Captured Desires

[Psychotheosophy]

"In the person possessed by his appetites we find fulfilled even in this life what is said of Babylon in the Apocalypse: “In the measure of her desires for self-exaltation and fulfillment of her appetites, give her torment and anguish” (Rev. 18:7)

A man who lets his desires capture him suffers torture and affliction like an enemy held prisoner. The Book of Judges contains a figure of this in that passage which narrates how the enemies captured mighty Samson, who was free, strong judge of Israel and weakened him, pulled out his eyes, and chained him to grind at the millstone, where he was grievously tortured and tormented (Judges 16:21). The same thing happens to a man in whom the enemy appetites reside and triumph. First they weaken and blind him, …then they afflict and torment him by chaining him to the mill of concupiscence (inclination to sin), for they are the chains by which he is bound."

The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book I, Chapter 7

Are captured desires really that bad?

 

[Mintaka]

If you were an alcoholic, and your desire for alcohol was controlling your life, wouldn’t that be a sort of slavery and torture?

If you couldn’t go a day without buying a comic or a pencil or whatever, wouldn’t that be slavery?

Any desire or possession or emotion that controls us – is a slavemaster. Freedom is controlling our desires instead of letting them control us.

 

[dusza]

Coincidentally, I just read this passage today or yesterday. The active night of the senses (controlling desires) is just the beginning of the ascent of Mt. Carmel. This is followed by the passive night of the senses, which is the loss of desire to pursue anything that isn’t God. Many people will probably think of it as a form of depression, but it is in fact a gift from God to those that he’s calling to a closer union with Himself.

 

[rwoehmke]

I can tell you from experience that giving in freely to ones desires for food, drink, sex or whatever soon turns into a form of slavery. It takes control and you lose control. Like the alcoholic who claims." I can quit anytime, I just chose not to", you delude yourself. It is one reason why many religions require periods of fasting from food, drink, sex etc. It builds self control or mastery where one is in charge of one’s own person and not enslaved to the desires of one’s body.

 

[Psychotheosophy]

So,

Timing our actions properly,
Keeps us from feeling tortured?

Freedom and self-control,
Keeps us from feeling tortured?

God,
Keeps us from feeling tortured?

Does freedom, self-control, and properly timing actions (self-control) = God?

 

[Psychotheosophy]

“To be able to choose more than one course of action leading to a goal is a fulfillment of freedom, but to choose departing from that goal and to sin is a defect of freedom”

Summa Theologica: A Concise Translation

Excessive self-control can be torturous,
And is a defect of self-control.

Choosing to depart from Happiness,
Is a defect of freedom.

Since God has no defects (Perfect Happiness),
Freedom and Self-control are not Happiness.
(Though they have Goodness
Which is desired).

Can freedom be torturous?

St. John of the Cross writes,…

“Here we have the reason for stating that two wills become one. And this one will is God’s will which becomes also the soul’s. If a man should desire an imperfection unwanted by God, this one will of God would be destroyed because of the desires for what God does not will”

The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book I, Chapter 11

Coincidentally, I just read this passage today or yesterday. The active night of the senses (controlling desires) is just the beginning of the ascent of Mt. Carmel. This is followed by the passive night of the senses, which is the loss of desire to pursue anything that isn’t God. Many people will probably think of it as a form of depression, but it is in fact a gift from God to those that he’s calling to a closer union with Himself.

Are you suggesting,
A martyrdom could be made to appear as a suicide?

 

[Psychotheosophy]

Excessive self-control can be torturous,
And is a defect of self-control.

Self-control can also be misdirected,
Which again is a defect of self-control.

“Natural wealth (food clothing, housing, etc.), are only means of supporting human life: man is wealth’s goal rather than wealth man’s. And conventional valuables, like money, are even less our ultimate goal (Perfect Happiness), needed only to buy the natural valuables life needs…As such they may accompany happiness, but are not the first cause of it.”

Summa Theologica: A Concise Translation

So,
We may make sacrifices
To accumulate wealth, but
Wealth itself is not Happiness.

