What is the devil?

[Beeman]

A request for an explanation on what the devil - the mechanic of evil. 

I watched the video for three times and I like the way everything said but I couldn't understand the exact point of the idea. 

I couldn't understand when Leo say you are the devil, is it metaphorically or literally? 

If  say so, does it mean sprit devil doesn't exist? 

What about underworld entiy? 

Does the view is from mystic point of view? 

 

[TheAvatarState]

You are literally the devil. So am I. It is a capacity of everyone, related to separation, caused the ego. Recognize that you have the very same mechanics in your ego that caused people like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc, to do what they did. I suggest you watch Leo's 3-part self-deception series for more clarity on the specific mechanics. 

[Shadowraix]

@Belay kelemework There is no underworld entity its all a big metaphor.

The devil can't be separate from God because it is one with God. So therefore it creates these dualities to deceive itself into being separate. Sounds a lot like the ego doesn't it?

Everything is 'spirit' deriving from the same source.Some people like to see God and the devil in a light/dark duality but you always have to keep in mind those collapse into total oneness and unity.

[Truth Addict]

@Belay kelemework

I suggest you watch different videos more than watching the same one many times.

After you have watched the video: "What is the Devil?". What do you think the devil is?

If you think it's something outside of you, then check again.

The devil is a metaphor for selfishness.

There's no actual devil, it's just you when you only care about yourself and to hell with others.

Try imagining a world where you are  watching from the outside, just as an observer. That'll be God minus the devil.

[Zigzag Idiot]

Just a little more food for thought.

1 Quote from Almaas and his Diamond Approach and 1 Hans Wilhelm short video. Hans takes a lot of this to the Luciferian Doctrine which is quite eye opening if you've never studied about it. Involves the early Gnostic's total disagreement with the early organization of the Roman Catholic Church.

 

All Spiritual Work Would be Pointless if There Were Such a Thing as Ultimate Evil

As we have seen, each Holy Idea is a characteristic of reality at all locations, at all times, and at all levels. Holy Truth explicates this understanding. Here, we are saying that not only is reality just one presence that is boundless and real, but that it is also positive, blissful, and wonderful. So not only is God one, but God is also wonderful and made of love. The truth, then, is loving and lovable, which is why we say in the Diamond Approach that you must love truth for its own sake. If your orientation is that you love truth so that it will change you and make you a happier person, your orientation is out of sync with how things objectively are; if you see reality as it is, you can’t help but love it. It follows, then, that objectively there is no evil. We see evil only when we perceive reality through a filter. A person who behaves in what we consider evil ways is a person acting through a distortion. In spiritual work, concepts of a devil, of dark forces, of some evil that exists on its own outside of the goodness of reality are considered manifestations of ignorance, both in terms of believing in such concepts and in terms of the manifestations attributed to such forces. All spiritual work would be pointless if there were such a thing as ultimate evil.

Facets of Unity, pg. 215

 

 

[Beeman]

@Truth Addict

Jesus is telling us in many verses that Satan is real. 

Can we find better enlightened than Jesus. 

Luke 22:31-34 New International Version (NIV)

31 “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. 32 But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

@TheAvatarState @Shadowraix

[TheAvatarState]

@Belay kelemework Satan IS real, and non duality tells us he's not separate from you!

[Truth Addict]

@Belay kelemework

Get real man! Imagination is not real.

Jesus was pointing us towards the real devil, which is our selfish ego nature.

The devil is not something other than us.

Where do you find the devil very explicitly?

Anger, depression, hatred, jealousy, fear.

Whenever you feel anyone of the above emotions, look for the devil inside of you, see how it works, how it twists the truth for its survival.

Notice how evil you become when you are afraid. That should tell you something about the devil.

[Rilles]

There are hell dimensions according to Robert Monroe but what Leo was talking about was the ego. 

[Joseph Maynor]

The Devil is a concept in a religiously-inclined person's Mind that they cling to.  I'm not a fan of using religious words when talking about Enlightenment.  If you wanna be religious go for that -- go whole hog into that.  I was religious myself for a spell, so I l know exactly what that is and means.

