We’ve talked recently about bypass in the last several episodes as seeking to only feel bliss, to avoid the messiness of a human life and human emotions. Which can bring up the idea that maybe we really need to double down on the grittiness of life in order to be on a genuine path. What about when suffering becomes the bypass of choice- as always, unconsciously and in innocence- we can subconsciously emphasize the struggle. Or over-tolerate the struggle. In which case we lose access to joy, to ease, to the nourishing movements of life. We talk about the expectations and projections that our paths and lives should look a certain way and how that can play out at the two poles of the bypass pendulum. We also discuss how to discern what habits, expectations, and projections are operating in us, and how to relax into unfolding rather than manage ourselves into what we think it “should” look like.

Amoda Maa is a contemporary spiritual teacher, author, and speaker. After years of spiritual seeking, meditation, and immersion in psychospiritual practices, an experience of the dark night of the soul led her to a profound inner awakening. Her teachings are free of religion and tradition, and she brings to them a deep understanding of the human journey, born out of her own experience.

Amoda is the author of several books her newest being Embodied Enlightenment, a book that Brooke and I both loved. It is about the journey of being fully awake and fully human, and we highly recommend it.

Amoda offers private meetings and retreats, and is a frequent speaker at conferences and events. To find out more about Amoda Maa please go to, visit http://www.amodamaa.com.

In this episode with Amoda we cover so much. We speak of course about being fully awake and fully human, we touch on spiritual bypassing, agendas, tenderness, and common misconceptions about the spiritual path. The whole conversation is a treasure that you can listen to over and again.

Today we’re diving into the issue of spiritual bypass. As I mention in the episode, I have beef with how common bypass is held up as what the spiriutal path IS. When in fact, it is in direct opposition to what the path is. As Dorothy Hunt says in her book Ending the Search, spiritual concepts and spirit are not the same thing... It is the use of an idea of spirituality that keeps us unconscious” Or as Vanessa says, bypass is using the spiritual path to avoid your shit. Usually while wearing the identifiers we call “spiritual person”

Now, of course, bypass is something we will all do to some degree as we walk this path. I have done it plenty. So we’re not trying to create vigilance against this thing called bypass, But having a good working understanding of what the path is and what bypass is- and that they are not at all the same thing- can help us to have a deeply meaningful and transformative path and to stop unconcsious harm towards ourselves and to the world.