“We have often found among the brethren that they have found such gladness and grace that for five or six years, they say, concupiscence had withdrawn away, and after this, when they supposes that they were free from it, the evil, which has been concealed, set upon them, and they were all on fire with concupiscence, so that they were surprised, and said, ‘After a long time, whence did this evil rise against us?’ No man of sound mind dares to say, ‘While grace is with me, I am completely free from sin.’ Both the two characters are at work upon the mind. People of no experience in these matters, when grace has had some little effect upon them, imagine that they have already conquered, and are perfect Christians. For my part, I say that the fact is this; –When the sun is in the sky, shining in a clear air, and clouds come about him and cover him, and make the air thick, and yet the sun, far within, is not robbed either of his light or of his proper being, so it is with those who are not completely cleansed. Being in the Grace of God, and yet held by sin beneath the surface, they have the natural motions and the actual thoughts strong towards God, and yet are not entirely belonging to good.” ~St. Macarius the Egyptian
Grace and Concupiscence
St. Macarius says concupiscence has drawn away from those living in God’s grace. It is not clear to me if he means concupiscence as a strong sexual desire or all strong desires. In either case, it is true that the spiritually awakened, which is another way of saying living in God’s grace, generally do not have strong desires for earthly or material things, including sex. That doesn’t mean spiritual people don’t have sexual desires and don’t have sex. It means they have more control over such desires than those who surrender to materialistic and animalistic ways.
Free from Evil
Whether it is concupiscence in the form of sexual desires or some other form of sin, we are not entirely free of this simply because we have had a “spiritual awakening”. For starters, there are many ideas of what a spiritual awakening consists of.
Some think that merely becoming aware that there is more to life and the universe than the fallen realm of matter. Clearly, that alone would not end concupiscence. Others get int Kundalini and think that once they have the kundalini energy moving through them, they are awake. That is not necessarily true, so that alone will not keep them free from sin. They can still be led astray by demons or mere evil or ignorant people.
Another group that includes those of us in the Cosolargy spiritual school think that awakening means bringing the dormant spiritual faculties—the spirit and soul—into full function and consciousness. This is a more complex process than either of the other two and generally happens gradually over a long period of time (think decades). If they are in that awakening process but haven’t completed it, they can still be led astray. Those who are fully awakened—and they are quite rare—are less easily influenced by the dark forces, but it can happen. What’s worse is the demons work their hardest at turning such people back toward the darkness of materialism. They are attracted to such people by their light, and yet want that light to go out. Continue reading “Concupiscence and Grace”