Is it all a lie?

A  friend recently posted on Facebook the 5 simple rules to happiness: 

1. Free your heart of hatred

2. Free your mind from worries
3. Live simply

4. Give more
5. Expect less

I responded with praise and conformity. However, I was startled to see the following post from someone I didn’t know:

“I did this for a while, all five. Here’s what happens – you lose touch. The material world’s demands eventually infringe on your peace and you realize that you cannot transcend while still attached to the world. You lose your use of goals and become bound to nothing…and the happiness becomes ignorance of all but the current moment and your passion fails. External suffering makes life move forward, finding internal happiness leads nowhere without a desire to change external circumstance, both must be in balance. Or something.” WOW was my initial response. Ignorance, yeah I guess I can see that. I mean I don’t watch the news anymore because it depresses me and drains my energy. Does that make me ignorant? If we detach ourselves from outcomes then what are we really living for? Can we be highly spiritual beings and still have goals that depend on the world? I look at Gabby and think HELL YEAH! That woman is spiritual, has goals, and success. Does that mean she is still connected to outcomes?

A few days later I had the same sort of conversation with my husband. I insisted that you can be spiritual and still have goals and live a full life. He told me I’d be living in my own world and would lose touch with reality. If I was continuously avoiding our money problems and affirming that we live in abundance (although we don’t) then I am not living in reality, right? He continued that by me changing my perception to happiness and gratitude for the things that I already have, I was acknowledging that I didn’t need anything else and therefore there was nothing to manifest and that was how I was able to achieve peace. I wasn’t actually manifesting anything. Boy, was my head spinning at this point. “I dunno,” I answered, confused

So is this whole spirituality think a lie? Are we just changing our perceptions and affirming our happiness to live in our own inner worlds while detached from the unchanged “real” world? How can I possibly manifest more money when I keep telling myself I have enough? Is manifestation actually a trick? Is the purpose to trick your mind that you already have what you want so that you live in this imaginary-esq world where you have everything? Will flooding my mind with positivity prevent horrible things from happening?? How can this possibly work. I’m starting to doubt the journey. And I don’t want to. For the first time, I was starting to feel connected to something larger and I liked the process. But is it fake?

What are your thoughts?