It is really easy in life to get into a situation where you feel a sense of goodness about what you are doing, which can act as a justification, a wall against any criticisms of others.
Practically this sort of pride that develops is not very helpful, but it is obvious that those who are more sensitive to criticisms will be more likely to use this tactic to protect their sensitivities, mostly in a manner that they are not conscious of doing.
Not only does this pride cut one off from progressing along, and growing and changing, it also makes life uncomfortable for others one interacts with, as there is always this constant underlying tension.
One can become extremely reactive against perceived attacks to their sense of goodness as a person, and lash out at anyone who is not in support of such a view.
This can lead to a certain paranoia, where one is always constantly waiting for others to destroy their sense of goodness, and always overly reactive to subtleties and nuances in the speech, and actions of others.
If one really observes one's own psychology, one can recognise that a lot of the uncomfortableness one feels in conversation with others - is because some sort of projection and reading into the situation - usually based around ones own self "how is that going to impact my life", is the under surface current constantly on repeat... "is that going to make my life more easy or difficult?" etc.
As I have been on both ends in my life I know what it is like on either side. I know what it is like to have what I say misinterpreted based on the fears of another, and also what it is like to relate to what others say based on my own fears.
As a female it is natural to look towards strong male figures for support, even if consciously this seems undesirable, it will still inform my reactions to people. As I came to the conclusion awhile ago that no human male could be reliable in that way, I decided it would be more secure to relate to a masculine deity who had a particular universal mission, who would always be consistent in representing that mission. Such a being could help give me a mental and emotional security, even if I am not actually connecting to the real deity and just some imagined view - which I'm sure is a potential trap that can occur, it can still give me a somewhat place to rest myself on a more subtle level.
But this does not really address the physical material side of things, with a real connection to a deity I'm sure that would be taken care of too, but obviously to win the deity over in order to achieve that material security, its a lot of hard work. And I'm mot necessarily talking about having magickal things happen like money suddenly appear on my doorstep, it could be as simple as feeling the support and power of the deity to help empower me to be able to do the required action needed to generate my own resources needed for survival etc.
At this point in my life I am still at a knowledge gathering stage, I feel there is lots of study to do, and generally along with the study comes the practice of chanting etc, which in turn produces certain insights, and reveals more subtle truths, and confirms more on an experiential level the truth of what one is studying.
Perhaps some day in this life I will feel I am ready to find a Guru, but at this stage I'm not so ready for that level of intimacy that comes with having to surrender to do what another being says 24/7.
At least now I am very sure that I am needing to follow a devotional path, and that has been strongly becoming more and more obvious in the past year or so. Previous to that I was sort of all over the place.
In the past I was out off by people who claimed to be following devotional paths that I met, and just didn't feel right about it. But I realised later that that was because the people I met were one of two types:
1) Were using the devotional path to worship their self, as they believed that they were ultimately God, but they just had not realised it completely yet. This is an over simplification of explaining it but I think the general gist is clear. There is a difference between those who use a devotional path to build a relationship with the supreme - where the supreme is considered to be an entity with actual characteristics in their own right.... and those that see the supreme as being pure unconditioned consciousness or complete non-difference from their own soul. I can understand now whilst I found being around these people uninspiring in the devotional path, and why it turned me off of it. If I believed that God was like they thought then I wouldn't be using the devotional path to realise that, I would be using a path based more on discriminative intelligence, and focusing solely on different meditational breath techniques, and self-inquiry.
2) Those who are on a devotional path who accept there as being some difference between them and God, but are really impaired in their intelligence. These sorts are actually looking for someone to take care of them and place restrictions on them at the same time, and they want to surrender to some teacher and use it as a crutch in a really childish sense. These are the sorts that are really insincere, but they are trying to really convince everyone that they are sincere by attempting to display the outer garb. And a lot of these people end up washed up sooner or later, and then blaming the former teachers or institutions they were following, instead of taking self-responsibility. These people would be better off accepting that they have ambitions and desires that are contrary to practicing a devotional path, and following those ambitions and desires to their conclusion until they become completely disillusioned with them. If you try to enforce disillusionment before all parts of you actually are disillusioned, it just ends up leading to strange repression.
Awhile ago I tried to do a 1 day and night chanting names of Vishnu, because of it being mentioned in a text, and I found out how hard it was to keep the mind focussed, and how a general boredom and disinterest started to spring up whilst doing it, and I realised that my heart just wasn't really in it, I could outwardly force myself to chant the names through discipline, but I couldn't force myself to be total in my intent... it really made me see how un-integrated I was.... I was looking out for any distraction, and just wishing that the day and night would be over already... it went so slow... and it almost felt torturous to do, but I kept pushing on, rather determined. It wasn't the sort of torture that say comes from working in an office... but it was the sort of torture that comes when parts of oneself are really resisting transformation.
Unless there is 100% integration then how can there be true sincerity? Intent needs to be total for their to be sincerity. As I went on in to the night, it was really cold, and I dosed off, but I was still chanting as I was dosing off, and even in the dream I had I was chanting whilst observing the dream, the dream was some mundane dream, informing of an incident that would happen the next day, and when I woke up I was still chanting... so not sure if that counts as completing 1 day and 1 night, maybe not, seeing there could of been moments where I completely stopped chanting and I just don't remember.
