Of all the people I met while traveling, pseudo-spiritual pseudo-hippies still fascinate me with immeasurable excitement. Those people are the best way to understand how deceiving, manipulating, and misleading people might be… without even understanding it.
My first encounter with a pseudo-spirituality
When I was a kid, my parents had a friend who called himself enormously spiritual. Well, in his defense, he translated all Ayurveda to my native language and also knew the whole book by heart.
That does not mean that he followed that wisdom.
Of course, he also claimed to be a spiritual person, because he once met Dalai Lama, traveled through India, wore old and messy clothes, and had very little money.
I am pausing the story here to talk about money and spirituality. In my opinion, it is the most stupid and short-minded argument ever made by humans to say that spiritual people don’t need (and cannot have) money. That is what lazy pseudo-spirituals say just to cover their laziness.
If money has any correlation with spirituality, living in modern society, then it is – the more money, the more spirituality.
Sadly, but when you have to think about how to get money for your rent and food, there is no time for self-improvement. It might sound a little ignorant, but that’s reality.
Let’s get back to the story. So, that friend would dress like Buddha, talk about higher material… and steal our family’s silver spoons. He would also borrow books and never return them.
Not to mention that our so spiritual friend would just come to our home to eat all the food and get free stuff.
That was the first time when I understood that it is not the talks and looks that determine who you are, but the actions.
San Marcos la Laguna – place of pseudo-spiritual pseudo-hippies
After 10 years I have encountered even more pseudo-spirituals. You see, I visited San Marcos la Laguna in Guatemala, which is known as a hippies town. Yes, there are a lot of hippies there, but this place also attracted all the pseudo people.
One girl from France proudly told us how she was living from her country's social benefits. “And you are not looking for a job, are you?” we asked. “No, I think job chains my soul,” she would reply. After a few minutes discussion about leeching her country, she would only say “I see that you are not yet spiritually ready to understand me.”
So, we were either trash of materialism… Or she was just a lazy girl, who was too pampered to get a job. You make your judgment.
And then we would meet other people, who would proudly walk, claiming that money is the root of evil and the spirit is what matters the most… while staying at the houses of their friends’ and eating their friends’ food. Hint: the house and the food were bought with money.
But oh my goodness, if you would try to tell those pseudo-spirituals something about reality... They would just freak out and call you a materialist, who was ruined by capitalism.
While my girlfriend was working at the bar in San Marcos, one highly respected pseudo-spiritual pseudo-hippie even tried to steal money from Gabriele’s hand, pretending it was a misunderstanding. You wouldn’t believe how amazing it is to see words and reality moving in separate ways. It always surprises me.
That is how I understood that I am a freaking materialist… and I am proud of it. I am a materialist, who will help people in need rather than use others for my own needs. I am a materialist, who will wear clean clothes and smell good rather than disguise my messy laziness with high material sentences. I am a materialist, who will work for his own food rather than claim his deepness of the soul by leeching on others.
So, visiting San Marcos la Laguna reminded me of a very important lesson of life:
Valuate people by their actions and facts, because if you will listen to a beautiful song of a nightingale, while she will be polluting your soul, it is only on you. If you will let the looks of someone deceive your reality, I am sorry for you. Don’t be pragmatic, but also never be soft with pseudo-spirituality, which is only caused by greed and laziness.
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