Greco-Christian stream·The Imitation of Christ·Book I — Admonitions Profitable for the Spiritual Life·Chapter VI. Of Inordinate Affections
VI. Of inordinate affections
On the disordered appetites of the heart. Quotiescunque inordinate aliquid concupiscis, statim in te ipso inquietus efficeris — whenever you desire anything inordinately, you become at once restless within yourself. The diagnostic chapter of inward inquietude.
Source context
- Theme
- disordered attachment to created goods as an obstacle to interior freedom and spiritual progress
- Soul-faculty
- Sentient Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Stoic philosophy (Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius)Stoic discipline distinguishes between what is 'up to us' and what is not, prescribing detachment from externals as the precondition for rational and virtuous inner life — a structural parallel to Kempis's warning against inordinate affections.
- Vedantic renunciation (vairagya)Vedantic teaching on vairagya (dispassion toward sense-objects) identifies attachment to transient goods as the primary veil over the Atman — a cross-tradition congruence with the chapter's diagnosis of affective disorder as spiritual blindness.
- Sufi maqamat (stations of the path)In Sufi path-psychology, the station of zuhd (ascetic detachment) requires the seeker to sever the nafs's habitual clinging to worldly pleasures before higher stations of the heart become accessible.
Chapter VI. Of Inordinate Affections
OF INORDINATE AFFECTIONS
Whensoever a man desireth aught above measure, immediately he becometh restless. The proud and the avaricious man are never at rest; while the poor and lowly of heart abide in the multitude of peace. The man who is not yet wholly dead to self, is soon tempted, and is overcome in small and trifling matters. It is hard for him who is weak in spirit, and still in part carnal and inclined to the pleasures of sense, to withdraw himself altogether from earthly desires. And therefore, when he withdraweth himself from these, he is often sad, and easily angered too if any oppose his will.
2But if, on the other hand, he yield to his inclination, immediately he is weighed down by the condemnation of his conscience; for that he hath followed his own desire, and yet in no way attained the peace which he hoped for. For true peace of heart is to be found in resisting passion, not in yielding to it. And therefore there is no peace in the heart of a man who is carnal, nor in him who is given up to the things that are without him, but only in him who is fervent towards God and living the life of the Spirit.
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