My own devil

Young Jesus goes to join a monastery. A monk who is the ‘guest master’ meets him at the gate and asks him to go back thinking he was just a crazy young boy.

“God commanded me to come,” says Jesus who is visibly worried.

The monk cackled. He had seen a good deal in his lifetime and had no confidence in God.

“God is the Lord,” says the monk. “So he does whatever comes into his head. If he wasn’t able to inflict injustice, what kind of an Omnipotent would he be?”

The above scene is from The Last Temptation of Christ, a novel by Nikos Kazantzakis. [The lines in italics are quoted from the novel.]

The predominant theme of the novel is the conflict between the good and the evil, between the flesh and the spirit. Right at the beginning of the novel we find Jesus wondering whether God and the devil are different entities at all. “Who can tell them apart? They exchange faces,” Jesus reflects.

Both god and devil are within us. Both good and evil are within us. What most of us do is to externalise them and personify them into God and Satan, one all-good and the other all-evil. Many of us, especially those who follow the Semitic religions, also identify the body with evil and the soul or spirit with good.  

In the Prologue to the novel, Kazantzakis says that usually the struggle between the human and the divine in us is unconscious and short-lived. “A weak soul does not have the endurance to resist the flesh for very long. It grows heavy, becomes flesh itself, and the contest ends.” [Emphasis added]

I think the contest ends less dramatically. I think most people don’t experience the conflict at all because right from birth they are fed ready-made answers to all spiritual conflicts. My religion did that to me. I was born a sinner, according to my religion which named the status ‘original sin,’ an inborn inclination towards sinfulness. So I was baptised and thus cleansed of that ‘original’ evil tendency. But I remain human (what else?) and hence possess all the “weaknesses of the flesh”. [Don’t ask what use the baptism was then. There’s no such logic in religion.]

There are solutions for all those weaknesses. For example, there is a counter virtue for every “deadly sin”. There is humility for pride, temperance for gluttony, and so on. One readymade antidote for every evil. Or there is the ritual of confession which can cleanse the evils without much trouble.

These readymade solutions may not satisfy the genuine seeker. That is why Kazantzakis says that “among the responsible men … the conflict between flesh and spirit breaks out mercilessly and may last until death.”

I think it is better to take both good and evil as an inseparable continuum rather than as polarised opposites. Both are potentials within us. It depends on us to cultivate those which we like. When I cultivate the good within me, the evil automatically is held under restraint. Rather, I don’t focus on the evil; I focus on the good. I have noticed how my students make remarkable improvements in behaviour when I point out the good things about themselves. I pretend not to see the dark shades. I focus on the goodness and the goodness flourishes. My perspective is not virtue-sin poles or venom-antivenom treatment.

I don’t see it as a conflict between the spirit and the flesh. I don’t see the flesh as evil. The body is good. I love a good meal whenever it is offered to me and see nothing gluttonous about relishing it. I enjoy a drink once in a while. I love to listen to music, romantic and melancholy. A philosophical novel will entertain me better than any of these, of course. Writing a good blog post also gives me a sense of satisfaction. Now some people may see some of these as evils. Well, these are my own devils and I accept them. I don’t fight them because I know there is no need. I know the god within me is more vibrant. If people don’t see it, that’s not my problem.