Author Description

Product Description The Devil's Due provides a new understanding of the paradoxes of seeking self-transformation. From the perspective of the ancient, undivided soul the modern self has become its own worst enemy. Instead of valuing them as desirable and even heroic behaviors, seeking salvation and enlightenment are revealed to be among the primary causes of the suffering, internal conflict, and dis-integration so characteristic of the modern self. By confronting this dilemma with the foresight and authority of the historical wisdom summarized in this book, the conditioned response of seeking can be questioned anew by the modern reader. Why do you seek enlightenment, grace, salvation? Why must you change, become better, live forever? It can only be because you do not accept yourself as you are. But with this motivation you are headed for self-destruction, not self-renewal. The first step out of this trap is to understand how seeking is itself the greatest obstacle to its chosen goals. This lesson has been repeatedly emphasized throughout history by wise men in both our own Western tradition of thought and in Eastern religions and philosophies. The Devil's Due provides an outline of this history of the criticism of self-interested seeking. From this critical perspective the journey toward self-transformation is not measured in progress toward ideal states of being, but in the relaxation and removal of obstacles to the natural re-integration of the psyche. Among these, the primary obstacle is the seeking self. The Devil's Due reconstructs the history of how the soul was lost and how it may be regained, how we have strayed from the integrated soul of prehistory into the madness of the modern self seeking to become its ideal. Integration, the true goal of all seekers, naturally occurs only when we get out of the way, but just as naturally always eludes those who chase after it, and who do not realize that in seeking after it they are fleeing