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The Screwtape Letters seem like a distant dream.
 
We’ve moved on, haven’t we?
 
As we collectively delight in the sparkling vistas opening up through in-sighting, there is a distinct disinterest in returning to musing about the machinations of the Tempter’s Office.
 
Scrutinizing Screwtape’s operation certainly has a place in Practice. Awareness of egocentricity is a necessary first step. Nisargadatta Maharaj: To know what you are, you must first investigate and know what you are not.
 
But when we have become skilled at recognizing the ego process,
understood that we are not ego-I,
and are able to redirect attention to Awareness,
it seems reasonable to ask why intimacy with in-sighting cannot be a perpetual focus.  After all, according to Ramana Maharshi, the only way to awaken (dissolve the ego) is to practice Self-attention. When you intensely pursue self-inquiry, the attention turns away from external objects and looks directly at the subject. Deprived of objects to cling to, the mind naturally subsides into the Heart (the Self).
 
So a sincere seeker ponders…
Isn’t it more effective, spiritually speaking, to attend to God rather than attend to the devil?
…and framing the inquiry in this way plays right into Screwtape’s hands.
 
If the reluctance to revisit The Screwtape Letters is interviewed…
“What is disinterest?”
“Who doesn’t want to revisit a text?”
“Does spiritual practice have to be efficient?”
“Is there a bias here towards outcome?”
“Isn’t this versus that a duality?”
…we are practicing awareness.
 
Note: We interview as a practice of inquiry not in the hope of getting answers!
 
If we believe there is a way to do it right (God versus the devil), or have a preference (koan practice over reading Screwtape letters), we’ve left the domain of in-sighting without being aware that we have left it!
 
And that lapse of conscious awareness is a good reason to re-visit The Screwtape Letters!
 
We experience through koan practice the Joy of Intelligence Knowing Itself, a joy that is independent of conditions. If joy arises when doing koan practice but not when taking out the garbage, doing the dishes, reading The Screwtape Letters, etc., perhaps we admit that we still need to practice pure attention.
 
The now step for the Awareness Practitioner is clear.
 
Begin reading the text!
 
Chapter 1, Page 1
 
MY DEAR WORMWOOD,
I note what you say about guiding our patient's reading …
 
And there we have it.
Right out of the gate, the very content/process that we’ve been musing about. To read or not to read The Screwtape Letters again. When we pay attention, everything enlightens. The Enemy can reach us even through the devil’s words!
 
Gasshō
ashwini