Have you ever wondered if Dr. Doolittle's pushmi pullyu had trouble making decisions? It's hard enough to do with one head, let alone two! Plus four legs. How did it decide which direction to go, which head to follow? Either it was a highly advanced creature or it had magical abilities (apparently there was some unicorn blood in its ancestry), otherwise it would've spent all day struggling to get somewhere.
Too bad we humans don't know the pushmi pullyu's secret, because we're all constantly pushed and pulled between two opposing forces in our lives which often cause much chaos. Like it or not, the world's existence depends on the tension between these poles. Look around and you can see it everywhere: expansion and contraction, destruction and creation, waxing and waning.
Chinese philosophy names these energies yin and yang, neither being good or evil, always seeking to balance each other out.
In Christianity, the poles are seen as two opposing entities, the good being Christ, the evil His adversary, Satan.
Spiritual science teaches that there are actually two opposing entities that can draw us toward evil, with Christ as the balancing point between them. The names given to these beings are Lucifer and Ahriman.
The name Lucifer means "bearer of light". It was he who tempted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of knowledge. But with the light of self knowledge and the freedom of choice comes the potential for evil. Lucifer inspires poets, musicians, artists, visionaries. He brings hope. But in excess, his influence leads to fiery passions, inflated ego, hyperactivity, wars and revolutions, fanaticism, superstition. Luciferic illnesses include fevers and inflammation. This entity seeks to lead us away from earth and from Christ to a realm of his own making. He persuades us that we are better than everyone else, that our point of view is obviously so superior we must do anything to defend it. Just think of all the people slaughtered in the name of religion.
Ahriman, also called the lord of darkness, is a lesser known figure to most, but very active in our times. He is Lucifer's opposite. He works through materialism, science and mathematics, knowledge and data devoid of human feeling (artificial intelligence), division, rigidity. He gives us technological advances and cold, clear, logical thinking, but takes away the poetry and beauty of life. Ahrimanic illnesses include sclerosis and calcifications. Ahriman seeks to bind us to the earth, severing our connection with our spiritual home.
So how do we protect ourselves from these two influences? The pushmi pullyu had a clever way of dealing with danger. One head slept while the other stayed alert, watching for predators. But even if we had two heads it wouldn't help much, because our predators attack from within, deep in our subconscious. So our first line of defense is knowledge. When you know your enemies, how they work and what they're capable of, when you can say their names, it gives you power over them. They can't hide in the darkness anymore.
Secondly, we do have a weapon other lifeforms on earth don't: self knowledge. We can view ourselves dispassionately, as if we were a separate entity. We aren't compelled to act on our thoughts and feelings. Again, this brings great power.
In every swing of a pendulum there is a point of stillness in the middle. It exists between heartbeats, breaths taken in and out, between thought and the emotion it engenders, between feeling and action. This is the place of balance where we meet the Christ. We can practice finding that point until it becomes habit. When we feel self-righteous anger, we can say, "Ah, Lucifer is poking at me!". When we feel fearful or worthless, like life is drudgery and it doesn't really matter what we do because we'll never amount to anything anyway, we can know Ahriman is knocking on our door, hoping to win us over to his side.
The best way to neutralize these two influences is to pour one into the other. Try to cultivate warmth and enthusiasm in all you do, even when emptying the garbage or reading a boring article or listening to a dull conversation. Put a little beauty into the beast! Ahriman hates this. Practice viewing yourself with a bit of cold, clear dispassion so you can see all the ways Lucifer is attempting to lure you into feelings of arrogance and egotism. Beware of the beast that may lurk in beauty! After a time you'll begin to catch yourself before the pendulum swings in the opposite direction, and you can remain in that still, stable place.
This article barely scratches the surface of a vast and complex subject. I hesitated to even write it, but decided the subject is too important to ignore, and blowing it off would please Ahriman. Every voice counts!
