"Halfway up the mountain" is a book published in 1999 by Mariana Caplan. This book pointed out the numerous pitfalls and erroneous conception of what the spiritual enlightenment was all about. Many half-baked seekers driven by grandiose and pompous disillusion of showing off the psychic powers mistakenly believed that exhibition of psychic senses is equivalent to reaching enlightenment. Well, not so fast, my friend!
We have come of age with informational explosion through Internet, the once arcane wisdom and esoteric knowledge secretly guarded by the most hidden and impenetrable group of society can now be readily available through online stores with affordable installment payments. There are pseudo masters every where you turn with any topic of your choosing, including the invisible and unmeasurable spirituality.
Science offers concrete evidence and measurable result. Medicine cures and heals. But what exactly spirituality does? I can not pretend that I have the answer. I am very much committed on the path of self development. After seven years of on and off meditation, read dozens of books related to metaphysical teaching and most importantly enlightened by the knowledge and wisdom of mystical nature from Jonathan Parker's Enlightenment Series, I still feel I have some stubbornly unresolved neurosis. There is no quick fix, no fast food way to reach any level of self mastery.
One of the biggest traps of modern spirituality is the issue of ego. Ego is the final frontier that the inspiring aspirant is supposedly trying to confront and conquer. But with our society full of abundant materialism and with fame and fortune waving incessantly in the headline news, there aren't many who can resist the temptation to make a name of himself or herself in the realm of spiritual masters. In the process, Ego got bigger and stronger, the fall from grace is eventually inevitable. For the average seeker, we need not worry about falling from grace yet, but we do need to heed the danger of falling into the habit of perpetual spiritual shopping.
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