“God Himself refers to these individuals (the greedy) through Jeremias: ‘They have abandoned Me, the fount of living water, and dug for themselves leaking cisterns that cannot hold water’ (Jer. 2:13). The reason for this dissatisfaction is that creatures do not slake the thirst, but rather intensify it.”

The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book III, Chapter 19

The more that we thirst for Happiness,
In things that are not Happiness,
Then the more we thirst, and
The imperfect happiness
That we find in money,
Becomes torturous
Over time.

Are you suggesting,
A martyrdom could be made to appear as a suicide?

Or are you suggesting,
A suicide could be made to appear as a martyrdom?

 

[Psychotheosophy]

“God Himself refers to these individuals (the greedy) through Jeremias: ‘They have abandoned Me, the fount of living water, and dug for themselves leaking cisterns that cannot hold water’ (Jer. 2:13). The reason for this dissatisfaction is that creatures do not slake the thirst, but rather intensify it.”

The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book III, Chapter 19

A cistern is a reservoir for holding rainwater,
It irrigates a garden in time of drought.

Some cisterns sit on the top of houses,
Supplying the running water needs for the house.

Any reflections on this?

 

[Psychotheosophy]

A cistern is a reservoir for holding rainwater,
It irrigates a garden in time of drought.

Thankfully,

Even if the the cistern leaks,
It will continue to rain,
Until the harvest.

 

[Psychotheosophy]

Thankfully,

Even if the the cistern leaks,
It will continue to rain,
Until the harvest.

Unfortunately,

Souls suffer much in Life,
They are like gardens in the desert.
And the sun, a source of Light and Life,
Dries up and destroys the gardens
Without an adequate cistern.
And the destroyed gardens,
Feed the soil
Of other gardens,
Like souls reminded
By their own potential death.

“Here we have the reason for stating that two wills become one. And this one will is God’s will which becomes also the soul’s. If a man should desire an imperfection unwanted by God, this one will of God would be destroyed because of the desires for what God does not will”

The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book I, Chapter 11

This, of course, is what we refer to as the destruction of the soul.

 

[Psychotheosophy]

So,
We may make sacrifices
To accumulate wealth, but
Wealth itself is not Happiness.

A superficial understanding
Of St. John of the Cross
Might suggest that,
We must abandon
All natural wealth and money to be happy.

But this is not the case…

“As such, (Natural wealth and money) may accompany happiness, but are not the first cause of it. They are given instead of virtue’s reward by people who have nothing better to give: virtue’s true reward is happiness itself.”

Summa Theologica: A Concise Translation

Therefore,
A wealthy man has many opportunities
To practice the virtue of charity.
And so gains true Happiness.

Natural wealth is similar
To supernatural powers.

"(Supernatural powers) are of little or no importance to man, since they are not in themselves means for uniting the soul with God, as is charity. And the exercise of these supernatural powers does not require grace and charity; either God truly bestows them as He did to the wicked prophet Balaam and to Solomon, or by means of the devil, as in the case of Simon Magnus, or by means of other secret, natural powers. If any of these marvels are to be beneficial to their agent, they will be the true ones that are given by God.

St. Paul teaches… 'If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am become as the sounding metal or bell. And if I should prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith so as to move mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing, etc. (1 Cor. 13:1-2)…and…‘Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and work many miracles? Christ will answer ‘Depart from me, workers of iniquity’ (Mt. 7:22-23).’

A man should rejoice, then, not in the possession and exercise of these graces, but in the procurement of the second spiritual benefit: serving God by them with true charity, for in charity lies the fruit of eternal life."

Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book III, Chapter 30

Therefore,
It is always important to seek,
The God of these experiences,
Rather than
These experiences of God.

 

[Psychotheosophy]

Ah, who has the power to heal me?
Now wholly surrender Yourself!
Do not send me
Any more messengers,
They cannot tell me what I must hear.

“You have communicated by means of others, as if joking with me; now may You truly grant me communication of Yourself by Yourself… I desire complete knowledge of You, and they have neither knowledge nor ability to tell of You entirely. Nothing in heaven or on earth can give the soul the knowledge she desires of You. Thus, “they cannot tell me what I must hear.” Instead of these messengers, may You, then, be both the messenger and message.”

