School of Meditation Weekly Teachings

What are Our Demons?

We looked at Evagrius’ division of the spiritual life into the ‘praxis’ and ‘theoria’. Let us concentrate for a moment longer on ‘Praxis’. We must not forget that our spiritual growth depends both on grace and effort. Grace was paramount for Evagrius , but effort was also important.

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Importance of the Emotions

We have looked at Evagrius’ emphasis on becoming aware what our ‘demons’ are, recognizing them, acknowledging them and thus robbing them of their power. He talked about ‘purifying the emotions’: purifying and transfiguring the emotions back to their original state of divinely given energy: Read more »

Resistance by the Ego

We have seen how Evagrius’ demons all stem from our fear, our fear of not surviving, in fact, our fear of death. The moment we start to meditate the ‘ego’, our King and Queen of survival, goes into action. It does not like us entering the level of silence, where we will meet the ‘self’, the Christ within, as we will be out of its total control.

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Resistance Through Religious Conditioning

Our religious upbringing forms our inheritance of images of God, which may well be a further hindrance to us on the spiritual path. We must become aware of how our ideas about God are not only shaped by social and cultural factors but are also distorted by our conditioning, our personal fears, hopes and needs. They are often a product of our early childhood linked with our attitudes especially to parents and teachers. All images are a product of the ‘ego’. 

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Psychology and Spirituality

We have been exploring in the last few letters the importance of self-knowledge on two levels. Firstly we need to become aware of the wiles of the ego, “cleansing our doors of perception”, as William Blake called it. We noted the various images of self and God, which can hinder us on the path to the Divine. Secondly we need to remember that we are more; we also have another deeper spiritual level to our being, often called our true self. Learning to understand the ‘wounded ego’ is often seen as “merely psychological”, not spiritual.

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