THE NATURE OF REALITY (PART I)
An Essay by John
W. Hawkins
Reality: "that which is absolute or
self-existent, as opposed to what is
derivative or dependent; that which is ultimate."
(Webster's Collegiate Dictionary)
Why I have
always been drawn to think about the unknowable and higher order of abstract
ideas, I am at a loss to explain. I
certainly am not a philosopher nor have I had a direct message from Heaven
which has given me knowledge not available to other of my fellow mortals.
Nonetheless, as long as I can remember, I have been attracted to the unsolved
mysteries of the universe, the nature of being, where we came from and where we are going. I have not spent years studying these
questions nor years in daily meditation on them, but having reached a stage in
my life which permits more time for reflection and contemplation, old, nagging
questions push their way more easily into the conscious mind and demand to be
addressed.
My mother
refreshed my early childhood memories of my always wanting to go to
When I was
eight or nine, I remember sending off for and receiving information about the Rosicrucians (The Knights of the Rosy Cross). I certainly was not encouraged in any way on
these interests by either my parents or my teachers. It was just one of those things that makes
each one of us a unique creation with different aptitudes, interests, likes,
dislikes, etc.
A few
years later I became interested in magic and almost all of my limited funds
were spent at the local magic shop buying the latest trick or books on magic.
Later, when our children were small, I would perform some of these parlor
tricks at birthday parties. Even to this
day I am fascinated by magicians and the effects they are able to produce, even
though I know they are all illusions.
My
religious upbringing was very conventional.
If I had not been somewhat precocious and hard for Sunday School
teachers to handle, I probably would have been raised a Baptist or a
Presbyterian since my parents occasionally attended one or the other of these
churches. However, the teacher that finally was able to control me
was an Episcopalian, and so I was baptized and
confirmed in that church instead of one of those I had been ejected from. (I even became an acolyte who assisted the
minister in the communion ceremony and got a few gold stars for Sunday School attendence.)
Although
there was much about what I was taught that I didn't fully understand or
believe (e.g. that the world was created in six days), religion was a
fascinating subject to me. While I was
in the
got out of the service. Since I had already completed three semesters
at M.I.T., I decided to complete my undergraduate work there before embarking
on a radically different course. (I
returned to M.I.T. in the Fall of 1946.
However, I switched my major from Aeronautical Engineering to Business
and Engineering Administration with emphasis on courses in Economics and
Psychology.)
My
Grandmother Eakins (my Mother's Mother) had a great
influence on my religious feelings and beliefs as a boy.
Although she was not well-educated, she was truly a
"good old soul". Every day of
her life, that I knew about at least, she read the bible. Even when her eyes began to fail her, she
used a magnifying glass and would read scriptures aloud to me from her precious
book. Every word in it was God's truth
as far as she was concerned.
When I was
thirty-two, my father died, and suddenly not only was I a father and a husband
but also executor of my father's will and trustee of a modest amount of money
which would be mine upon my mother's death.
Therefore, I
was able to have a liberal education in investing
money while still "wet behind the ears". I also immediately became my mother's sole
financial advisor and conservatively invested her funds for maximum safety and
moderate yield. This provided her with
an adequate income so that in the twenty-two years between my father's death
and her own she did not have to withdraw anything from principal in spite of
setting up generous trust funds for
each of my four children.
Four years
later a series of events conspired to bring me to a "Cosmic
Consciousness" experience. (I was 36 – a typical age according to Dr. Bucke's book having this title.) In those days we spent our vacations in a
rented beach house on the
The clerk
was busy with a customer so I looked at a book rack while I waited for her to
complete the transaction at the cash register.
My eye fell on a book that had a picture of a spiral galaxy on it
entitled: "The Unobstructed Universe" by Stewart White. Since I had always been interested in
astronomy (My father at one time was President of the
vacation rather than just asking the clerk to make
change for me. So in the suitcase went
the book which led me to a life-changing experience.
It turned
out that the book was not about astronomy at all as the cover had suggested,
but rather about the wife of the author.
She was a psychic who had recently died and who managed to contact a
friend of hers who was also a psychic.
