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“Next there flashed into my mind the statement that man differs
from animals because he can think, and I knew it to be relatively
unimportant; that persons who stressed this fact had missed the point.
My newly-found insight told me the significant difference was that
evolved man can love and feel all positive emotions to a far greater
degree than can animals. I became aware that it was terror which keeps
the negative emotions uppermost and that security is the only hand
which can turn emotions to their positive side.
“My many emotions of the day had been so all encompassing that
they left me with another unshakeable conviction which crystallised in
this paradise: it is that all plants, animals and humans alike have
much the same feelings you and I have. For the first time in my life,
I became aware of a wonderful oneness existing between all living
things, whether plant, animal or human, whether prehistoric, historic
or present. We had each faced the infinitely treacherous struggle for
survival; we had each responded to the upward pull of God. I wept
because of the wonder of oneness so great.
“Almost simultaneously it occurred to me that the life force
felt by every living cell, from the lowest amoeba to the most
highly-developed man, was like gravity which pulled down on all things
at all times in all places through all ages, which had always been and
always will be. This God gravity, however, was in reverse, exerting
its force by drawing ever and always upward, ceaselessly since time
began and to be continuous throughout all eternity. Furthermore I knew
that as long as we grow to the maximum of our potential, the serenity
and peace which then cradled me can be ours; but that the moment our
progress becomes one whit less than our best, we experience a
restlessness which knows no quieting. With this understanding of
evolution, I became aware that man would continue to develop, not so
much because of himself but in spite of himself. This conclusion
brought me a refreshing, newly found optimism.” (1)
“But I had a feeling at times of an enormous journey in front,
quite a fantastic journey, and it seemed I had got an understanding of
things which I’d been trying to understand for a long time,
problems of good and evil and so on, and that I had solved them
inasmuch that I had come to the conclusion, with all the feelings that
I had at the time, that I was more - more than I had always imagined
myself, not just existing now, but I had existed since the very
beginning in a kind of - from the lowest form of life to the present
time, and that that was the sum of my real experiences, and that what
I was doing was experiencing them again. And that then, occasionally,
I had this sort of vista ahead of me as though I was looking down -
looking to an enormous - or rather not looking so much as just feeling
- ahead of me was lying the most horrific journey, the only way I can
describe it is a journey - a journey to the final sort of business of
being aware of all - everything; and that - and I felt this so
strongly - it was such a horrifying experience suddenly to feel that,
that I immediately shut my- self off from it because I couldn’t
contemplate it, because it sort of shrivelled me up. I - it drove me
into a state of fear, so much - I was unable to take it.” (2)
“And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan,
and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days
tempted by the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when
they were ended, he afterward hungered. And the devil said unto him, ‘If
thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.’
“And Jesus answered him, saying, ‘It is written that man
shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’ And the
devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the
kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
“And the devil said unto him, ‘All this power will I give
thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to
whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore will worship me, all
shall be thine.’
“And Jesus answered and said, unto him, ‘Get thou behind
me Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and
him only shalt thou serve’.
“And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of
the temple, and said unto him, ‘If thou be the Son of God, cast
thyself down from hence: For it is written, He shall give his angels
charge over thee, to keep thee: and in their hands they shall bear
thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone’.
“And Jesus answering said unto him, ‘It is said, Thou
shalt not tempt the Lord thy God’.
“And when the devil had ended all the temptations, he departed
from him for a season.” (3)
Yes, you have stood with me in the wilderness while I was tempted;
and you hearkened to the heat and the dryness, snatching at crumbs for
sustenance, eating and drinking what was vile in fear of death and
loneliness. I watched you and I was pained for you, seeing who I love
in such extreme. And I begged you to trust me, to burn with me in that
heat, to hunger and yearn with me, but you turned from me.
