Have you ever seen Monty Python’s “And Now for Something Completely Different?”

This collection of their most memorable skits includes one about world’s funniest joke.

We are looking over a disheveled man’s shoulder. He is hunched over a desk scribbling on a piece of paper. On floor of his ill-kept bedroom are piles of crumpled paper, his discarded joke-writing attempts.

The voice-over tells us that man, Ernest Scribbler, is about to write world’s funniest joke.

The writer (Michael Palin) writes joke, giggles, and starts laughing hysterically. Clutching paper, he falls over dead.

His mother (Eric Idle) enters room and is horrified at her son’s lifeless body. She snatches paper from his hand, thinking it is a suicide note.

She reads it, laughs, laughs harder, then laughs even harder, and falls over dead.

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Title: Addiction to Spirituality Author: Margaret Paul, Ph.D. E-mail: mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com Copyright: © 2005 by Margaret Paul URL: http://www.innerbonding.com Word Count: 745 Category: Self Improvement

Addiction to Spirituality Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

Lian had been meditating for many years before consulting with me for his depression. He had been part of a spiritual community that encouraged their members to turn to God through prayer and meditation whenever they were feeling any difficult or painful feelings such as anger, hurt, anxiety, or depression. He had been taught that Spirit would transmute his feelings for him and bring him peace he sought.

Yet Lian was depressed. “I have faithfully practiced what I’ve had been taught, so why am I still depressed? What am I doing wrong?”

Lian was suffering from what is called “spiritual bypass.”

Spiritual bypass occurs when people use their spiritual practice as a way to avoid dealing with and taking responsibility for their feelings. Anything that is used to avoid feeling and taking responsibility for feelings becomes an addiction – whether it is alcohol, drugs, food, TV, work, gambling, spending, shopping, anger, withdrawal…and meditation. If, when a difficult or painful feeling comes up, you immediately go into meditation in hopes of blissing out and getting rid of feeling, you may be addicted to spirituality.

It all depends on what your intent is when you are meditating. People can meditate for two totally different reasons: to avoid pain or to learn about love.