New Age Spiritual Movement Frustrations

[Sacred Fool]

More important or perhaps essential, to me, is to free oneself from the dogma and indoctrination of human constructs. An open-mindedness and willingness to question beliefs is essential to reaching any higher understandings of what love and wisdom may actually be in the larger view. In this regard, we as humans, and especially spiritual seekers (LOO, philosophical, religious, or otherwise), seem to want to make all sorts of judgments about what is loving and what is not.

I fly into this matter using a different approach.  I begin internally with something like Beauty--beauty of spirit, for example--and purposely experience this at different levels of consciousness, i.e., at the level of different energy centers and energy bodies.  As one learns to do this and can move gradually further upwards, the experience of "Purified" consciousness--or emotion--becomes more apparent.  Truly each level is simply different in its own context, not better, but the experience does become increasingly sublime (purified) as one moves up the scale, so to speak.

Maybe the language breaks down here, but language is just a means of articulating thought and feeling, and we can use it as best we can.  Doing the above, one first experiences beauty as something like (close to) an emotion, after that, one may think about it, appreciate it, etc.  In that sense, the thinking (self reflection) offers embellishment to the experience.  One can see that as negative (demeaning) or positive (enhancing).  Take your pick.

As to questioning societal constructs, I see that as an additional level of work.  Personally, I try not to take all that stuff too personally.  It's there to enjoy by those who are captivated by it.  Otherwise, as you say, it can be discarded as one becomes aware of one's entanglement in it, as you suggest.