I was rereading Maurice Nicoll's "The New Man" [Penguin Books:New York,1976] and came across this quotation. "The devil represents all in a man that cannot evolve and all that does not wish to and hates every idea of inner evolution, all that wishes only to slander and misunderstand and have its own way."
Sometimes I think of evil as the absence of good -- the way darkness is the absence of light, the way cold is the absence of heat. Sometimes I think of good and evil as opposites. I think of the devil as an image, i.e., a personification of "the old deceiver".
People on a spiritual quest often are unclear about what exactly it is they are seeking. In St. Mark's Gospel (4:10-12) Jesus offers us a clue. What the spiritual quest is about, Jesus says here, is finding what he calls "the kingdom of God."
Jesus continues by identifying what separates those who are able to Read More
If we could figure out what Jesus meant when He talked about the "Kingdom of God" or the "Kingdom of Heaven", we would have the key to his teachings. In the synoptic Gospels, practically everything Jesus talked about was related to what He called "The Kingdom". In John's Gospel Jesus uses an equivalent expression: "Eternal Life".
It seems to me that an introverted personality will experience the Kingdom "within" himself or herself. Whereas an extrovert will experience himself as being "in the midst" of the Kingdom. In either case, it's an experience.