Brother Jonas once told me that the bad spirit normally doesn't do anything remarkable, out of the ordinary. No pea soup, no vomiting, no screaming blasphemies (my dramatization). No, he just shows us something and says, "look." And that begins everything.
Sometimes it's all consuming - like a black pit that swallows you up, that entices you with every delightful possibility, promising perfect ecstasy, until it seems impossible, inhumane, that you would ever refuse. I have felt that at least once, in the sense that an impulse - a powerful, all but irresistible impulse - arose from within me but not from me. But that scares you. It scared me half to death. That can put you on full alert - "Something is not right," you realize, your blood runs cold, and you jump to the solution of penance. If you know, you can defend, and once you call upon the good spirit, the battle is all but won - for now.
More often, it's quiet, subtle, promising nothing but beauty if you just watch. Like seeing a diseased, worm-eaten corpse become healthy, beautiful, full-blooded, seductive, life-giving, exalting, domineering, promising. Will you feed it with attention? Or let it starve? If you feed it, see above. If not, it quiets down again to be a splinter in your mind, sometimes calling for attention, other times remaining still, broadcasting the signal of indefinite pleasure.
The second is by far more dangerous. It lulls you into complacency, pride, self-reliance. "I have fought against it and won many times, therefore it is not truly a threat. I can dismiss it, for it is nothing to me any more." Reasonable. Understandable. False. Because there is good, and there is evil, and those two powers are far, far greater than we are. In my experience, the powers of evil are far more effective than good, because the good spirit respects my freedom, and the bad spirit is always seeking to make me bind my freedom by any means necessary. I do not know the power of God by experience.
That is the struggle of the initiate. Sages say that this struggle ends in some sense once we experience enlightenment, but the only way to enlightenment (but is this even really true?) is through struggle. Or perhaps a better way of putting it: understanding, acceptance, peace, and letting the self be what it is.
I feel myself divided, in conflict, at war. Is that an illusion? Is the only reality perfect wholeness? Is the perception of the divided self proof of a profound lack of understanding? I would say I know only one thing, but faith is not knowledge. So I cling to only one thing and lament my ignorance: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.
Sometimes it's all consuming - like a black pit that swallows you up, that entices you with every delightful possibility, promising perfect ecstasy, until it seems impossible, inhumane, that you would ever refuse. I have felt that at least once, in the sense that an impulse - a powerful, all but irresistible impulse - arose from within me but not from me. But that scares you. It scared me half to death. That can put you on full alert - "Something is not right," you realize, your blood runs cold, and you jump to the solution of penance. If you know, you can defend, and once you call upon the good spirit, the battle is all but won - for now.
More often, it's quiet, subtle, promising nothing but beauty if you just watch. Like seeing a diseased, worm-eaten corpse become healthy, beautiful, full-blooded, seductive, life-giving, exalting, domineering, promising. Will you feed it with attention? Or let it starve? If you feed it, see above. If not, it quiets down again to be a splinter in your mind, sometimes calling for attention, other times remaining still, broadcasting the signal of indefinite pleasure.
The second is by far more dangerous. It lulls you into complacency, pride, self-reliance. "I have fought against it and won many times, therefore it is not truly a threat. I can dismiss it, for it is nothing to me any more." Reasonable. Understandable. False. Because there is good, and there is evil, and those two powers are far, far greater than we are. In my experience, the powers of evil are far more effective than good, because the good spirit respects my freedom, and the bad spirit is always seeking to make me bind my freedom by any means necessary. I do not know the power of God by experience.
That is the struggle of the initiate. Sages say that this struggle ends in some sense once we experience enlightenment, but the only way to enlightenment (but is this even really true?) is through struggle. Or perhaps a better way of putting it: understanding, acceptance, peace, and letting the self be what it is.
I feel myself divided, in conflict, at war. Is that an illusion? Is the only reality perfect wholeness? Is the perception of the divided self proof of a profound lack of understanding? I would say I know only one thing, but faith is not knowledge. So I cling to only one thing and lament my ignorance: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.