Narcissistic spirituality

A person who loves himself more than he loves anything or anyone else in the world, is a narcissist. Yet there are those who fall in love with them. Why? Because despite their selfish self-love, they can also be charming, appear confident and attractive. All these attributes will slowly wane as you begin to live with them and experience them day in and day out. Narcissistic personality disorder can be challenging. A narcissist is either insecure and diffident with low self-esteem and masks these by acting superior. Or he has a superiority complex as he thinks he is an exalted being, several cuts above the rest. The usual signs are arrogance, grandiosity, lack of empathy, exploitativeness, aggression and having a constant need for affirmation and admiration, says an article on narcissists by Jeffrey Kluger in Time magazine. A narcissist expects the world to revolve around him.

Interestingly, there is something called a spiritual narcissist. He is one who thinks he is so enlightened that he knows it all, and is often critical of those who have not arrived there yet. He insists that he is more spiritually advanced than others-at least, this is what they believe and their arrogance shows. Such a self-styled, self-appointed spiritual leader is full of himself, delusional, megalomaniacal-and these warning signs are there for all to see. He tries to control and manipulate. He is insufferable. Psychologist Wiliam James points out that self-enhancement through spiritual practices can fool us into thinking we are evolving and growing, when in fact all we are growing is our ego.