One of my favourite passages in the new testament is the moment in
which Jesus, after having fasted in the desert, meets the devil and is
tested. The devil confronts him with three questions. Eventually the
devil even offers him dominion over the world. But Jesus answers:
“Away with you, Satan! for it is written, worship the Lord
your God, and serve only him.”
Who or what is the devil? Of course not a demon on goats legs with a
pointy tail and a sulphur breath. No, in this story the devil is the
symbol of the temptation we all know: the desire to be the most revered
and the craving to possess as much as we can. Yet Jesus does not give
into these attachments. He chooses to live for God and not for himself
– not for his own self-interest, not for status and not for
power, but for the Love and Truth that transcend everything.
The fact that this story (in every gospel) gets linked to the start of
Jesus' public life is of course no coincidence. It revolves around the
initial ego removal out of which a truly spiritual life originates. It
revolves around putting aside egoism and egocentrism in order to be
free and open to God.
An evident question thus arises: If it's truly the start of spiritual
life, then how can one learn
to remove the ego? Or better: how can one
un-learn egoism and
egocentrism?