You do not remember? Recall then the times you have stood before
another in the wilderness of a dry heart, unfeeling to their
entreaties, without emotion or mercy, or the water of love. Remember
the times you dried up your tenderness toward mother or father,
brother or sister, husband or wife - toward another - by dwelling in
the desert of your own wants, your own needs, in surface judgements,
in the act of not loving them because they have failed to love you. So
often have you stared blankly at another, holding back harshly the
rush of that great love stream, that life stream; damming it because,
like you, their face was hard, their mouth was dry with words, their
fist was tensed, their heart like stone, while underneath you are both
lost children, longing to cling to each other - desperately in need of
each other. But you turn away, back into your own desolate wilderness,
when a touch, an asked forgiveness, a show of your own child weeping
in the desert, would have revealed their heart, their loneliness,
their desperation.
Jesus, yes, yes, I remember. Forgive me. What a fool, what a fool I
am. Help me Jesus, please. Heal me, but, help me, for I have lost my
mother and father, and I am afraid. I am like a lost kitten who bites
and scratches because it is terrified of being hurt, although it
desperately wants to be loved and held. It can’t help wounding
the very hand stretched to it. I can’t help myself, Jesus.
I have beaten my children because even as a man I am a lonely child
crying on a cot. I have dried my heart into a desert place where
nothing lives, no streams of life flow, and cut my wife with the sharp
edges and hardness of it. Why? You want to know why? You don’t
need to, you already know, you wept with me afterwards didn’t
you?
Yes, I was with you, and I know. Each time you did it you were a
child again. Your mother had put you away from her, and you were
desolate, lost in the vastness of your own loneliness, your own need.
And you had to prove the depth of your mother’s need for you. If
she would not show it as love, then she must show it as fear, as pain,
as a wound. So you despised her, and left her in soul, even though
your dependence was too great to leave her in body. And you pushed her
hand away when she tried to touch you, and called her a cow, and
walked as far away from her as you dared.
And my loved son, now you do it to your wife, for you are still
afraid of this burning lonely desert even though you are a man. But
man does not live by bread alone. There is one greater than father or
mother, family or friend, more faithful yet than a dog; there is God,
who is with you even unto the end of time.
God will never forsake or push away. God is with you even in the
wilderness of your own loneliness, your fear of being deserted and
abandoned, and even if you push away God’s hand, he will not
leave you. In my heart I know you are right, yet I am afraid. Can I
really face all my anger, my sense of emotional desolation, the
lifelessness of my fears, the dead sea of my bitterness and
unforgivingness, the burning thirst of my dependence upon people, upon
money, goods, shows of affection, position, upon the world? Have I the
strength to spend forty days and nights in this living death?
No, you have not. But put your hand into the hand of God, and this
shall be better than a light, safer than a known way. And I did as he
bid me, and we walked into the wilderness of my own soul, to face my
hunger and thirst. So it was that I knew myself as a child upon a
hospital bed, screaming for a mother who did not come, and I wept as
my own child self once more, and I saw as in a vision the lonely
children of the world, lost in war, alone in sickness, deserted in the
same room as their mother. I saw, too, the lost child in the soul of
grown men and women. I knew as well the burden of pain and rejection I
had heaped upon my own children, and I cried out to God for
forgiveness. I cry out, ‘God forgive me - God forgive me’
It was all so simple. For as I looked upon the faces of those about
me, I saw they were all children too. All they wanted was love, as I
did. Why didn’t we stretch out to each other? Why didn’t our
innocent yearning break through the mask of our adulthood? Why didn’t
we become little children again? I don’t know. Perhaps because we
have so disciplined our children and our outer life we chain our inner
child by the same bonds. But I gently untied the knots by holding them
out to God. And when God had sufficiently released me from this
bondage, and my arms were free, I reached out with them to those about
me - at first half afraid they would push my arms away - and I took
them in my arms. My heart was a spring of living water, and the rivers
of desire and love swept along my arms, carrying away my fear. And
they fell into my arms - they held me close - they wept - they
caressed me. Oh God, they loved me; loved this lonely child, this
desolate dried-up stick of a man, and the love I had withheld now was
my own. Do you understand, Jesus? Jesus, where are you? Where have you
gone?
Strange, I am alone in the desert, but it matters not, rain has
fallen, and the love I had wanted from others is flowing out from me.
