I’m exploring myth these days, and in my study of Isis—the Supreme Goddess of the Egyptians—I came across the work of Isha Schwaller de Lubicz. Her writing focuses on explaining Egyptian wisdom texts. In her book The Opening of the Way she delves into the “instructions” for becoming a high priest —essentially a training manual for those hoping to be initiated.
These writings lay out what acolytes needed to do to learn the Mysteries, and they also warn against obstacles spiritual seekers were likely to meet along the way. As with many writings from the ancients, this advice is as true today as it was 4,000 years ago.
Seven Obstacles to Spiritual Development
Personal concern. The minute we get too anxious about who we are, how we appear to others, or whether we’re getting anywhere, we get stuck. We become attached to false notions of success and progress. We start counting the numbers of minutes we meditate or measuring how peaceful we feel. Personal concern makes us evaluate our supposed spiritual advancement. Spiritual development just doesn’t work that way.
Wrong notion of providence. According to Schwaller de Lubicz, the ancient Egyptians believed in a complex of destiny and free will acting together. They did not believe you could pray to a god to change things or bring about a specific outcome.
I know it is not a popular position with those who believe in the power of prayer as a way of eliciting favors from God, but I always cringe a bit when I hear people say God brought them the money to pay their rent, helped them get the job they desperately needed, or got them over an illness. It always makes me want to ask them, “Why do you think he helped you, but not the couple down the street who prayed that their little girl wouldn’t die? Why did he turn down the woman who prayed for the safety of her friend in Afghanistan? Or, for that matter, my sister who died at the peak of her life? I’m bracing here for some disagreeing emails, but I have trouble with the image of a capricious deity who dispenses favors to some and not to others. According to the priests of ancient Egypt, this notion prevents us from acting for ourselves and accepting when things go awry. I think they were on to something.
False pity. Compassion—genuine concern for the welfare of others—is a good thing. False pity is something else. It is making use of the suffering of others to advance one’s own goals. It is exhibiting sympathy to cast yourself in a good light, to come across as a good person, to show everyone how much you “care”. Or it is the use of the suffering of others to advance an agenda. We have all seen this done: Politicians do it all the time.
Quest for sanctity. I had a friend in school who was really a very nice girl. We’d both grown up Catholic, but at 13 I stopped believing and she kept on. That, however, was not what drove us apart. What did was that she spent so much time striving to be good. Not just good as in kind and honest, but never-ever-break-a-single-rule good. Be-the-perfect-little-angel good. I’m-determined-to-be-holier-than-everyone-else good. It was as if her soul were a new Sunday dress that she couldn’t risk dirtying or tearing—so she’d never leave the house. As the years past, she seemed to be frozen and unchanging and everything about her seemed rather thin. In The Passion of Isis and Osiris, psychologist Jean Houston writes that life should be lived not according to the straight and narrow but the wide and deep. No better way to say it.
Sentimentality. We are very tied to comfortable notions that make us feel all warm and cozy inside. All of us want, at one time or other, to curl up under a spiritual quilt with a cup of hot cocoa by our side, a kitten on our lap, and a copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul in our hands. We often choose to believe in things simply because they make us feel good. But the spiritual journey isn’t about comfort. It’s about challenge, growth, disruption, change, chaos, fear, and joy. You don’t grow sitting under that quilt or resting in the security of comfortable old beliefs. You just grow old.
Satisfaction. Say you have a job you love and are successful at, a healthy and adoring family, plenty of dough and all that comes with it, and a hobby or two to occupy your spare time. What else could you want? Satisfaction with yourself and your life feels very good. It’s what we’re all looking for, right? Except that this kind of satisfaction can often lead to spiritual stagnation. Houston writes: “Longing is an eternal spiritual state, and those who are satisfied on physical, emotional, or intellectual planes are closing their eyes to all that is yet possible.”
Routine. On one level, this part of the priestly texts seems to be about the dangers of getting caught in the repeated rituals of daily life that numb us to the beauty, challenge, and mystery around us. But the texts are also referring to something deeper. They are talking about the dangers of accepting the status quo, of going with the grain because it’s way, way harder to go against it.
True spirituality is all about disruption, about bucking the status quo, shaking things up. It’s when the norm starts going awry that you know you’re making progress. This was, apparently, as true in ancient Egypt as it is today.