Many people go to yoga and kirtan gatherings as a part of a spiritual practice. I would like to approach them the same way, but I am scared to end up sucked into yet another belief system that makes me feel not good enough, always striving for some level of perfection I can never reach, being grossly aware of just how inadequate I am. I struggled for many years to gather enough courage to leave pentecostal/evangelical Christianity for those reasons. I am still healing from that toxic indoctrination. I don’t ever want to go back.
I admit I long for a belief that supersedes the physical world, a spiritual connection to something much larger than myself. Being at Kirtan Soul Revival’s kirtan Saturday night reawakened that longing in me. But tying myself down to the teachings of a swami or being the devotee of some deity reminds me too much of joining an evangelical/pentecostal church, otherwise known as the cult of some preacher’s personality, then trying to serve a god that is said to love me, yet demands I be someone I am not in many ways. The thing I like about being a member of my current Christian church is how I can quietly exist within the community with my own personality, questions, doubts, and so on, without feeling like I am crushed under the weight of expectations of conformity. Granted, the Jesus and God talk sometimes makes my soul itch ever since I evolved into agnosticism, but it isn’t overpowering like it was in my past churches.
This is another situation where I need to simply have a relationship with my desire/longing. Rather than struggling against it, I need to sit with it, accept it, and find a way to relate to it while still being authentically me.