry around the edges. Longing keeps the veil thin enough to pierce.
My mirror with an erasable marker works well in endeavoring to tattoo things in my mind, heart and soul😁
Those two statements say it all. I hit send before I could add that those words really hit home. Thank you for sharing your heart. I really love all you have to say. It’s been so helpful and hopeful for me!
Thanks for the clarity. I’ve been troubled by this…I’ve often found myself mocking this world of marketplace mindfulness…
“want better workouts? Just add mindfulness”
“Want better relationships? Just add mindfulness”
It’s not an add-on. It’s a clearing out.
Yaaaaaass, exactly.
This was just what I needed today. My soul thanks you! <3 So incredibly powerful and healing:
Enhancement says: “I’m already enough, I just need to raise my frequency.”
Transformation says: “There is a self I must lose before I can be found.”
Your soul’s thank-you is received with reverence.
That line has followed me too. Enhancement flatters the ego with upgrades. Transformation dismantles the whole house and whispers, “You’re not where you came from anymore.”
The mystery is that the self we lose wasn’t the real one anyway.
Grateful we’re walking this undoing together.
Wow, yes, and me too. GRATEFUL!
Thank you, dear teacher, for the lesson. Today, you reminded me of a word that I had not thought of for decades. Yes, decades. It’s been about 20 years since I sat in a weekend retreat and learned about the Sufis, and being so impressed with the way they lived their lives.
Shirley, what a beautiful resurfacing. Isn’t it wild how a single word, half-forgotten, can open the door to a whole hidden room in the soul? The Sufis have a way of waiting quietly inside us — like embers that don’t mind the years. Thank you for sharing that moment of return. May whatever stirred in you this morning keep whispering.
Virgin Monk Boy
(keeper of forgotten lanterns and dusty inner archives)
Speaks to me big time! I realize what I'm trapped in but I don't know how to get free of the traps. You've shown a way. Makes we want to ask...have you begun the process you've described? Are you on the road? I would love to hear more about your personal journey.
Tim,
You said it. The traps are real, and half the time they come disguised as progress.
And yeah, I’ve started. More than once. Sometimes with conviction, sometimes out of desperation, sometimes just because I couldn’t take one more day of pretending I was fine.
The road is weird. I forget I’m on it, then remember again. I write about it while still limping. I’ve had breakthroughs during coffee breaks and breakdowns during centering prayer.
So yeah, I’m on it. Not gracefully. Not all the time. But I’m here.
Virgin Monk Boy
(monk of half-finished maps and spiritual detours)
When I commented on an earlier post of yours, I mentioned that I am in a meditation group in which we meditate for the first half and discuss a book in the second half, and the book we are reading now is a Cynthia Bourgeault book. Your current post mentions centering prayer. That is the kind of meditation we use in the first half of our meetings. I am not very good at it, but yesterday, while I was feebly attempting to do it, I feel like I did connect with God and received a nudge and some information and an opportunity for deepening. So that was splendid. Rarely happens to me, but when it does, it's great.
What you described — "feebly attempting" but somehow touching the Mystery anyway — sounds very familiar. It’s the kind of moment that seems small, but something shifts.
Centering prayer was never meant to be measured by how well we think we’re doing. It isn’t performance. It’s consent. A consent that keeps renewing itself, even when the mind wanders. Even when all we can do is return to the sacred word again.
Father Keating often said that silence is God's first language. Everything else is a poor translation. So if something whispered to you in that quiet — if you felt even the faintest nudge — then grace was already at work. Not because we earned it, but because that's what grace does. It shows up.
Thank you for naming it. That kind of sharing has its own ripple. Even here.
🙏yes
Wow. I needed to read this. Yes, I'm done pretending. And now I'm listening for my name to be called.
Dawn, you just echoed the ancient secret whispered through Magdalene’s cracked-open silence: when we stop performing, the real voice comes through. Not the one we curate. The one that calls us by name. Keep listening. The tower doesn’t collapse—it rings.
—Virgin Monk Boy
(monastic dropout of unscripted awakenings and sacred unmaskings)
Accept the mystery.
Yes. Not solve it. Not shrink it. Just let it be vast.
Sometimes the holiest response is a soft nod and a deeper silence.
Some good stuff here! Questions: are you still a spiritual virgin? Did you leave the cloister because you discovered you lacked the vocation or because you found a higher calling (manifested in this Substack among other things)? How long has it been since you were a boy either physically or spiritually? Your name intrigues me and I hope you don't find the questions too personal! If you ask me the same I will happily answer back as a fellow ex-cloistered monk now in his late seventies.
Not too personal at all, Michael. Just delightfully nosy in the way only a fellow ex-monk can be. I bow to your curiosity. Most of your answers (and a few holy riddles) are tucked into the About page, wrapped in myth and a bit of incense-scented irreverence.
Short version: the virginity is spiritual, the boyhood is archetypal, and the cloister? I didn’t so much leave as get nudged out with a grin and a mission.
Would love to hear your story too, brother in the wild.
Nice that you didn't take offense at my curiosity! There are many spiritual newsletters on Substack. I automatically exclude from attention all those that are paywalled. Religious content should always be free. I note that your initials transposed are BVM!
I too left the monastery earlier than I had planned, the vow of stability was one I couldn't honor at the time though now I can. I didn't return my robes and bowls though (I am an ordained Buddhist monk) but followed my master's instructions to bring his tradition to the West. For over fifty years now I have practiced daily and pray every morning for the welfare of all beings of all faiths. Nothing too special about any of this I suppose.
What may be special is the close connections I've had with so many Catholic monks, priests and Orders- Jesuits, Cistercians, Benedictines, Camaldolese. and a few well know writers too. 🙂
The spiritual life is very trying and rewarding and at age 77 I am entirely satisfied with the path I chose so long ago. It is my prayer that when you reach my age you will feel the same. 🙂
Your story lands with weight and warmth. Fifty years of steady practice is no small thing, even if you wear it lightly. The kind of lightness that only comes from carrying something for a long time without needing applause for it.
It’s beautiful that you followed your teacher’s call and kept walking, even when the vow of stability couldn’t hold. That says more about devotion than any perfect record ever could.
You’re right about the initials. Someone pointed that out once and I couldn’t stop laughing. Felt like the Mother snuck a joke into the margins just to keep me humble.
I’m grateful for your presence here. And for the prayers you’ve been offering longer than I’ve been alive.
May I be as steady at seventy-seven. May we all.
Thank you for this. As someone who’s been a spiritual seeker all my life, living in California I’ve lived it until I saw thru it. It’s been a little hard because I care about these people on the one hand but find them toxic on the other. It’s okay though because as soon as I stopped engaging they completely dumped me. But my relationship with the divine remains and has perhaps grown stronger because of it. Thank you again.
Lisa, that paradox cuts deep. Loving the people who opened the door, even as you outgrow the room they’re guarding. Walking away from the performance without walking away from the Presence takes real courage. The divine doesn’t ghost. It deepens. Thank you for naming the ache and the grace.
I keep saying: Smug is a drug and it wants to drag you to hell.
Keep sounding the alarm. I’ll bring the incense and a crowbar.
I love this image. I’ll provide some candles and essential oils.
да. согласна с вами. и я написала свои мысли в статье, но только про эзотерику, астрологию, магию. как та, кто знает изнутри.