One of the great dangers on the spiritual path is that the ego becomes spiritualized. The ego loves to think of itself as spiritually evolved. It is just another way that it manages to feel important and in control. It is very difficult to free yourself from an enlightened ego.
Interpretation
The quote warns against the ego's tendency to adopt a facade of spirituality, which can hinder true enlightenment.
Leonard Jacobson emphasizes the deceptive nature of the ego on the spiritual journey. He argues that individuals may mistakenly believe they are spiritually advanced when, in fact, their ego is merely presenting itself in a more refined form. This self-deception creates a barrier to genuine spiritual growth, making it essential to recognize and confront the ego to achieve authentic enlightenment.
In practice
In a speech about personal growth, you might use this quote to illustrate the pitfalls of inflated self-importance.
Once you have found yourself and accepted your aloneness, then the greatest blessing is to share the love that arises within you. Each new moment presents the richest opportunity to be loving. And you can share love in the simplest of ways. Be soft and gentle. Be caring and kind. Be loving in an ordinary way, without any sense of wanting anything back, Life offers you the most precious gift. The gift of allowing you to be present and share love.
life's endless war against the self you cannot live without.
Part of our essential humanity is paying respect to what God gave us and what will be here a long time after we're gone.
Show us your Christ, Lady, after this our exile, yes: but show Him to us also now, show Him to us here, while we are still wanderers.
In the spaniards heart is a great yearning for freedom, but only his own. A great love for truth and honor in all its forms, but not in its substance. And a deep conviction that nothing can be proven except that it be made to bleed. Virgins, bulls, men. Ultimately God himself.
Words don't change their shape, they change their meaning, their function...They don't have a meaning of their own any more, they refer to other words that you don't know, that you've never read or heard...you've never seen their shape, but you feel...you suspect...they correspond to...an empty space inside you...or in the universe.
Feminism is dated? Yes, for privileged women like my daughter and all of us here today, but not for most of our sisters in the rest of the world who are still forced into premature marriage, prostitution, forced labor - they have children that they don't want or they cannot feed.
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