Pride and the Veil of Delusion
Hubris and false perceptions of one’s own worth steer the mind away from clarity precisely by causing it to accept illusions as truth and become enraptured by vanity, thereby stripping it of the ability to distinguish genuine spiritual vision from deception. One might say that when a person, indulging in the thought of their own superiority, begins to value truth not as an objective reality but as their own creation, the clear criterion for differentiating truth from delusion is lost. This, in turn, distorts spiritual vision, rendering it blind to divine truth.This state is described as follows:"Having allowed such an impression, our mind falls into vanity, and vanity leads to delusion and falsehood. For, delighting in the thought of our own superiority, our mind begins to value truth not as truth, but as its own, and thereby loses every criterion between truth and delusion, for what is 'our own' may well be delusion and every kind of falsehood." (source: link txt)Additionally, it is emphasized that the spiritual vision of those who take pride becomes "a terrible blindness." In other words, pride, expressed in false, exalted perceptions of oneself, makes a person incapable of seeing the truth, while humility opens the door to divine vision:"The vision of the proud is a terrible blindness; and the non-vision of the humble is the ability to see the Truth." (source: link txt)Thus, due to pride and false self-perceptions, the mind becomes filled with vanity, which subsequently leads it into a state of delusion, depriving it of the ability to adequately perceive spiritual reality and truth. This turns spiritual vision into a clouded one, with the mind losing its clarity and capacity to discern the genuine from the deceptive.