The devil cheats

From the Cathedral of St. Foy at Conques, France

Last night, we were having dinner when I remarked to my wife that every part of us that thinks it is special or that has a wish to be special contains a destructive element that I’m unable to see.

Of course, everything contains a destructive element in it as well as a creative one; but in this case, my blindness to the destructive element is critical. I believe that every wish I have to be special — to be better, whether spiritually, morally, or materially — to be more important, to be assigned more significance, to be more honored by others, to have things the way that I want them — is a creative action. It will create a “better” me — and a world, by the way, that is better ordered and which I am more satisfied by.

My desires are an engine that operates almost constantly in this direction. If I don’t examine them critically, I can’t see the way in which their selfishness tends to crush everything else in its path — and the more selfish my desires are, the more things they crush on my way to them. 

This brings me back to the question of desires and non-desires, to the need for non-desires to prevail.

Non-desire, in the case of spiritual nature, needs to become a comprehensive understanding — an understanding that grasps everything, that applies to everything. If I take a step back from where I am in myself, and remove myself just that one single step from my desires so that I can see them operating, I see how every single one of them is an invention or a fantasy of one kind or another. I keep making up stories about imaginary futures, imaginary pasts, imaginary presents. No matter which way I turn, my desire is connected to something that takes me away from the truth. 

The fewer desires I have, the closer I come to the truth of what actually is.

Of course, the idea that I could be completely free of desire is equally fanciful. The image of the angel and the demon staring into one another’s eyes on the tympanum of the Cathedral of St. Foy in Conques (France) turns up once again as a leitmotif in the story of man’s two natures.  I keep coming back to this particular image— one of my all-time favorites to date—because it has so many different and extraordinarily subtle observations about spiritual teaching in it. How fitting that it comes from one of the most mysterious and compelling pilgrimage sites in medieval Europe.

The angel holds a pair of scales — he is judging, flying directly in the face of Christ's admonition: judge not, lest ye be judged. No matter how righteous he believes his behavior to be — remember, he's an angel— it has a flaw in it. We can imagine him raising the scales up, trying to reach the higher level he believes he is on, and impose its strictures, commands, and spiritually pure behaviors on the situation. If we think about this carefully, I think you'll agree we can see there's something wrong here. As Gurdjieff said, with a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, paradoxically, it's the devil you can trust. This image helps to illustrate that in subtle and peculiar ways. (Don't forget, as well, the broken universe of Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, where even the highest angels keep making mistakes.)

The devil puts one of his fingers on the scales — he's cheating. Ah, well, you can indeed trust him to do this – after all, he's a devil.

 Remember as we consider this that these two creatures both represent not just some external agency that will judge us after we die, but how we are inside ourselves right now. To read this into the image is not to find more in it than is already there; the monastic orders that created such artworks were extraordinarily sophisticated thinkers, as their texts and sermons so amply demonstrate. They were probably better assessors of human character than we are today. Pay attention to their works; they can still educate.

 Here we see an illustration of the idea that both our natures, higher and lower, are engaged in wrong behaviors: the angel judges, the devil cheats. Even worse, the angel judges because the devil cheats; and the devil cheats because the angel judges. Both natures are exactly what they are, no more, no less; they can’t help what they do. 

As for myself, all I can do is stand between these inner forces and understand that they exist. I need to be aware of these processes, not control them, cheat with them, or judge with them. In a sense, it is my job to be an independent entity. 

Not an angel, not a demon. Just the one who sees what is happening.


Wishing the best for you on this day,

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.