Spiritual Write-Offs.

As tax season approaches, I cannot help but wonder, can we faithful yogi and yoginis, holistic service indulgers, naturalists, high-vibration seekers, and… well, by now you know if you might slip into one of these categories… write off the spiritual endeavors that we have soulfully undergone throughout 2017? Many of us work through the laws of karma and provide services to others, whether for financial compensation or trade, such as classes, sessions, and treatments. As such, an online “Introduction to Shamanism” venture that might have guided us to new drums and rattles, that smiling or weeping Buddha and those bells and bowls in our cozy nests, should be expense-able. We have perhaps purchased clothing and accessories in order to “look” the role of the spiritual gurus that we are when we arrive to teach seminars and classes – mala beads, the hand-knit cloaks, and musical downloads, MP3s; and what about the computers, phones, and speakers that we require in order to display slides and musically enchant our students? Perhaps you took a vacation this year, even a local one, and met with a legitimate healer, perhaps dined together – did you save that receipt? If you’re plagued with some restless nights as am I, perhaps those sound machines in our tapestry-adorned bedrooms should be considered; and we may have purchased items to help us connect more with nature that weren’t free (like nature) but could provide us some feeling of grounding the convenient and familiar space of our homes. However, not every spiritual quest can be executed from home – the full moon ceremonies, the qi gong circles, the reiki groups that we adore – those require travel, which often takes the form of gas money. If we are indeed certified and/or fully equipped to bring our gems of knowledge to anyone and everyone with whom we meet, certainly we can legitimize these write-offs.

Hold the (cell) phones, though. Where do our core values mesh with all of this? There’s certainly not a line on that Schedule A for “moral code.” For those of us seekers and healers, might we be looking to quantify our spiritual endeavors for the sake of financial benefit and thereby be placing a price tag upon everything that we have seen, done, felt, and integrated over the past 365 days in order to enhance our relationships with our higher selves. Why does this seem so antithetical? Why has the quest for spiritual growth claimed such a high price tag?

Recently, I have seen several fundraising pages online inviting friends and family to contribute monetarily to the building of spiritual sanctuaries, to air travel, room, and board in to Peru for the acquisition of indigenous healing medicines, and to the cost of obtaining certifications in personal quests toward divinity. I have shied away from assisting, citing my moral that the journey toward spirituality comes from within, not from without. But am I embodying this value in my own life? Are you? In the past, my meticulously collected and legitimately reported write-offs would say no. This invited the question, how are we paying our ways toward enlightenment, and in the process thereby making companies, small businesses, and individuals wealthier due to our quest toward greater union with our higher selves? Certainly not all endeavors are dispensable, and I certainly would not be where I am today without the finances from my wallet and guidance from gurus that I have compensated. However, if we have voted for spirituality with our dollars, have we also voted with our souls?

“The best things in life are free.” I’m not sure who first coined this slogan, but I do believe this. I believe that we are all wiser beings for our ethereal endeavors and even our financial expenditures. But is the goal to be wiser? Or is the goal to transcend our psychological realms and to feel something deeper and more soulful, something that we cannot quite put into words, perhaps because we have not yet found “it.”

My soul goal this year is to spend $0.00 on my spiritual growth. Perhaps I will find next year that I am exactly where I am right now, or perhaps I will feel a higher vibration that confirms my gut intuition that I have been going about this in a more societal and less sacred manner. If you care to join me, or even to raise personal awareness about finances written off for spiritual growth, please do, as we are all in this together. We have nothing to lose in our journeys. Maybe, just maybe, we will find that we feel more than happy to write off nothing as we take in everything.

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