Spirituality is a long path and very rarely straight. Actually, it tends to wind in all directions because that’s how life is. You know where and when you start your spiritual path but have no idea where it leads you ultimately. The experiences and life lessons your soul seeks in a life can be anywhere and anytime, so be well prepared for surprises along the path.
From my long experience on the spiritual Path and also teaching others, I would point out the following “traps” where I’ve seen people get caught:
Motivation: many get into spirituality without a clear motivation or a superficial one because it’s “trendy”, like someone told me he had a kundalini awakening so why not have it too? I find all the time aspirant students that approach me to start teaching them, and when I ask them why they want to get on this path, their answers are really disappointing. Many times it’s not a call from their soul but more like materialistic reasons are behind them. Be sure to clear out your motivation before embarking on this journey or you risk being truly disappointed!
Expectations: too many (bad) spiritual books and too many Holly/Bollywood movies with spiritual subjects do hurt. They set expectations very high in a short time span, and when these unrealistic goals have not been reached the seeker just quits.
Patience: it’s linked with Expectations as well, but it deserves a chapter by itself. Nothing happens if not enough effort, time and dedication have been put, into this life or in the lives before. The laws of Creation are still valid like “what you put is what you get”. If you don’t put effort and time nothing positive comes out of it. Instant gratification doesn’t go well with spirituality. Sure there are some procedures that bring you quicker results, but even those need time to practice to consolidate the results.
Thinking only the soul matters while the body is secondary: This is a grave misunderstanding I met at 99% of spirituals, originating from religions, it’s a belief that ultimately leads to Separation. The body is the soul’s instrument to experiment this life. If the body is disregarded and only meditation is highly regarded that involves the soul mostly, then how can the soul accurately experiment with life and raise his awareness if the instrument is dull?
Being poor is a quality of a true spiritual: Again, it comes from religions and was invented for manipulative reasons, and is totally untrue. For instance, if one thinks of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, if one is at the 1-2 level and therefore poor as a church rat, normally his mind is in survival mode and 100% of the time busy with finding food, water, and shelter, then how in the world does he have time and peace to meditate?
Procrastination: This is linked with motivation generally. The student will always postpone meditating since other things always take priority.
Truth is always with him: the student has no doubt that whatever flavor of spiritual school he practices, whether some sort of yoga or qi-gong for instance, his is the ONE AND ONLY that can lead anyone to enlightenment, and all other schools are just rubbish. Obviously, he will sink into separation and decrease his vibration instead of progressing.
Lack of spiritual discernment: I met many spirituals that stay forever in a school that since quite some time obviously doesn’t help them anymore, but because he invested all his faith in it he is kind of blind, and even in the presence of total lack of palpable results he doesn’t give up to it and move on.
Choose a master/guru by what others tell him and not by what he feels: this belongs again with spiritual discernment and lack of trust in oneself. In this case, the spiritual instead of checking with his soul and intuition if a specific master suits him or not, he takes after his fame and what others tell him. For instance, even if a master is true and not a fake, if the student is a soul in the equivalent of 1st grade, it’s a waste of time if he attends a school with a master who teaches for souls who are the equivalent of 5th grade. Master and seeker have to fit so that results are possible.
Thinks that any sign of awareness is full-blown enlightenment: along a life just about anybody gets a glimpse of spiritual awakening, but if he/she tries to develop further is a matter of choice. But from here, for instance just because you learned the addition operation to think that you also master differential calculus is a world apart.
Humbleness is a secondary concept for most spirituals: Generally, they don’t understand exactly what it means, and miss it with the humility concept like in religions which is something completely different and who actually harms one soul. But without humbleness no meditation or whatever procedure they use will make them progress. Humbleness is the true and efficient treatment for Ego, and not only meditation as many think.
Contempt for the Masculine aspect of Creation, and one side glorification of Feminine aspect: Because of the predominance of the masculine aspect on the planet in the last thousands of years quite brutal results occurred, and now this aspect is despised and the Feminine aspect is glorified. This a big problem concerning Unity of Creation that leads to Separation. Despite what spirituals think, the Feminine aspect also has its dark side, and because of this dark side in the distant past the Matriarchal societies on Earth failed, a think that appears to be forgotten. Evolution works in cycles and is not linear. BOTH aspects have to be Integrated to reach Unity.
Spiritual progress is NOT linear, it actually works in waves like 5 steps forward and 3 steps back: Spirituals have generally a naive representation of the spiritual Path and think it always will be uphill, while actually there are periods of rapid advancement when one feels in bliss, just about everything he tries works, and periods when nothing works although the student puts the same effort and does the same meditations and procedures. During this last period, many seekers quit actually.
Spirituals who get attached only to palpable results and get astray from Awareness: these are the ones that miss the Path and branch to witchcraft and magic. It’s not bad per se, it’s just a choice, just that they think they are still on the Path.
Many spirituals strive to completely erase their egos: This is a grave misunderstanding of the relation soul-body on this planet and how this 3D humanity runs. The goal is to reduce the ego a lot, but one needs still a small ego to be able to function in this world. I assure you Krishna, Buddha, Jesus and other enlightened beings did have some ego, just that it was under the control of their soul. One cannot function with zero ego on this planet, it’s that simple.
Using brute force meditation or other procedures without working on own beliefs: Meditation or other spiritual procedures are a tool and not a goal. Identifying and releasing own lower beliefs are actually the goal in a life if one wants to progress spiritually, everything else are means towards this goal.
Confusion between Attachment and Desire: This confusion comes from religions, who try to manipulate people's actions. A person needs to experiment life around, and for this he needs a motivation having as base a desire he felt; without a desire we wouldn’t even get off the bed in the morning. The issue here is that a person should not get attached to the initial object of his desire, and as such need to repeat it ad nauseam, that’s all.
I will stop here since I can fill a book with these types of traps I encountered in my spiritual practice, but know there are still more.
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You can learn more by reading other posts in this spiritual site that are coming from a very different and fresh angle than spiritual mainstream, and based on a very long and personal experience and hands-on research, and not from books.
You might also consider a service like Psychic Readings in the Services section of this site from the ones listed there and get a spiritual diagnostic, or attend my spiritual School of Body and Soul Ascension Mastery so to raise your body and soul awareness, and reach into higher dimensions.