I am no longer alone. I am just me, a human, a wonderful glorious
animal. A pulsing mass of tissue and blood, a mouth and an anus; I am
a dirty fingernail, a hairy leg, full of what, outside a man, would be
vomit. But I am beautiful. I am Life pulsating and moving, and
whatever I do to these, wet, sensitive, squirming tissues, I do to
Life, to God.
But Jesus, come back, tell me where was the Devil? I do not
understand. Jesus, why have we not been tempted? There is no answer -
at least, not from outside. But something within me speaks. It . . -
says - - . wait, I begin to hear. It says. . - You . . . were . . .
the Devil. It was. . . you - - . who tempted me. Your fear, your
loneliness, your dependence on things of the world, on people’s
opinion, on wealth as a means of self-respect, on hate as a means to
love - all these you tempted me with. Now you have left me for a
season, for with God’s wider view given with the Dove, I showed
you the illusion of your gods - the emptiness of your fears, the
powerlessness of your determinations. The shadow cast by the knots
tied in your heart, your head and your belly, was the Devil. Like
children’s hands held between a candle and the wall, your pains,
desolations, and terrors have cast grotesque shadows upon your
consciousness, which you took to be real, and you lived according to
their demands. By these shadows men are led to war, murder, theft,
terrible ambition, lust, even madness. All mankind is possessed by
these shadows - by this absence of the Light, the Life and the Love. I
come, not to condemn them but to redeem. For you are your own devil,
and your own angel. But my hour is not yet come; when it does I will
redeem.
“Do not be dismayed because thou art yet a child of chance, and
at the mercy greatly of both Nature and fate; because if thou wert not
subject to chance, then wouldst thou be Master of thyself; but since
thou art not yet Master of thine own passions and powers, in that
degree must thou needs be at the mercy of some other power. And if
thou choosest to call that power ‘chance’, well and good. It
is the angel with whom thou hast to wrestle.
“For (over and over again) there is nothing that is evil except
because a man has not mastery over it; and there is no good thing that
is not evil if it have mastery over a man; and there is no passion or
power, pleasure or pain, or created thing whatsoever, which is not
ultimately for man and for his use - or which he need be afraid of, or
ashamed at. The ascetics and the self-indulgent divide things into
good and evil - as it were to throw away the evil; but things cannot
be divided into good and evil, but all are good so soon as they are
brought into subjection.
“And seest thou not that except for Death thou couldst never
overcome Death -
“For since by being a slave to things of sense, thou hast
clothed thyself with a body which thou art not master of, thou wert
condemned to a living tomb were that body not to be destroyed. But now
through pain and suffering out of this tomb shalt thou come; and
through the experience thou hast acquired shalt build thyself a new
and better body; and so on many times, till thou spreadest wings and
hast all powers diabolic and angelic concentrated in thy flesh.”
(4)
“Now that I have recorded some temptations and secret, inner
disturbances aroused in me by the devil, I will describe certain
others which he inflicted on me almost in public, and in which it was
impossible not to recognise his agency.
“Once when I was in an oratory he appeared on my left hand, in
a hideous form. I particularly noticed his mouth, because he spoke to
me, and it was terrifying. A great flame seemed to issue from his
body, which was intensely bright and cast no shadow: He said to me in
a dreadful voice that I had indeed escaped his clutches, but that he
would capture me still. I was greatly frightened and made shift to
cross myself, whereupon he disappeared, but immediately came back
again. This happened twice and I did not know what to do. There was
some holy water near by, some drops of which I threw in his direction,
and he did not return again.
“On another occasion I was tormented for five hours with such
terrible pains and such inward and outward disquiet that I do not
believe I could have stood it any longer. The sisters who were with me
were terrified, and had no more idea what to do for me than I had of
how to help myself.