The Spiritual Canticle, Stanza 6 Commentary
St. John of the Cross

Though,

Natural and supernatural wealth have goodness,
Neither these nor any man who possesses them,
Can satisfy the soul’s desire for Complete Happiness.

Except Happiness Himself.

 

[thistle]

So,

Timing our actions properly,
Keeps us from feeling tortured?

Freedom and self-control,
Keeps us from feeling tortured?

God,
Keeps us from feeling tortured?

Does freedom, self-control, and properly timing actions (self-control) = God?

Not again!! Do we really have to put up with conversation in verses? No normal person talks like this!

 

[grndslm]

Not again!! Do we really have to put up with conversation in verses? No normal person talks like this!

Umm… poets talk like that.

And, honestly, I couldn’t imagine a psycho-theosophist speaking any other way.

 

[thistle]

Umm… poets talk like that.

And, honestly, I couldn’t imagine a psycho-theosophist speaking any other way.

No. Poets write poetry and may do a poetry reading but they certainly do not talk in verses when conversing with people. You really think they talk in verse to a cashier at a supermarket.

You may be right, though, that a psycho would talk like that but they are not normal people!

 

[grndslm]

You may be right, though, that a psycho would talk like that but they are not normal people!

Correct. And I have no interest in talking to “normal people”.

I’d rather speak to the extremists. They’re the ones who truly undertand the meaning of the word PASSION.

I have no doubt in my mind that you would have told Christ Jesus to stop speaking in parables, because they’re only examples. Why not have others testify to real stories??

Thistle, language is a tool. If you prefer pose over poetry… that’s your choice, opinion. Personally, I enjoy a fresh use of communication. And poetry is a great way to communicate.

 

[thistle]

Correct. And I have no interest in talking to “normal people”.

I’d rather speak to the extremists. They’re the ones who truly undertand the meaning of the word PASSION.

I have no doubt in my mind that you would have told Christ Jesus to stop speaking in parables, because they’re only examples. Why not have others testify to real stories??

Thistle, language is a tool. If you prefer pose over poetry… that’s your choice, opinion. Personally, I enjoy a fresh use of communication. And poetry is a great way to communicate.

That’s an odd comment. You mean you have no interest in talking to your family and friends?? I assume they are normal people.

 

[JVD]

Self-control can also be misdirected,
Which again is a defect of self-control.

So,
We may make sacrifices
To accumulate wealth, but
Wealth itself is not Happiness.

The more that we thirst for Happiness,
In things that are not Happiness,
Then the more we thirst, and
The imperfect happiness
That we find in money,
Becomes torturous
Over time.

Or are you suggesting,
A suicide could be made to appear as a martyrdom?

Uhmm, I got to ask? No disrespect, but are you feeling OK? It thought it was “peculiar” the first time I noted you having dialog with yourself here in this thread. But after seeing you continue that pattern for a sequence of posts it became apparent that you were having a deliberate rhetorical conversion with yourself. The point-counterpoint dialog reminded me of the endless reflective internal monologue (spoken in the first person plural sense) used by the tormented character Gollum as he wrestled with his multiple warring personalities in JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. He was a pitiable character who struggled with the old good “Sméagol” and the thing (Gollum) that he was becoming through the corrupting influence of the “One Ring”

Just curious - since you are getting into a lot of reflective recursion in your monologue that may not be entirely healthy. Or is it that you are bored & marking time with conspicuous eccentric behavior to get the attention of a partner to bump ideas against?

Peculiar.

James

 

[grndslm]

That’s an odd comment. You mean you have no interest in talking to your family and friends?? I assume they are normal people.

Not quite. My friends and family are definitely extreme when it comes to lots of things. Similar to how passion is more attractive to me than indifference. I’m attracted to the passion just as much as I am the craziness, tho.

EVERYBODY is “crazy” in one way or another [and I’m sure more than just one]. Only person that I couldn’t find any shred of indifference or craziness in was my friend’s father, who was a doctor. He has spent virtually all his life saving lives with hardly any free time for himself. He’s the most extreme of them all, tho. He has NO time for himself. Great example of how a man can bring smiles and tears to your eyes at the same time.

Essentially, I always want to speak to the difference maker, not the indifference maker.