Spirit ™

I keep coming across various websites and advertisements where individuals are trademarking a supposed spiritual path, activity or exercise. Surely this is the height of delusion, arrogance and greed. It is contrary to the basic principal of spiritual practice which is to share. It reminds of the Catholic church in the middle ages which required you to give money to a priest in order to be saved. i.e. you need to bribe a middle man to receive God's grace!

The way I see it, the ™ phenomena tends to happen when a person has not reached any depth within a spiritual system. They then alter the practice (which they don't understand in the first place) and put a personal spin on it which then gets trademarked. This then not only gets marketed as the next thing since sliced cheese, but also a big secret which is available to you if you part with large sums of your money.

Unfortunately most people aren't prepared to admit(even to themselves) that they are being had and go into a state of denial. ' I feel so wonderful, its really working...' only to wake up ten years later finding themselves no better off then they were before.

My suggestion is that if you see anything spiritual being trademarked; run the other way!