THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE:
What St. Paul Never Told You!
As a Christian, I once considered that we empowered evil too much by believing in Satan and his Hell. I went through many phases and crises in my Faith, which shall eventually be the subject of several of my articles. Living in Africa and being exposed to the occult in more than the conventional way, I realized that Islam and Christianity could not be wrong, nor could the older African animist beliefs. There must be a common spiritual thread since I saw manifestations before my eyes that left me stricken with disbelief and unfathomable explanations.
Since duality is inherent in Nature itself and exists in everything and everyone, it is therefore an unavoidable fact in our lives. Without elaborating much on this point, St. Paul spoke enough about the Devil and his ruses. But what everyone ignores was that he was one of the principal archangels referred to as Lucifer which actually means the Light Giver, “helel”, “light-bringing”, “morning star”, or “shining one”. As mere humans, we cannot belittle him since he surpasses the age of time. Neither can we be offensive towards him, because time provides wisdom and he surpasses us in that also. Nor do we have any right to offend him if he is so privileged to present himself before the Almighty and see His Divine Face regularly. But we certainly can ignore him and his ruses, if we are good-willed and grounded in our Faith.
But what St. Paul did not tell us is this:
1- That Life itself is Lucifer. He rises with the morning star, he is in the light of our day, and in the darkness of our thoughts and desires, and accompanies us through every instant of our life until we go to sleep. The night brings its wisdom and solutions for another day. Of course, another day brings its own surprises.
2- He introduces new problems and challenges every day into our lives, observing how we overcome them, ready to accuse us whenever we falter. By calmly maintaining our head above the turmoil and our relationships intact, he tests us more intensely with each temptation, testing our mettle, and pushing our limits ever beyond that which we think we can bear until we become ever more grounded in our Faith, patience, and virtues. Retrospectively, he is actually helping us through our way to perfection and enlightenment.
3- Throughout this tormented trajectory of every human existence, Lucifer still takes permission to devise his devious dilemmas from the Almighty Who willfully condones Lucifer’s ruses. The sooner we accept that which happens to us as our sealed and approved fate, the swifter and smarter we become at overcoming our problems.
4- We live in the illusion that with age our problems will eventually subside as we become frail. It is willful self-pity and wishful thinking. In fact, they become worse as our tolerance level and health deplete progressively. Another fact is that they not only follow us to our graves but generate problems for our progeny from beyond the grave.
5- How we end our lives determines how we have lived it and how well we developed the required expertise to overcome all that Lucifer brought our way. Therefore, the sooner we accept and adjust, the better it is for our well-being in the autumn of our year.
6- At the very end, either he will have a good laugh, or we will. I have decided that not only will I have a roaring Happy Buddha laugh, but I will certainly laugh my head off at all my adversaries who have tried every single way to frustrate me, anger me, victimize me, or even enforce me to react to their expectation — and I mindfully and successfully resisted.
What a delightful surprise!
Sammy RNAJ — sammy.rnaj.writer@gmail.com — WhatsApp +96170499352
