[JennaJJxoxoxo]

"I'm beginning to sense that the monastic life is far more religious than I imagined initially." This is a good start, as the Lord has granted you insight, by this, into the nature of your own imaginings. It should go without saying that God's thoughts are infinitely above ours; and that our best "imaginings" of Him, and life with Him, are most often gross "mis-conceptions" at best. As plainly intimated by Fr. Seraphim, Orthodox monastic life is about life in Christ; through union with God, and thus thinking and living God's thoughts, as opposed to our own. This requires forsaking our own thoughts, and imaginings, obviously, that we might plunge ourselves into the mind of God; which some have described as the Great "Unknown" and "Unfathomable" Abyss. In this sense, Orthodox spiritual (monastic) life is not "far more religious", as you imagined it, but true religion in its highest and purest expression (as I understand or conceive it to be).

To answer your other question, though, within the Orthodox world, some cults have sprung up disguised as Orthodox monasteries; so the warning, as I understood it, was meant to indicate that not all Orthodox monasteries are what they make out or pretend to be. So be wise a serpent in discerning between the two!