Page 134 - Mystic Pathways through the Bible

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128 Mystic pathways through the bible
good clothes and rides in a wonderful car.” Falling prey to this error, spiritual aspirants often become proud of possessing less than others and, led by ego, they crave recognition about how little they possess. This is a handicap on the spiritual path.
There isn’t a person who doesn’t own something in this material world. Even if you owned tattered utensils and a broken hut through which the rains came pouring down, you may still cling tightly to whatever little you own with tremendous attachment. This intense feeling of ownership—regardless of how little or much you own—is what becomes the obstacle to spiritual evolution.
Lord Jesus pointed out that while many religious men emphasize an external form of virtue, He gave a different emphasis. He encouraged the cultivation of the inner roots of virtue, not its external show. Thus, in this Beatitude, it is not external poverty or riches that Jesus was concerned with; it is one’s mental state.
When Christ said, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than the rich to enter into Heaven,” he was, on the most profound level, referring to those whose minds were “rich” with complexes, whose minds were burdened by illusions and egoistic concepts. Certainly, those who are rich in that sense will nd it dif cult to attain Enlightenment.