Greco-Christian stream·The Imitation of Christ·Book III — On Inward Consolation·Chapter XXXIX. That Man Must Not Be Immersed In Business
XXXIX. Man must not be immersed in business
The danger of immersion in worldly affairs. Business itself is not condemned, but immersion in it — the loss of the inward eye to God in the press of daily occupation. The chapter's call to keep a corner of the heart reserved.
Source context
- Theme
- the danger of excessive outward activity and the necessity of inward recollection over worldly immersion
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Hesychast tradition (Eastern Orthodox)Hesychast practice equally warns against the dispersal of attention through outward affairs, prescribing stillness (hesychia) as the precondition for noetic prayer and inner illumination.
- Stoic philosophy (Seneca, Epistulae Morales)Seneca's injunctions against negotium in favour of otium philosophicum exhibit cross-tradition congruence with this chapter's insistence that the soul must withdraw from business to attain self-possession.
- Sufi doctrine of tawakkul (reliance on God)The Sufi principle of tawakkul counsels detachment from worldly preoccupation as the structural condition for the heart's receptivity to divine influx, paralleling the chapter's argument structurally.
Chapter XXXIX. That Man Must Not Be Immersed In Business
THAT MAN MUST NOT BE IMMERSED IN BUSINESS
"My Son, always commit thy cause to Me; I will dispose it aright in due time. Wait for My arrangement of it, and then thou shalt find it for thy profit."
2O Lord, right freely I commit all things to Thee; for my planning can profit but little. Oh that I did not dwell so much on future events, but could offer myself altogether to Thy pleasures without delay.
3"My Son, a man often striveth vehemently after somewhat which he desireth; but when he hath obtained it he beginneth to be of another mind, because his affections towards it are not lasting, but rather rush on from one thing to another. Therefore it is not really a small thing, when in small things we resist self."
4The true progress of man lieth in self-denial, and a man who denieth himself is free and safe. But the old enemy, opposer of all good things, ceaseth not from temptation; but day and night setteth his wicked snares, if haply he may be able to entrap the unwary. Watch and pray, saith the Lord, lest ye enter into temptation.(1)
(1) Matthew xxvi. 41.