Vagueness In Spirituality, Anyone else notice this Options

I have been noticing a common practice with anything "spiritual", be it one of the many yogas or occult groups or religions. They are all vague about what joining or practicing will do/accomplish/benefit. "Make you life better" sound nice but it is not much to go on. Perhaps I am spoiled, having come from academia where everything is laid out with what is taught, why and what you can get out of the course.

Recently while talking to several priests, Taoist and Buddhist, about empowerment, classes and what I can expect, I was met with almost dismissive vagueness and tired cliches. After talking with them I am just as uninformed as when I started - having no better idea of why such and such a thing is done or what it enables. Looking back, I find a lot of my current practice where not explained, and lacking that it took much longer to gain anything from them, only after long practice did I have enough knowledge to judge their worth. Indeed many that look promising turned out to be useless to me after months of work.

Vagueness in spirituality is necessary to some existent, but with a little application the people who run these orders, and organizations could explain things clearly.

This post has been edited by fatherjhon: Apr 5 2012, 10:06 PM

It may be because it is so individual for each person. There is a version of one's 'karma' in any of these practices... even in the grimoires there's usually a 'caveat' to the effect of "Only with the assistance/cooperation of the almighty can you accomplish these things". So I think that there are cases in most of the practices where the priests/initiators have to be vague; that there is a basic level of improvement you can derive, but that the rest is really out of their hands and to some degree unpredictable.

On the other hand part of the deal is to simply buy into the fact of 'faking it till you make it' which is, to be honest just, just partly true when dealing with matters such as these. However, for those of us who are seeking a truer and more personal level of discipline and power we must look at many of these teachers with a very guarded skepticism. Those that fail to offer not only lucidity but fluidity in their methods are probably not worth taking much from on a whole...

Most everything I know about Buddhism came from the fake it till you make it approach. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I do not have an issue with vagueness in outcome or even the ambiguity of what we learn, so much as I take issue with spiritual teachers asking for commitments to a path/program without providing information. Particularly on what the intended outcome is, and what I will give up by doing such and such a practice. A lot of magick that has taboos, which if kept will yield some power or effectiveness, and by doing so prevent you from using some other power. Vajrayana for example aims you at Bodhisattva which prevents for the most part tantric shakti practice. Then there is always the possibility that there is an aspect of the practice that would have caused me to avoid it if I had known.

That is where I find vague phasing like "this practice doesn't prevent you from doing anything, they are all choices" very unhelpful. naturally there are choices but being unenlightened, uninitiated, and uninformed I need help evaluating the consequences of such and such a practice. Perhaps my real concern is that spiritual/occult/religious work is supposed to be empowering, but the people who safe guard that empowerment don't empower you to make informed decisions about your spiritual path. Forcing you to commit time, energy and faith in something that, you are told, will make your life better, though any determination on that has to be made long after the fact.