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

See also

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