Dealing With Temptation

[QUOTING]

As we said in the last chapter, the Path to the Original Kingdom involves the application of the fivefold Gnosis:

insight
yearning for salvation
self-surrender
new attitude of life
transfiguration

Those who are not yet walking the Path and have therefore not yet found the thread of Tao often demonstrate moral dis-equilibrium and mood swings due to the turbulent sea of their emotions. One moment they are cheerful, the next, very miserable. One moment they are very purposeful and positive, the next they are filled with despair and feel as though they might as well give up everything. One day they are strong, the next day quite the opposite. We are all familiar with these oscillations. They characterize dualistic nature.

You can read about this in the works of Chuang Tzu. They portray a pupil who is earnestly trying to make something of his life in the sense meant by our School. All day long he agonizes over how to rid himself of what torments him and to cultivate what he loves, but success eludes him.

Lao Tzu says to him: 'You must purify yourself completely, but I see by your sadness that something is stopping you still'. He then advises:

'If the hindrances from outside become too great, you must not attempt to overcome them by fighting against them, but you should shut your mind to them. If they come from within, you must not try to repress them, but rather, keep yourself out of the way of temptation. If even a master in Tao and virtue is incapable of resisting these two influences in combination, how much less can one who is striving after Tao'.

Happily, there are many pupils in the Spiritual School who are striving after The New Life. They are trying to make the essence of the Gnosis into a virtue in themselves. Through the intermediary of the Mystery School, such efforts always result in a link with Tao; something of the magnetic current of the Gnosis is imparted to the pupil's being. The pupil is being brought close to the thread of Tao, and now he is advised to hold onto that thread, so that he may possess it.

Clearly, any pupil who attempts to do this will find himself in a difficult situation, in which the magnetic currents of two realms are being transmitted to him: the current of the New Nature and the current of the old nature-of-death, by which the pupil lives. This results in tremendous inner conflicts. Great, unbridgeable antitheses are felt, and it cannot be otherwise. If someone is fundamentally of the darkness, and he is placed in the Light, he will feel terrible. His own darkness will be revealed to him more than ever before. In addition, his microcosm, in which he is the current personality, has an immeasurably long past in the world of time and space, and his blood and his soul are conditioned by that past. So there is a total equilibrium between the past and the present, and together they determine his future.

This natural process -- and it is nothing more than that -- conditions one's whole life and character, and is experienced by the pupil as darkness, as a great burden, as temptations that hinder his pupilship. He starts talking about "the devil", or about being influenced by the reflection-sphere and so on. But you need to realize that such influences are always side-effects, and never first causes. In reality, the dualistic influences affecting the personality from the outside originate from the other parts of the microcosm, while the influences affecting the personality from within originate in the blood. These are the temptations from outside and from within.

Lao Tzu advises: 'Do not fight against these natural processes, and do not try to get the better of them in that way, for you will never succeed'. As regards the influences from outside, he says, 'close your mind to them', and as regards the influences from within, his advice is to 'keep yourself outwardly out of the way of temptation; do not act on those influences'.

You may not always be able to tell straight-away whether an influence is coming from outside or from within; whether it originates in the magnetic-sphere of your being or in the blood. But that won't matter. All you need to do is cultivate the following approach:

As soon as you notice that a particular influence is tending to disturb the steady unfoldment of your pupilship, divert your thoughts immediately, or try to dispel the influence by engaging in some intense activity. Do not give it a second's attention. If the influence arises from your blood, and all kinds of inclinations are stirring and boiling within you, just let your blood spend itself and avoid any outer action, whether in reality or thought.

If you apply this two-fold method, you will notice that your strength as a pupil will constantly grow, and that you can grasp the thread of Tao more and more firmly. If you fail -- and there is no reason why you should -- you will find you keep on having to start all over again from the beginning, which will weaken your body, increase your burden, and make your life hell.

So we hope you will take this ancient, classical advice to heart.

From "The Thread of Tao" - The Chines Gnosis - Catharose de Petri and Jan van Rijckenborgh

[END QUOTING]

Remember that "energy follows thought, what is focused upon grows".  Thoughts are things. Literally, our thoughts are our creations. Cosmic law holds that all creatures are bound to their creators. So our thoughts, even if not immediately acted upon, will remain within our magnetic-sphere. The thought will continue to present itself to us until either of the following happen

(a) we increase its strength by focusing on the thought, thereby giving it energy, eventually resulting in some type of action, or

(b) the thought gradually fades away as it dies of starvation from lack of attention.

Therefore we are advised to take on an attitude of indifference or inattention when undesirable thoughts or impulses attack us from without or within. Do not attempt to fight them. Even attempting to resist thoughts or desires will only strengthen them. This is true because by doing so, you are still focusing on the thought or desire. And, as stated above, what is focused upon, will grow in strength and intensity.

We are creatures of this nature, built to respond to the infinite stimuli emanating from the nature-of-death. However, we are also candidates on the Path, who are attempting to free our microcosm from this nature by following the thread of the Gnosis back to the Divine Kingdom. We have a foot in both worlds, so to speak. Because of this, until we become strong enough in the Gnosis, from time to time we may become susceptible to the temptations of this nature. This is a recognized part of walking the Path. We are offered the advice above to assist us in overcoming these hurdles.

This writer has taken the twofold advice to heart and put it into practice. It does work, if one is diligent about its application. That is encouraging news for all because with the myriad invisible forces arrayed against the serious candidate, any advice that can protect us from stumbling is welcome advice indeed.

~ g
.