“It is my custom when pains and bodily sufferings are most
unbearable to make the best act of inner resignation that I can,
begging the Lord, it if be His pleasure, to grant me patience -
and so long as I have that I can continue in this state until the
end of the world. So this time, when I found myself suffering so
cruelly I helped myself to bear it by resorting to these acts and
resolutions. The Lord plainly wished me to understand that this was
the devil’s work; for I saw close beside me a most hideous little
Negro gnashing his teeth, as if in despair at losing what he had tried
to win. When I saw him, I burst out laughing, and had no fear. But
there were some sisters there who were helpless, and did not know how
to relieve my pain. For he made me thresh about with my body, head,
arms, and I was powerless to prevent him. But worst of all was my
inner disquiet, from which I could get no relief in any way. I dared
not ask for holy water for fear of alarming my companions and of their
realising what the trouble was.
“I have learnt from the experience of several occasions that
there is nothing the devils fly from more promptly, never to return,
than from holy water. They fly from the Cross also, but return again.
So there must be a great virtue in holy water.
“Then, as my pains did not stop, I said: ‘If you wouldn’t
laugh at me, I should ask for some holy water.’ So they brought
me some, and sprinkled it over me, but it did no good. Then I threw
some in the direction of the little Negro, and in a second he had
gone. All my pain disappeared as if someone had snatched it away,
except that I was left as weary as if I had received a severe beating.
It was of great service to me to learn that - with the Lord’s
permission - the devil can do so much harm to a body and soul, even
though they do not belong to him. What will he do to them, then, I
thought, when they are truly in his possession! This gave me a new
desire to deliver myself from such dangerous company.” (5)
St, Theresa’s experience, quoted above, is little different
from the wrestle with the devil many people face today. The following
dream of a man shows how, once we reach the ‘wilderness’, we
also face the devil. “In my dream I had challenged the unseen to
rise against me, for I feared it not. Then the door to my room creaked
open and two terrible Negroes entered. They were like the living dead;
flesh rotting and almost hanging from them; eyes dead and sightless
yet seeing, awful liquid running from their mouths. I was terrified
despite my challenge, and made the sign of the cross. They disappeared
immediately, but in a few moments came back and walked toward me. So
great was my terror my sign of the cross no longer held them off and
their hands gripped my throat and I woke screaming.
“About that time I also dreamt I had awoken in bed because of a
noise downstairs. As I listened it seemed as if someone was moving
about. I thought ‘Blow it, I suppose I will have to go downstairs
and deal with this intruder’. For some time I had had an
irrational apprehension about such an incident. It was not strong, but
enough for me to place a large bush knife near my bed. In my dream I
was going to take this down with me. But before I could rise, I heard
footsteps coming up the stairs, and, felt myself paralysed by fear.
There were only thirteen steps to our room, but the sound of mounting
feet kept on and on, and my paralysis became deeper and deeper. I was
literally rigid with terror until suddenly the sound stopped and our
bedroom door began to creak open. Then, despise my terror, my fear
became so great it broke through my rigidity and I screamed out for my
wife to switch the light on. The scream woke both my wife and myself,
both of us very frightened.
“These dreams were a great help to me, as I gradually
understood their meaning, and saw how our little known levels of
consciousness throw up symbols depicting inner events. The Negroes and
the unknown being downstairs represented emotions, sexual feelings,
and apprehensions I had kept locked up within myself, or downstairs in
the unconscious. This was a revelation to me, and I saw how the devil,
as an embodiment of our fears and sick inner life, had arisen in times
past due to a rigid morality and mental outlook, which turned parts of
one s nature rotten and devilish. This is exactly what I had done to
myself. I had unknowingly sat in judgement on myself, accepting some
parts of me as good and acceptable to my conscious life; and leaving
other parts evil or hateful, to be buried within.
For some reason, white men have found the Negro often used by their
unconscious as a symbol of this. I believe this is a compliment,
because as one’s fears are faced, the Negro is shown as a person
with very developed awareness of his inner life.
“But we cannot hold back such parts without awful consequences.
In my own case, past events had led me to look upon some of my natural
urges as sinful. These urges, which if allowed natural expression
would have been no more sinful than eating, became poisonous through
stagnation. So much so that my love toward my family had been
disrupted in a way I found difficult to cope with. And I was
terrified, not because the things in themselves were devilish, but
because I had taken that attitude toward them. My mother had told me,
during adolescence, that if I masturbated I would surely die. This so
frightened me I tried to stop, and found it terribly difficult.