Edited February 18, 2019 by Joseph Maynor

[Forestluv]

@Belay kelemework  You are interpreting metaphors literally, which destroys the whole purpose of the metaphor. For example, there is a saying that "The world is your oyster". It doesn't literally mean that the world is an actual oyster and that you actually own the world. It is just a metaphor. Some oyster's contain a hidden pearl, yet one has to search to find an oyster that has a pearl. Similarly, the world has hidden "pearls" (treasures), yet one has to search for them to find them.

As well, sayings that there is a hell realm with a satanic devil, doesn't literally mean there is a physical place of hell with an actual being that is a devil that lives in that place. It's just a metaphor. Interpreting it literally destroys it's meaning as a metaphor. Ancient religious scriptures are filled with stories and metaphors that shouldn't be taken literally. 

[Consept]

Put it like this, the bible was written in a time to describe many things that are intangible. This was be psychotherapy, modern science, psychologists, evolutionary biology and many other ways of thinking we take for granted. But the experience of what these disciplines attempt to study and understand has always been with us otherwise there would be no need for the disciplines. So to explain how these very real things happened metaphors and language had to be used. In terms of the devil, it would seem more realistic that when its mentioned in the bible its talking about a side of us, one that is capable of evil, essentially the ego, our attachment to thoughts. The mind is uncontrollable, so if evil thoughts are going through it we may get confused and think we are the evil thoughts and that we are evil but of course that can not be true as we are the perceiver of any thought, so the devil is if we completely embody the thoughts and they take over us creating an almost completely separate entity, the reality of course is that we've mistaken that for us. 

I find it interesting that people think the bible is describing physical phenomenon, when surely its a spiritual practice, spiritual meaning not physical. If the bibles anything its an attempt to decipher the spiritual not the physical, so therefore the devil would have to be a metaphor for that 

[Shadowraix]

11 hours ago, Belay kelemework said:

@Truth Addict

Jesus is telling us in many verses that Satan is real. 

Can we find better enlightened than Jesus. 

Luke 22:31-34 New International Version (NIV)

31 “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. 32 But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

@TheAvatarState @Shadowraix

Instead of citing the Bible, seek out to directly experience what it says. You can't understand Jesus' teachings through mental masturbation.

[Shadowraix]

6 hours ago, Consept said:

spiritual meaning not physical.

Be careful about that duality as spiritual is physical and vice versa in actuality.

[Zigzag Idiot]

Maurice Nicolls book The New Man unravels the meaning of parables.

THE LANGUAGE OF PARABLES PART ONE 

ALL sacred writings contain an outer and an inner meaning. Behind the literal words lies another range of meaning, another form of knowledge. According to an old−age tradition, Man once was in touch with this inner knowledge and inner meaning. There are many stories in the Old Testament which convey another knowledge, a meaning quite different from the literal sense of the words. The story of the Ark, the story of Pharaoh's butler and baker, the story of the Tower of Babel, the story of Jacob and Esau and the mess of pottage, and many others, contain an inner psychological meaning far removed from their literal level of meaning. And in the Gospels the parable is used in a similar way. 

Many parables are used in the Gospels. As they stand, taken in the literal meaning of the words, they refer apparently to vineyards, to householders, to stewards, to spendthrift sons, to oil, to water and to wine, to seeds and sowers and soil, and many other things. This is their literal level of meaning. The language of parables is difficult to understand just as is, in general, the language of all sacred writings. Taken on the level of literal understanding, both the Old and New Testaments are full not only of contradictions but of cruel and repulsive meaning. 

The question arises: Why are these so−called sacred writings cast in misleading form? Why is not what is meant explained clearly? If the story of Jacob's supplanting of Esau, or, again, of the Tower of Babel, or of the Ark constructed in three storeys riding on the. flood, is not literally true but has a quite different inner meaning, why is it all not made evident? Why again should parables be used in the Gospels? Why not say directly what is meant? And if a person thinking in this way were to ask why the story of Creation in Genesis, which clearly cannot be taken literally, means something else, something quite different from what the literal words mean, he might very well conclude that the so−called sacred writings are nothing but a kind of fraud deliberately perpetrated thereby having its finer significance destroyed. People sometimes imagine they can understand anything, once they are told it. But this is quite wrong. The development of the understanding, the seeing of differences, is a long process. Everyone knows that little children cannot be taught about life directly because their understanding is small. Again, it is realized that there are subjects in ordinary life that cannot be understood save by long preparation, such as certain branches of the sciences. It is not enough to be merely told what they are about. 

