Salvador Dali: The Temptation of St. Anthony
The Desert Fathers and Mothers of early Eastern Christianity developed a spiritual psychology of extraordinary depth and self-awareness. Their lives of withdrawal from the distractions of business-as-usual in the urban centres of Egypt heightened the intensity of the tricks the mind plays on itself. Their mythologized language of demons disguised as angels, and the criteria needed to tell them apart, expressed this dynamic.
But you don’t have to spend three years in the desert to know what it’s like to find out you’ve gone down the wrong path and that you need a way to separate light out from darkness. This quotation from Gabor Maté, a Vancouver-based physician and expert in issues of trauma, addiction, and child development, is reposted from New York sacred intimate Don Shewey’s blog, Another Eye Opens.
The title of Maté's book refers to another mythology for this psychological dynamic: the realm of Hungry Ghosts is a Buddhist hell full of spirits who crave endlessly and can never be satisfied. (Like all Buddhist realms of punishment, this is not an eternal state--there is no such thing as an eternal state--but a region in which the consequences of one's actions are experienced prior to another incarnation.)
"The difference between passion and addiction is that between a divine spark and a flame that incinerates.... Passion is divine fire: it enlivens and makes holy; it gives light and yields inspiration. Passion is generous because it’s not ego-driven; addiction is self-centered. Passion gives and enriches; addiction is a thief. Passion is a source of truth and enlightenment; addictive behaviors lead you into darkness. You’re more alive when you are passionate, and you triumph whether or not you attain your goal. But an addiction requires a specific outcome that feeds the ego; without that outcome, the ego feels empty and deprived. A consuming passion that you are helpless to resist, no matter what the consequences, is an addiction."
--Gabor Maté, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts
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