Eventually I managed to stop doing it consciously, but began to do it
while asleep. This had made me feel I was possessed by some awful
force I could not control - a devilish thing instead of just the life
stream. Eventually I managed to stop altogether by rigid tensions and
making myself not feel anything in that area. My tension in he dream
was a re-experiencing of this, along with the terror it involved.
“As I gradually learnt to accept these urges, however, the
black men in my dreams changed into intelligent, well-dressed people,
and eventually we sat down together before God, asking God’s
blessing.
“Later in life, when I had learnt to accept the
so-called evil or devilish parts of me, and saw that they were really
only the life force that had been damned up by guilt, or fear, or
pain, I could say to God: I now trust you enough to be led by you into
experiencing my own wilderness, my own locked-up life force, my own
devil. And in this surrender my body sometimes shook, or moved
spontaneously as God helped me to relive painful parts of my past,
literally going again through the physical - and emotional - movements
of them. Once again this was a revelation to me, for in times past,
under the name of religion, men and women had been burnt and tortured
as being possessed by the devil when such things occurred. Truly the
world was then in the ‘dark ages’ for people were so
terrified of their own pain and ‘evil’ they projected it
outside of them and called it the devil. It is also interesting that
the word ‘evil’ is only ‘live’ backwards, and the
word ‘devil’ is ‘lived’ reversed. Truly our evil
or devil is in fact the way we have turned life forces back upon
themselves. And they had so little faith in God they could not live in
the wilderness as Jesus did, meeting their devil, but had to fight if
off as if it were as real as God. In being so afraid of evil they
denied the reality of God; for as St. Augustine says, ‘I enquired
into the nature of Evil, and found no substance there.’ It is
only when we act out of this absence of light that evil becomes a
reality. Then we build it into the substance and experience of the
world.”
I have seen that the world was Satan, who defined men’s soul by
opposing it, yet in itself was not evil - only restraint - only
opposition. The pain of my life wakes me to the fact of my own
weakness, my own mistakes. It stimulates in me the desire to rouse up
the spiritual power to cope with these difficulties. Pain and despair,
even agony, as evil as they seem, are yet the arms and agency of Love.
For if I hold my breath through self-will, and block Life’s
action on me, I at first experience discomfort; then pain; then if I
persist, agony. If I still persist, unconsciousness claims me. And all
these graded boundaries of pain are fences guarding us against
self-destruction. For if I did not incur such agony in restraining my
tides of breath, I would soon kill myself. So in agony of mind, or
heart, or body; all are warnings that through act, or thought, or
feeling, we have transgressed against the law of Life which tries to
preserve us. God, trying to turn us from destruction of our soul and
mind, puts ever greater barriers in our way. And what do we call God’s
love, which tries ever to help us unfold, grow, discover love and
eternity in ourselves? We call it Satan.
There are many devils in us. There are the devils of our weakness
and terrors, tempting us to act out of their urging. There is the
devil of materialistic values, which says ‘You are but a body,
destined to die. You have no links with others, grab for yourself all
you can, while you can, from who you can. There is nothing beyond
death, so have no fear of judgement following upon what you have done
in life. There is no ruler or God looking upon your actions - there is
no inner nature which wilt rebel against what you eat or feel or
think, so raise hell, and trample on the other fools.’
Then there is the devil of spiritual pride which says - ‘You
are of the elect. You will be saved, all others damned, for they do
not believe as you believe. They do not live as you live. They are
beneath your notice. Cut yourself off from them.’ There is the
devil which says, ‘Men are the makers and breakers of laws. There
is naught else. Be clever in the ways of men - manipulate them by
understanding their strengths and weaknesses. Do not appear too clever
or foolish, but nevertheless, learn and apply, and take what you want
within the rules, for common thieves are fools.’
So the devil in us may urge us to look upon people as ‘things’,
mere objects in an outer world. Lumps to be experimented on, exposed
to drugs and surgeries and manipulations of mind, like machines. The
devil is all that leads us to be incomplete, whether it comes from
within or without ourselves. To see ourselves, or to live, in a way
that denies our wholeness, is to be tempted by the devil. We are a
body, a soul and a spirit. This is our wholeness. We are a being of
form and substance - our body. We are a being of fluid inner life; of
individual emotions, thoughts and desires- our soul. We are universal
and eternal beings, linked with all life, all other souls and bodies -
our spirit.
