Pitfalls on the Path

The devil has snares for everyone whatever their beliefs or approach to life. Readers of this blog will be well aware he has snares for materialists, atheists and all those for whom the world, the flesh and the devil are the focus of attention. But he also has snares for religious or spiritual people of all types. Anything to which one gives intellectual or emotional allegiance can be used as an instrument of corruption if the thing, whatever it is, becomes more important than God, and religion can be a vessel for human sin just as much as anything else. 

It's easy to see how those who deny God can be led into sin. But those who accept him can be too. For instance, people who reject modernity can become attached to traditionalism forgetting that God makes all things new and that while tradition serves to preserve the best of the past it must always be revitalised if it is not to fall into sterile rigidity. Those who see the errors of feminism can fall into the opposite error and believe that a return to the way men and women interacted in the past is required, failing to take into account that consciousness has evolved and all human beings, male and female, have become more cognisant of themselves as individual beings with purpose and agency. This is in line with the growth of the soul and means that the past ways are defunct and cannot, should not, be revived. We need a new approach. Which is not to say the modern ways are right for the new should grow out of the old rather than completely uproot and replace that just as grace perfects nature instead of crudely destroying it. The modern ways are wrong but not because they represent change. They are wrong because they are founded on materialistic humanism whereas we need a spiritual response to the new forms of consciousness. 

Catholics (not to single them out, this can apply to anyone of any persuasion) can believe their religion is greater than truth which must conform to their religion. Naturally, they would respond that their religion is truth but no worldly institution can do more than point the way. Catholicism is a magnificent pointer but it does not contain all truth anymore than a sunbeam contains the sun. 

Esotericists can believe they have cracked the cosmic code and that their elaborate intellectual systems and techniques will bring them to the heart of reality. But if they take their ideas too literally they fall back into the mental world which is part of the material order. Buddhists and followers of advaita can take their philosophies to be not simply descriptions of reality formulated at a particular time and place but reality itself. By focusing on one aspect of the whole of life (the absolute/the one/pure being) they lose connection to the wider picture which includes the full reality of the many and the world of creation.

Everyone is tempted through what they have given their heart and mind to and if it is not God but an approach to God they will be led off the path into distraction and error. There are sins of the mind as well as those of the body and the desire nature but these are often disguised, at least to the individual who falls victim to them which is all of us to a certain extent. As a matter of fact, mental error is more prevalent and has a greater impact on the soul in the modern age than before simply because we are more mentally polarised.

Really, the only way to guard against these pitfalls is through a mixture of discernment and humility. But sometimes we have to fall victim to them because the experience of doing so will uncover and expose faults in our character. Through suffering the consequences of succumbing to the faults we may learn to overcome them.