Not all cages have walls.
Some are woven from incense and Sanskrit.
Some are lined with crystals, teacher quotes, and hashtags about awakening.
And some are shaped like silence.

The most subtle prison is the one we do not know we are in—the one we mistake for freedom, progress, or enlightenment. The spiritual box does not always look like dogma. It can look like devotion. But you will know it is there by the way it shrinks you, slowly, inwardly, invisibly

Here are signs that you may be in a spiritual box, and the beginnings of a way out!

1. You do not trust your own experience anymore

You feel something deep in meditation, see lights behind your eyes, or sense a presence—but you hesitate

You reach for a book
You ask your teacher
You wonder if it is real

If your first impulse is to validate your inner experience through an external source, you have already placed yourself beneath a doctrine. Direct contact with the divine becomes second-guessed. And slowly, your own soul is no longer your authority

2. You speak like a system, not a self

Do you describe every energetic feeling as kundalini
Is every inner image labeled Ajna chakra
Has your intuition become my third eye told me

When your words are borrowed, your experience is filtered. You begin to see only what the system allows you to name. The mystery becomes a script, and the script becomes a box

3. You are afraid to disagree with the teachings you love

True reverence allows freedom. But fear often masquerades as loyalty

If challenging an idea from your lineage makes you feel guilty, disloyal, or less spiritual, ask yourself—is this devotion or dependence
Truth invites questioning. Systems that cannot be questioned are systems of control

4. You feel spiritually stuck, but blame yourself

You are meditating every day. You are following the teachings. You are doing the work
But something is not moving

Instead of questioning the method, you question yourself

Maybe I am not pure enough
Maybe I need more discipline
Maybe I am not ready yet

These are the echoing walls of the spiritual box. The method becomes unquestionable. And your inner freedom withers under the weight of subtle shame

5. You no longer have spontaneous experience

Remember those first moments of awe—when light would appear behind your closed eyes, unbidden
When you would feel warmth in the chest or a sound in the silence that no one had taught you to expect

Spontaneity is a mark of truth

If everything you experience now feels expected, conditioned, repeatable—it is possible the box has closed

The way out is to trust what arises

The Yoga of the Inner Light begins not with following, but with watching

Watching the inner field
Watching the flickers of phosphene light
Listening to sounds that come without cause
And slowly, discovering a path that grows from within, not from books

It is not anti-tradition
It is pro-authenticity
It is not rebellion
It is return: to the radiant intelligence that is already glowing behind your eyes

Shunyam Adhibhu