The object of all sacred writings is to convey higher meaning and higher knowledge in terms of ordinary knowledge as a starting−point. The parables have an ordinary meaning. The object of the parables is to give a man higher meaning in terms of lower meaning in such a way that he can either think for himself or not. The parable is an instrument devised for this purpose. It can fall on a man literally, or it can make him think for himself. It invites him to think for himself. A man first understands on his ordinary, matter−of−fact or natural level. To lift the understanding, whatever is taught must first fall on this level to some extent, to form a starting−point. A man must get hold, of what he is taught, to begin with, in a natural way. But the parable has meaning beyond its literal or natural sense. It is deliberately designed to fall first on the ordinary level of the mind and yet to work in the mind in the direction of lifting the natural level of comprehension to another level of meaning. From this point of view, a parable is a transforming instrument in regard to meaning. As we shall see later the parable is also a connecting medium between a lower and a higher level in development of the understanding. 

PART TWO 

THE Gospels speak mainly of a possible inner evolution called "re−birth". This is their central idea. Let us begin by taking inner evolution as meaning a development of the understanding. The Gospels teach that a man living on this earth is capable of undergoing a definite inner evolution if he comes in contact with definite teaching on this subject. For that reason, Christ said: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. " (John xiv, 6). This inner evolution is psychological. To become a more understanding person is a psychological development. It lies in the realm of the thoughts, the feelings, the actions, and, in short, the understanding. A man is his understanding. If you wish to see what a man is, and not what he is like, look at the level of his understanding. The Gospels speak, then, of a real psychology based on the teaching that Man on earth is capable of a definite inner evolution in understanding. 

The Gospels are from beginning to end all about this possible self−evolution. They are psychological documents. They are about the psychology of this possible inner development—that is, about what a man must think, feel, and do in order to reach a new level of understanding. The Gospels are not about the affairs of life, save indirectly, but about this central idea—namely, that Man internally is a seed capable of a definite growth. Man is compared with a seed capable of a definite evolution. As he is, Man is incomplete, unfinished. A man can bring about his own evolution, his own completion, individually. If he does not wish to do this he need not. He is then called grass—that is, burned up as useless. This is the teaching of the Gospels. 

 

 

[Beeman]

@TheAvatarState if we are the devil's literally, that would be mind blowing. 

I would love it. @Shadowraix @Joseph Maynor

[Rilles]

17 minutes ago, Belay kelemework said:

@TheAvatarState if we are the devil's literally, that would be mind blowing. 

I would love it. @Shadowraix @Joseph Maynor

Dont make that a limiting belief. The illusion is necessary for existence, being the “devil” just means falling for your own illusions. The devil was cast out because he wanted to SEPARATE from God not because he wanted to be God, see how funny that is? Everything is perfect... why would you want it any other way... Well otherwise there could be no YOU.  

Im not the ocean im the drop!

Im not the guitar im the string!

Im not the animal im the hide! Pun intended

The separation you feel is in direct contradiction from your direct experience yet you believe in it. Look at your foot and the ground, are they really separate? Of course not but it is so ingrained into you that you cant even believe in your own experience.

Edited February 19, 2019 by Rilles

[Beeman]

13 hours ago, TheAvatarState said:

@Belay kelemework Satan IS real, and non duality tells us he's not separate from you!

Wow. 

[Zigzag Idiot]

Seeing a higher level of interpretation in the New Testament in part, regarding the idea of the devil.

Within the following long excerpt I just pasted below:

The conception of the Gospels is that Man is continually being dragged down by evil forces, which are in him, not outside him, and to which he consents. By Man's consent to these forces in himself, progress in human life is prevented. The evil powers are in Man, in his own nature, in the very nature of his self−love, his egotism, his ignorance, his stupidity, his malice, his vanity, and also his thinking only from the senses and taking the seen world, the outer appearances of life, as the only reality. These defects are collectively called the devil, which is the name for the terrible power of misunderstanding everything that undeveloped Man possesses, the power of wrongly connecting everything. The devil is the aggregate of all these deficiencies, all these powers of misunderstanding in Man, and all their transmitted results. So the devil is called the slanderer or scandal−maker, from one point of view, and the accuser from another point of view.

