Pitfalls along the Way

Situations Distracting to Students

• Past relationships no longer supporting the movement in your life
• Self-important or mindless conversation, gossip, excessive sharing
• Attachment to pre-conceived ideas or ambitions
• Self-doubt, the need for self-justification or validation
• Romantic attachments fostering fantasy over real relationship
• Romantic visions of one's own role in the world

Abuses of Knowledge

• Confusing Knowledge with personal preference
• Rushing ahead of Knowledge
• Failing to vericate with an ally in times of confusion or desire
• Demanding full understanding, fabricating rationalization in the absence of understanding

Characteristics of Pitfalls

• Arrogant, ignorant disregard for counsel
• Diffuse focus: multiplying places, people, things, ideas; dabbling
• Appropriation of another's way for one's own
• Impatience, ambition

Typical errors

• The belief there is no end of learning
• Premature judgment, particularly of one's own past
• Escapism, world renunciation
• Self-deception or feigned ignorance
• False assumptions

Excerpts

"It is truly dangerous when people think they know and they do not know. This leads to many mistakes and many tragedies as well. Do not think you know. You either know or you do not know, and if you know, your Knowledge is pervasive. If what you know is real, others will resonate with Knowledge with you, and you will not have to persuade them."

See also

Greater Community Spirituality, chap. 14: "What Must Be Avoided?"