I have met many people on the spiritual cultivation path. More often that not, after about 10-15 minutes into conversation, a lot would like to talk about spiritual attainments or spiritual powers.
Most of the people who got interested into spiritual path is also due to wishing to have extra sensory skills compare to others in modern society. Take a look at meditation class that talks about spiritual ability attendance usually would be full when compared to those meditation classes for mind stillness and so on.
And those that walk the path of spiritual cultivation, there will always be test and exams along the way. For some, they think tests and exams are things for when you are in schools, colleges and universities. Oh yes, spiritual path is filled with tests along the way and unlike educational institutions, there is no advance notification on the tests and exams that they will give you.
Usually tests and examinations on the spiritual path will be on your weakest link either in your character or the mind or both. Then it will also be separated into small test, such as events that occur in your dreams and see how you react. There will be also real life exams, which you will walk or thrown into situations, push to the extreme to test your own fortitude, strength, commitment and also the will to walk the path.
Small test such as when a person have taken a vow to abstain from eating certain food. In one of their unsuspecting dreams, they will be in a situation where friends or people they know offer them the abstained food. If in the dream they suddenly realised and rejected the food, then they would have passed the test. If not, then their cultivation would have to drag on further before another test comes along.
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Examinations however are a whole different ball game. If you have greed, you will be tested on situations where you will have opportunities to earn a lot of money however it will be at the expense of others. You will need to do something that goes against basic moral vows. The situation is real and the money rewards are also real. However if you failed the exam, the consequences will be a down hill road on your cultivation. Some took years to recover from one failure while others do not recover at all.
Some who are weak on relationship or particularly on controlling their sexual urges, when an exam comes along, out of the blue you will meet with someone who are highly attractive towards you, and although you may have a family or in a steady relationship, then how you react, whether to follow through on your urges will determine on whether you continue walking further and higher on path or to fail miserably and lose respect of not only others but family and close ones as well.
There are even cases where those who lost their sanity as a result of being unable to get through the exam. Buddhism called it Demon/Mara Within 心魔.
The Demon Within is much scarier than the ones outside as your subconscious knows you better than yourself. No matter how far a person walks on the spiritual path, there will always be tests and exams. There is no exception and the stakes will only get higher as one progress along the path.
The only solution is to develop integrity, congruency and also honesty before ones walks the path and continue to remind oneself the higher purpose of their cultivation.