 

THE IDEA OF TEMPTATION IN THE GOSPELS 

PART ONE 

As we shall study in the next chapter the Miracle of the Transformation of Water into Wine, which in its internal or psychological meaning is about a certain definite stage reached by Jesus in his individual evolution, approximately just before he began to teach, it may be as well to consider the temptations of Jesus and the idea of temptation in its general significance in the Gospels in this connection. Now here it is necessary to grasp clearly something that is not usually understood. What has to be grasped is that Jesus had to undergo inner growth and evolution. He was not born perfect. Had this been the case he would not have suffered temptation or experienced such despair. Some religious people make a mistake in thinking that Christ had from the start such exceptional powers that anything was possible to him. But, as one instance, Jesus mentions the difficulty of healing a certain form of illness and says that much prayer and fasting is necessary before it can be undertaken. Later on we shall study some of these examples, but it can be said here that the most extraordinary views exist about the unlimited powers that Jesus had on earth, so much so that people even argue that if he were the Son of God, why did he not heal all sickness and convert the whole world? This is the same kind of argument used by people who say that if there is a God why are pain, illness, suffering, war, and so on, allowed on earth? The whole standpoint of both arguments is wrong. The idea of the meaning of life on earth is not grasped. In fact, the central idea of the Gospels is not grasped—namely, the idea of individual evolution and re−birth. 

Let us repeat the words used above to make the issue of this chapter as clear as possible: Jesus had to undergo inner growth and evolution. Let us start from this point. Jesus was not born perfect, as a fully−developed, a fully−evolved Man. On 

the contrary, he was born imperfect in order to carry out a certain long−prophesied task. He had to re−establish at a critical period in human history a connection between the two levels called" in the Gospels "earth" and "heaven", and this had to be done in himself practically, so as to reopen a way for influences from a higher level of the Universe of Total Being (which extends up through different degrees of the Divine Being to Absolute Being) to reach Mankind on earth and so make it possible for Man to have a possibility of inner development and also for some kind of intelligent culture to exist for a definite period or cycle of history. Of this period Jesus asks himself whether "faith will be found on earth" at its culmination. "Howbeit when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on earth?" Such are the words of Christ and these words suggest that he doubted whether faith would be found on earth at the end of this cycle. 

Jesus then had to bridge the human and divine in himself and in this way re−establish a connection between heaven and earth. He had to undergo all the difficulties of an inner evolution of the human in him so that it became subject to the higher or "divine" level. He had to pass through all the stages of this evolution in himself by trial and error, until it was perfected, through endless inner temptations, of which we are only given a few glimpses. And all this took place over a long period about which we only know something of the teaching he gave during the latter part of it, which terminated in the final humiliation and so−called catastrophe of the crucifixion, and a few details of the earliest part, but nothing of the comparatively long, intervening part. Here is silence. We do not know where Jesus was taught during this period or by whom he was given directions for the final drama he had to enact, the heralding of which was given to John the Baptist (who did not know him by sight) and the ordained culmination of which is referred to by Jesus in many places, and, in the Miracle of the Transformation of Water into Wine, in the words he is made to say to his mother: "Mine hour is not yet come". (He does not say "mother", but woman. ) Yet some religious people imagine that Jesus was crucified because of Pilate—as it were, by chance. This view is absurd. He had to play the part allotted to him. It was pre−arranged. 

Now in the earliest references to the development of Jesus it is said that he advanced in wisdom and stature. Jesus advanced by stages. In Luke it is said: "The child grew and waxed strong in spirit and was filled with wisdom, and grace was upon him". (Luke ii 52). Luke—who never saw Jesus—also records his first words when he was found in the Temple at the age of twelve by his father and mother after a search of three days. His mother is made to say: "Son, why have you treated us like this? Do you know, your father and I have sought you sorrowing?" To which Jesus is made to answer: "How is it that ye sought me? Do you not know that I must be in all that belongs to my Father?" Notice that the distinction between "father on earth" and "Father in Heaven" is made—that is, between the idea of the first earthly birth and the second higher birth which was the subject of Christ's teaching. Even at the age of twelve those who listened to him in the Temple were "amazed at his understanding and his answers". The idea, then, of Jesus advancing in understanding is quite distinct. And it is clear that a long period elapsed before he had advanced to his full inner stature and attained his supreme development, called in the Gospels the moment of his glorification. This final fulfilment of his evolution began when Judas went out into the night to "betray" him, as it is called, and when Jesus said to his remaining disciples: "Now is the Son of Man glorified". But even then, it was not yet attained for he obviously had to undergo two further and very severe temptations—the temptation in Gethsemane where he prayed: "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me: nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt, " and the temptation on the Cross where he cried out: "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Here must also be remarked that Christ began to teach some three years before he attained glorification—that is, before his full development. 

