We have all had these people come into our lives. They are those that are so needy or so aggravating that they prevent us from continuing our own paths and sometimes manage to prevent us entirely from accomplishing our life goals and studies. These are people, and sometimes beings, that come into our lives to essentially test our metal. They want to see if they can make us give up our goals, our faith, our beliefs, everything that we hold dear in some cases. I call them "gatekeepers" because each time that we come close to achieving our goals, every time that we reach the gates of enlightenment of Becoming, we are sidetracked by their dramas, schemes, and questions. They indirectly hold the post of the gate from one stage in our spiritual development to another and if we fail, we lose our faith and find ourselves wandering down an unfamiliar path that draws us further and further away from our life purpose.
These people come into our lives, sometimes as a friend, a coworker, or relative and sometimes through someone that is totally random. Here is a prime example of such a person and the kinds of things that they do. A few months ago a friend and I went to a local Barnes and Nobel, wandered over to the Pagan/Wicca/New Age section where we were browsing through some books. Immediately I felt as if we were being observed and within minutes of being there we were approached by a gentleman that introduced himself as a Jewish individual and student and immediately began asking my friend about her tattoos. I'll say five minutes into the conversation he began making derisive comments about our pentagrams, and from there engaged my friend in a deep conversation about Paganism and the Kabballah. I of course did what I normally do when such a person approached. I drew into myself so that I'm less noticeable and began feeling his energy for hostility, feeling him out to see how much of a danger I could perceive from him. At this point he became very agitated, and started asking the same questions in different ways trying to confuse my friend. Thankfully it didn't work very well, but he got more agitated and began turning the question of faith itself around. At one point he made the comment that faith wasn't important. Now at this point I'd not only begun feeling his energy, but suctioning it off as a protective measure (which oddly enough seems to be the only time I am capable of doing so), and by the end of the conversation found that i was nearly as agitated as he was, bristled with overload and my arm was nearly numb from pulling it off him. At that point i asked him to leave. The conversation was pretty much going nowhere good, and I wasn't in the mood to deal with more hostility. Before he left he turned at snarled at both myself and my friend and warned us both to be weary of angels of the dark. This of course, revealed his nature and I proceeded to congratulate my friend on passing her test. My point in relaying this is that we never truly know when a test is going to present itself but regardless of our faith, it is the strength of our convictions that will get us through.
For the most part though, not many of us will come in contact with someone like this (well hopefully) but we do come in contact with people respite with drama and they seem to be drawn to people that are spiritual people more so than people that have little or no spirituality. They present themselves as friends, as family, as people that are concerned about us and are very involved with our lives. Sometimes it will seem as if we are spending our entire lives fixing theirs and before long, we've lost track not only of our own lives, but of time, and time missed away from our studies and our chosen paths. These periods away from our own lives may leave us feeling exhausted, mentally and emotionally, lost, questioning our paths, and even sometimes abandoning them altogether.
There are two ways to handle gatekeepers. We can confront them and basically let them know that their behavior is unacceptable and that we have our own lives and spiritual maintenance to do and suggest some positive ways for them to live. If you don't want to sever the friendship entirely, let them know that you will be available at certain times to talk or that you will only speak to them if they are willing to listen to you completely when you give them advice. If a person can't give you the curtsey of at best taking what you've told them to heart, the odds of them changing their behavior around you aren't too good either.
The other way to deal with them is to remove yourself until they amend their behavior and let them know that your studies and spirituality come before dealing with anything else or break the ties entirely. A person can only live for one person at the time; taking on someone else's drama will not help anyone any at all. It hinders us, prevents our growth and damages us spiritually and in the long run is simply not worth it. For the most part I have found that if a gatekeeper can not accomplish their goal, they will just leave. Sometimes they leave in a huff and cause issues after the fact, but the thing to remember is that they are gone and the issues are theirs as long as you don't claim them by giving them credence. Anyone that truly cares for you won't hamper your spiritual growth, they will help you grow and challenge you but not in a way that is detrimental to your spiritual health.
Gatekeepers can also be spiritual beings here on a mission. In these cases they will be very aggressive but are short termed compared to the other kinds. Sometimes they will present themselves on the astral or in dreams with challenges and if you meet the challenge you will be rewarded. Pay close attention to the reward that is offered. It will likely herald the direction you need to be in. These beings are neutral and have neither a positive nor a negative affiliation, but are there to actually maintain our spiritual growth.
One thing both have in common is that both the physical and the spiritual gatekeepers are aggressive and arrive when we are about to enter a transition, or an awakening, moving into a higher level of spirituality. Sometimes they come ‘en force’, sometimes they are singular. Of course not every aggravating drama queen that we meet will be such a being. The ones that are have one focus and that is all they focus on. Physical gatekeepers work a little differently from the spiritual in that the spiritual attack aggressively and leave for a time, physical ones are always around it seems. The biggest difference is that the physical ones will leave when they are asked to; the spiritual ones will continue their objective until it is either achieved or failed. In both, if you pass the test you move into a higher realm, if you do not it only means that you have a little more work to do in that area. In severe cases (especially with the physical ones that can bring a lot of trauma as well as drama into our lives), someone may drop their beliefs altogether and lose their path or change their course.
The best way to deal with both is to remain spiritual minded. Don't give into drama or coercion. Remain flexible but you know what truth is for you and what is not. If someone tries to convince you otherwise, remind them of this. Give yourself time, but always know that you will eventually have to overcome the gatekeeper on the spiritual realm before moving through the gate.