A long long time ago there was once a small village that had a wonderful giant golden buddha standing proud under its giant canopy. The village was prosperous as people came from far around to pray at the golden Buddha. One day the word came that an invading army was coming and they would pillage everything of value that the village had. 

The villagers gathered together and using mud from the river bank hurriedly covered the whole buddha from top to toe. The invading army came and seeing only a clay buddha, left without touching it. When they had departed the villagers left it covered as they feared the army might return one day.

Many years passed and in time everyone who knew about the Buddha’s secret died and the whole story was forgotten. The village grew poor, as no visitors came to pray anymore. As the years passed generations of villagers cursed their luck that they should have inherited a worthless buddha made of clay.

Several hundred years later a young local monk was preying at the foot of the buddha when a small piece of clay fell to the ground in front of him. He looked up to see a gap left by the clay chip and when he looked into he gap, he saw the gold hidden inside. 

He ran excitedly through the village and everyone came to see. Together they carefully chipped the clay off to reveal the magnificent giant golden buddha once more. The villagers danced and sang and in time the village became prosperous again as word spread of what they had forgotten and then rediscovered.

The Demon of Socrates was a Daimonion, a "divine principle or inward oracle.” You may not be aware that the word Demon is said by mythology to have come from the word Daemon or Daimonion.

We often struggle with our own inner demons, the strongest of which is our own fears. Our fears are the single biggest thing that blocks us on our path to what we desire. 
We are told to either ignore our fears or fight them and they will go away, but actually we tend to shrink back from fear and try to avoid it. 

There may be a third way. 

It's possible that by just examining our fears, gaining the courage to face up to them instead of fighting them, we can dissipate them. When we fight them, we are in fact fighting a part of us. Its a normal part that is designed to keep us safe. Whenever we fight an enemy that is much bigger and stronger than us, we normally lose. 

By gaining the courage to surrender the urge to fight our fears, instead, being curious about them, even trying to make friends with them, we can begin to understand them and then we can completely disarm them. 

Knowledge is after all, great power and strength in itself.

Our inner demons can become great teachers if we summon the courage to look at them with curiosity, we can gain great value from something we previously felt was worthless.