The “temptations” faced by mortals would appear to me to be related to self serving, dominance over others, self importance, self indulgence, and allowing the physical or material body to determine motive, intention, priority, and choice.
I grew up being taught that all such temptations came from only two sources: humanity’s ‘sinful’ ‘nature’ and the devil.
Now we know (and many have known for a long time) that temptation is a function of our dual nature. I think one might claim that the spirit nature does as much tempting as the material nature does….we are ‘tempted’ to look inward and to listen to the small voice and to be generous and kind and to forgive….and to love one another.
Remember the old cartoons where an angel whispers in one ear and a devil whispers in the other and the mind in between them is torn by indecision? Not so inaccurate perhaps? But it is merely the adjutants trying to teach and lure the mind to the higher and more noble aspects of our inherent nature. Every time we allow the spirit nature to ‘decide’, we progress and every time we allow the material/self nature to decide, we regress. There is a momentum and mass that comes over time making it more of a struggle to move the other way. Bonita has posted a quote about this – the more materialistic OR spiritual we are, the less tension and confusion in our choices – while the more we are responsive to one nature or the other, the less confusion in mind we have. Got to be careful which ear is hearing the most and guiding us in our choices!
Reminds me of the old Native American tale of the two wolves:
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all”
“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed”.
"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."
