When Awakening Meets Ego: The Perils of Monetizing Mystery

Spiritual awakenings can be tender, dazzling, and disorienting. Suddenly the world feels charged with meaning; synchronicities pile up; suffering seems to organize around a deeper coherence. In that liminal glow, a subtle temptation arises: to make the experience a personal identity, to become the awakened one. Many well-meaning people are swept into that current and—accelerated by social media and hustle culture—launch spiritual brands, programs, and “lineages” before the roots have grown. The harm is rarely malicious; it’s often immaturity wearing sacred language. But harm is harm. This is a call to sobriety: to honor the holy by refusing to package it, to recognize money as a tool rather than a talisman, and to remember the Divine comes in many tongues.

The ego’s pivot to specialness

The ego is adaptive; if it cannot win by status or success, it will try holiness. Spiritual experiences—visions, bliss, openings—arrive as gifts. The ego quickly translates them into credentials: “I am special; I must teach.” Early openings can feel like cliffs of certainty. But spiritual maturation often moves in the opposite direction: from fireworks to firewood, from spectacle to service, from “I have the truth” to “I am learning to love.” Without elders, lineage, or sustained practice, the initial lift can calcify into performance: curated authenticity, grand promises, and a subtle superiority masked as compassion. The result is spiritual narcissism—centering one’s own journey as the standard—and spiritual bypassing—using spiritual language to avoid relational, psychological, and ethical work.

Monetizing mystery

Money is not evil; it is a tool. Tools can build temples or traps. The trouble begins when money becomes a proxy for validation, or when sacred knowledge is treated as proprietary product. Charging for time, labor, and logistics can be ethical; selling “access to enlightenment,” trademarking communal practices, or erecting paywalls around healing rites is something else. It turns sacraments into subscriptions. In a market that rewards certainty and charisma, the most confident voice, not the most seasoned heart, often gets amplified. New teachers, drunk on initial praise, upgrade to “high-ticket ascension” funnels, promise guaranteed outcomes, and mistake marketing resonance for spiritual authority. The paradox: the more one tries to own the sacred, the more it recedes; the more one gives it away, the more it multiplies.

Sacred knowledge, generosity, and right relationship

Many traditions insist that wisdom is transmitted, not sold; it’s stewarded by communities of practice, elders, and accountability. If money enters, it should honor reciprocity rather than commodify revelation. There are practical ways forward: ask for support for your time, not for the mystery; offer sliding scales and scholarships; release teachings freely while charging for logistics; tithe proceeds to the lineages and communities that nurtured you; distinguish clearly between your insights and what you received from others. The question is not “Can I monetize?” but “What keeps this relationship clean?” When in doubt, choose generosity. Knowledge has its own dignity; it resists cages.

One-way-ism and the many faces of the Divine

Another trap for the newly awakened is doctrinal absolutism. The Divine, if it is anything, is a master of translation. It appears as silence for some, song for others, law in one place, love in another. Insisting that your map is the territory collapses mystery into ideology. The measure of a path is not its rhetoric but its fruits: humility, compassion, courage, and service. If your awakening leads to contempt for other traditions or to a fantasy of exclusive access, pause. Real depth creates room. It knows the paradox: truth is singular and multiform, rooted and roaming. You do not protect the holy by narrowing it; you honor it by recognizing it in unfamiliar garb.

The algorithm problem

Today’s spiritual marketplace is algorithmic. Platforms reward hot takes, spectacle, and certainty—traits that correlate poorly with wisdom. Parasocial intimacy can be mistaken for pastoral care; “content” can eclipse practice. New teachers learn quickly that outrage and mystique sell better than nuance and apprenticeship. To resist, build friction into your path: practice before you publish, submit to feedback from elders and peers, slow down your claims, and let your life—not your marketing—carry the weight of your words.

A code for the newly awakened

- Keep a quiet period. Let the experience season. Share with mentors before you share with markets.

- Apprentice. Seek lineage, elders, or communities that can correct you—and listen when they do.

- Learn scope and referral. Know what you are not qualified to address; refer to trained professionals when issues exceed your training.

- Treat money as a tool, not proof. Charge for time and logistics; never sell salvation or promise outcomes. Offer sliding scales and scholarships.

- Give back. Tithe to your sources and to the communities you serve. Share a portion of your work freely.

- Build accountability. Create an ethics statement, grievance process, and peer supervision. Publish them openly.

- Keep your day job, for a while. Let financial pressure decrease so discernment can increase.

- Practice saying “I don’t know.” Humility is a safeguard against harm.

Red flags in spiritual entrepreneurship

- Guaranteed transformations, timelines, or “ascension” claims.

- Exclusivity: paywalled access to “the only true method.”

- Demonizing critics, isolating followers from loved ones, or discouraging outside counsel.

- Inflated biographies, false lineages, or plagiarism of indigenous/ancestral practices.

- Upsells that escalate urgency and shame.

- Boundary violations cloaked in “sacred intimacy.”

- Medical or mental-health advice outside competence.

- Trademarking ancient communal rites.

Green flags for seekers and new teachers

- Clear scope-of-practice, informed consent, and transparent pricing.

- Sliding scales, scholarships, and free foundational resources.

- Acknowledgment of teachers, sources, and limits; willingness to be corrected.

- Distinct separation between testimony and doctrine; no guaranteed outcomes.

- Peer review, supervision, and an accessible grievance process.

- Encouragement to stay connected to family, friends, and other communities.

- Emphasis on practice over personality; service over platform.

- Tithing or community reinvestment.

The long work

Awakening is the beginning of apprenticeship, not the end. It asks for integration: therapy to metabolize trauma, ethics to steward influence, study to deepen clarity, and service to ground compassion. It asks us to relinquish the dopamine of being special and accept the dignity of being useful. If you feel called to offer your gifts, great—begin small, give largely, and let time test you. If you are seeking, move slowly, ask hard questions, and measure teachings by their fruits.

The Divine does not need a brand manager. It wants witnesses who become servants, not celebrities; bridges, not bottlenecks. Teach if you must—but first be taught by silence, by community, by the elders at your shoulder, and by the stranger who does not speak your language yet carries the same flame.

I am a global nomad/permanent traveler, or coddiwombler, if you will, and I move from place to place about every three months. I am currently in Peru and heading to Chile in a few days and from there, who knows? I enjoy writing articles, stories, songs and poems about life, spirituality and my travels. You can find my songs linked below. Feel free to like and subscribe on any of the platforms. And if you are inspired to, tips are always appreciated, but not necessary. I just like sharing.

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