Let us ask ourselves: How is inner evolution reached? All inner development is possible only through inner temptation. Three temptations of Christ by the devil are mentioned in detail in the early parts of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and referred to very briefly in Mark, in terms of "wild beasts". Nothing is said of this in John but the Miracle of Water into Wine is made as the starting−point of the teaching and miracles of Jesus. Let us study for the present the version of the three early temptations as given in Luke, in order to realize that Jesus had to advance by undergoing development by the method of temptation and so pass through stages of inner growth, by means of inner self−conquest. But let us first remember that the conception of Mankind in its unawakened state as given in the Gospels is that it is in the power of evil and this is represented by the idea that Man is infested by evil spirits. That is, Man is under the power of evil moods and impulses and thoughts, which are personified as evil spirits, whose object is the destruction of a man and of the human race. The conception of the Gospels is that Man is continually being dragged down by evil forces, which are in him, not outside him, and to which he consents. By Man's consent to these forces in himself, progress in human life is prevented. The evil powers are in Man, in his own nature, in the very nature of his self−love, his egotism, his ignorance, his stupidity, his malice, his vanity, and also his thinking only from the senses and taking the seen world, the outer appearances of life, as the only reality. These defects are collectively called the devil, which is the name for the terrible power of misunderstanding everything that undeveloped Man possesses, the power of wrongly connecting everything. The devil is the aggregate of all these deficiencies, all these powers of misunderstanding in Man, and all their transmitted results. So the devil is called the slanderer or scandal−maker, from one point of view, and the accuser from another point of view. But we shall see a little more clearly what is meant by the devil when we begin to understand what temptation really means. 

In the account of the tempting of Christ by the devil given in Luke, it is said that Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days, "being tempted of the devil". This number forty appears in the account of the Flood, where the rain lasted for forty days and nights, in the allegorical account of the Children of Israel wandering forty years in the wilderness, and it is said also of Moses that he fasted forty days and nights before he received the Commandments written on tablets of stone. Here, in Luke, the forty days in the wilderness are directly connected with the idea of temptation: 

"Jesus was led by the Spirit in the wilderness during forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he did eat nothing in those days and when they were completed he hungered. " (Luke iv, 1−2). 

Then comes a description of the first resulting temptation of this period of temptation, which is represented in the following way: 

"And the devil said unto him, If thou art the Son of God command this stone that it becomes a loaf of bread. " (Luke iv, 3. ) 

Let us take the superficial literal or first level of meaning. Christ hungered and the devil suggests that he should transform a stone into bread. 

 

"And Jesus answered and said unto him, It is written, man shall not live by bread alone". (Luke iv, 4. ) 

On the literal level this is just as it appears—a physical temptation. Notice, however, that it is said above that Jesus was in the wilderness forty days "being tempted of the devil". If we suppose the wilderness to be a literal physical wilderness, how is it that nothing is said about how he was being tempted all this time? One might merely say that he was starving. But in connection with inner development we must understand by the term wilderness a state of mind, a general inner state, comparable with a literal wilderness—that is, a state where there is nothing to guide a man, where he is no longer among familiar things and so is in a wilderness, a state of distress and bewilderment and perplexity, where he is left entirely to himself, as a test, and does not know in which direction to go and must not go in his own direction. This itself is temptation, for all the time he is being starved of meaning. Why should a man leave the familiar and go into a wilderness? He hungers for bread—not literal bread but that bread that we ask for in the Lord's Prayer, so wrongly translated as "daily" bread—namely, guidance, trans−sub−stantial bread, and, literally, bread for the to−morrow, in fact, meaning, for the development of our lives, not for our lives as they are to−day, now, but as they can become, the bread necessary for our support in growing, the bread for successive and necessary stages of understanding. (For the Lord's Prayer is a prayer about inner evolution and the bread asked for is the bread of understanding necessary for it. ) In such a state the temptation is to make bread for oneself— that is, to follow one's own ideas, one's own will—exactly as the builders of the "Tower of Babel" used bricks and slime of their own making, in place of stone and mortar. They thought they could make a new world from their own ideas. Why should one not fall back on oneself and so on life once more instead of waiting for something that seems doubtful? In Matthew the answer of Christ to this temptation is: 