To be an ascetic and deny the body is to be tempted out of our
wholeness. For the ascetic is as much a prisoner of this denial of
body, as a materialist is of his denial of spirit. The ascetic has
made a vice of his virtue, and is possessed of the demon of ego and
self-imposed spirituality. Holiness arises from God, not from
self-imposed morality. The devil in him is saying ‘look how
spiritual I am. Look how afraid I have made this soul of its body -
for his soul is surely full of fear, and here is my power over it.’
To be a materialist and deny soul and spirit is to be unwholesome.
In this unbalance we assure ourselves that we have no links with the
rest of life. We are cut off, live only for our outer life, and feel
the only good is physical comfort, possessions, rank, outer power and
self-preservation. Thus we are, inasmuch as we are possessed by this
devil, afraid of destruction, death, lack of material objects, lost
opportunities and withheld social respect.
To deny one’s individual inner life, and suppress thought and
feeling, is to be possessed by the devil which says ‘I am not.
This “I” is an illusion, it is naught but darkness and a
void.’ Thus we cut ourselves off from unique and individual
action within the whole.
To be whole is to allow the soul to exult and express its unique
wonder through the body, while allowing all its life, growth and
expression to be directed by its sense of unity with the all.
To be whole is to be utterly free through the complete discipline of
surrendering all of self to God. In this supplication, God does not
wipe out our ego, but merely shows how some of our aims, our ambitions
and desires, are either potentially self-destructive, or harmful to
other living beings or our universe. But to parts of our own personal
longing and creativeness there comes a great AMEN - it is whole, let
it be done.
To be free, is to be unpossessed by the devils of our own
disharmony; and we are inharmonious because we have chosen to do what
we will, from our own limited knowledge, instead of being directed by
the Unity of all Life.
Then Jesus spoke to me - yes even unto me - and said ‘To be led
by the Spirit is to be directed by the Unity of which you speak, the
Unifying Principle. Thus am I led to experiencing your own inner
wilderness, the barrenness of your heart, the lifelessness of your
soul, and the death of the life-giving forces within your body. The
Dead Sea is your soul, so full of salt, the preservation of dead
forms, the holding on to past facts, the petrifying of emotion, that
it supports no life.
‘Do you know that to fast is to desist from actions and
thoughts not arising from Spirit, and to await the fruits of the
Spirit for forty days, which is indefinitely? It is to stop acting
from the urges arising from ambition, covetousness, failure, and do
nothing unless it arises from out of the inner silence, not the inner
turmoil.
‘It is thus that you tempt me, saying, “But if you do not
go out and attempt to make a name for yourself, to build up a
following, to help people, to do something, you will never get
anywhere or be anyone. And thus you deny God and exalt yourself, who
have become a devil. For you are saying, “With my tiny intellect,
my turbid emotions, my tortuous desires, I know exactly what needs to
be done in the life of other individuals, in my life, in the world, to
set all right. I know this even though my own life is not whole,
though I have no contact with the Creative Forces which caused all to
exist. Yes, I can do it all without help.”
‘But I smile at your childishness, saying, “Neither you
nor I,-but our Father in us does these things. And unless we turn to
that greater wisdom, that wider love and power for direction, our
actions, our words, our activities, even if well-intentioned, are out
of harmony with the whole, and can be destructive to others and
ourself.” So I tell you to fast from such urges; yes, even though
you cry out in hunger for them. And you will cry out, for they are as
a crutch to you, and when the crutch is taken away you fear you will
fall and die. You curse me for kicking at your crutch, yet I know you
can stand, and will not die; but you scream at me, saying “You
bastard - you bastard - don’t come near me, I’ll see you
hanged.”
‘Then you pick up a rock to hurl at me, but instead taunt me,
saying, “If you are so clever, turn this into bread”, and
you throw it at my feet, spitting. |
