DP 145, 147 - Self-compulsion

DP 145   

5. Self-compulsion is not inconsistent
with rationality and freedom.

DP 147

Let me briefly mention how the Lord expels
the compulsions to evil
that besiege our inner self right from our birth,
and how He provides desires
for what is good in their place
when we use our apparent autonomy
to put away evils as sins.

. . . we have an earthly mind,
a spiritual mind,
and a heavenly mind,
and that we are wholly locked into our earthly mind
as long as we are caught up in our compulsions
to evil and their pleasures.
During all this our spiritual mind is closed.
However, as soon as we look into ourselves
and realize that our evils are sins against God
because they are against divine laws,
and therefore try to refrain from them,
the Lord opens our spiritual mind
and comes into our earthly mind
by way of its desires for what is true and good.
He comes also into our rational processes
and from there rearranges the things
in our lower, earthly mind that have been in disorder.
This is what feels to us like a battle,
or like a temptation
if we have indulged in these evil pleasures
a great deal.
There is actually a psychological pain
when the pattern of our thoughts is being inverted.

This is a battle against things
that are actually within us,
things that we feel are part of us;
and we cannot fight against ourselves
except from a deeper self,
and only because of a freedom there.
It then follows that the inner self
is fighting against the outer self at such times,
is doing so in freedom,
and is forcing the outer self to obey.
This is self-compulsion;
and we can see that it is not inconsistent
with our freedom and rationality,
but quite in accord with them.