"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. " (Matthew iv, 4. ) 

See clearly that the devil has asked Christ to make bread by himself to ease his state—that is, not to await the Word of God. The devil says: "If thou art the Son 

of God, command that these stones become bread. " That is, nourish yourself by your own powers and ideas. But the mission of Christ, which began immediately after the temptations in the wilderness, was not to manufacture truth and meaning by himself, but to understand and teach the Truth and meaning of the Word of God—that is, of a higher level of influences. The test was as to his own self−will and the will of a higher level. He had to do the will of "God"— not his own will. He had to bring the lower human level in himself under subjection to the will of the higher or divine level. It is the human level here that is under temptation for Jesus was born of a human mother. To mistake the lower for the higher is the annihilation of a man, for then he will ascribe to himself what does not belong to him. A man will then be tempted to say: "I am God", and not "God is I". If he says: "I am God", he identifies himself with God from a lower level. This annihilates him. If he says: "God is I", he surrenders his self−will and makes the will of God "I" in him and so is under, and must obey, God— that is, a higher level. Notice that the devil is made to address Jesus in the words: "If thou art the Son of God... " and so suggests that Jesus can do as he likes, as if he were at the level of God. All this was in Jesus. It took place in him. And although this temptation can be taken quite simply as one relative to overcoming the appetites, in this case, hunger, it is clear that other and far deeper meanings lie behind the literal meaning and that they are concerned with those problems of self−love and power—and violence—in which human nature is rooted. Jesus had human nature in him from the woman—his mother. The task was to transform it. This is quite obvious in the second temptation, where Christ is offered all power over the visible world. The devil is represented as leading Christ to a "high place" and showing him all the kingdoms of the world in a point of time: 

"He led him up, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, To thee will I give all this authority, and the glory of them: for it hath been delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship before me, it shall be thine. " 

(Luke iv, 5−7). 

This is temptation as to earthly power and the deep vanity that lies in everyone. It is again directed to the self−love. It includes love of the world and its possessions. The devil will give Christ the world. Love of power (authority) and love of possessions represent two sides of self−love. Here the human level in Christ is represented as being subject to the most tremendous temptation conceivable in regard to worldly gain and possessive power. The temptation is described in such a way as to bring this out clearly: the whole world is presented to Jesus "in a point of time"—that is, simultaneously. Jesus is made to answer: "It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve. " That is, not the world and its possessions. The answer is from the same ground of understanding as that given in the first temptation. There is something apart from the world and the love of possessing it. There is something else that Man must possess. This higher level, both possible to Man and already in a man, is the direction in which his desire for power and glory must turn. But even although a man knows and is quite certain about this direction, he can still be tempted—and even more so. Otherwise Christ would not have been tempted in this way. His human side was still open to this temptation. It is not only the overwhelming effect of the senses and any immediate appeal to self−interest and vanity that has to be thought of here but perhaps the far subtler ideas of being able, by worldly means and outer power and authority, to help mankind by becoming a king on earth. We know that the disciples thought Jesus was going to be an earthly king possessing the whole world and give them earthly rewards. They thought from the lower level about higher things. They could not at first see what Jesus was talking about—namely, the reaching of a higher or inner level which has nothing to do with the lower or outer level of life. We must remember here that the path that Christ had to follow led to apparent failure in outer life, and outer powerlessness—and to a death reserved only for the worst criminals. He had only a few ultimate followers. It looked as if everything had been useless. Certainly we cannot expect to understand this unless we grasp the whole idea of two levels. But we shall speak more of this later on, and only say here that temptation in the real sense is about these two levels and relates to the passage from one to the other. If Jesus had been born perfect, he would have been beyond all temptation. He would not have represented the New Man or the Way to it. He called himself the Way: "I am the Way", for this reason. 

This is chapter 2 of Maurice Nicoll's The New Man

Its easily found for free on the net in PDF 

 

[fortifyacacia3]

The devil is truth because there is always a higher truth. The devil is truth because the devil is concept, versus reality (God). But all is concept, and all is reality. The devil is the ego. The devil is infinity, God is absolute infinity.