The very first chapter described how Betty White had lured her friend
into a store to buy something which
would lead her to make contact. A light began to go off in my head. Do you suppose it was possible that my father
(definitely not a believer in things psychic) had contrived to bring me into
that bookstore with no intention of buying any book, much less that particular
book, and had somehow influenced me to purchase it similar to Betty White's
friend's experience? After the "
It was not
a deeply philosophical book, but rather the story of contact with "the
other side" and what life was like after "death". The point in the book when I had what Pierre
Janet calls an "abaissment du
niveau mental" (a lowering of the mental threshhold) was when one of them discarnates
was explaining through her friend about the nature of the Trinity. All at once my mind was flooded with a myriad
of images, impressions, and feelings.
There was no flash of light though which often accompanies this sort of
thing. (It was so brillant
that Saul was struck blind from his encounter with the risen Christ on the road
to
Nevertheless, from that moment on many things concerning life after
death, the reality of God and Christ as the Son of God were no longer merely
things I had been taught as a child.
They were living, tangible, eternal truths now inseparably a part of
me. They were now part of MY being, MY
life, and MY truth as well.
(Conventional Christianity would call this a "conversion" or
"born again" experience. Yet the ideas that came to me at that time
such as the reality of reincarnation were far from conventional Christian
concepts and teachings.)
The sense
of joy, exhilaration, and heightened awareness of everything around me was
unbelievable. I felt like telling
everyone I met how great it was to be alive and what a thrilling experience I
had just had. After we went back home after the vacation I read books like a
man possessed (which I guess I was). It
is to my wife's credit that she didn't leave me or try to have me locked up
while all of this was going on. Mostly I read
what would be styled "metaphysical books":
Eastern philosophy, mystics of all ilks, Edgar Cayce,
the Filmores (the founders of the Unity School of
Christianity), Blavatsky, Gurdieff,
Ouspensky, Plotinus, Plato,
Pascal, Carl Jung, etc. etc. etc. I even
joined the
I thought
seriously about quitting my job and expounding this revelation for the benefit
of the world at large. Fortunately,
cooler heads prevailed. I settled for
teaching an adult education class at the YMCA on "Realizing Your
Potential". (This was 1964, long before the Human Potential movement now
in vogue really got going.) Gradually
though, the fires subsided and the realities of providing for a family of six
regained their hold. Nonetheless, as
Robert Browning tells us in his poem, "Paracelsus" (named after the
famous mystic):
"I am a
wanderer; I remember well one journey,
How I feared the
track was missed,
So long the city
I desired to reach lay hid;
When suddenly
its spires afar
Flashed through
the circling clouds;
(you may
conceive my transport.)
Soon the vapors
closed again,
But I had seen
the city."
More than
twenty years have passed since that experience, but the essential realities
revealed remain, and will remain, unchanged. ("I had seen the city.")
In large measure there was nothing revealed that has not been known by many
others for thousands of years for it forms the basis of the world's major
religions. It is truly "The Ancient
Wisdom" as Annie Besant titled one of her books
on Theosophy.
To acquire
this knowledge, however, requires much more than just reading these inspired
books (although that is certainly a good way to begin. "Faith comes by
hearing and hearing by the Word of God ..etc."). As Aldous
Huxley puts it: "Knowledge is a function of being. When there is a change in the being of the
knower, there is a
corresponding change in the nature and amount of
knowing." ("The Perennial Philosophy" p.vii). ... Jesus puts the same truth more eloquently
when he says: "Except a man be born again he cannot enter the
mystical experience at age 36 as follows:
"Into
his brain streamed one momentary flash of the Brahmic
Splendor which has ever since lightened his life; upon his heart fell one drop
of Brahmic Bliss, leaving for always an after taste
of heaven. Among other things . . he saw
and knew that the Cosmos is not dead matter but a living Presence, that the
soul of man is immortal, that
the universe is so built and ordered that without
any peradventure all things work together for the good of each and all, that
the foundation principle of the world is what we call Love and that the
happiness of everyone is in the long run absolutely certain. He claims that he learned more within a few
seconds during which the illumination lasted than in previous months or even
years of study, and that he learned much that no study could
ever have taught."
The
certainty that the universe is filled with Life, and not with little patches of
dead matter separated by vast distances of empty space, is at the heart of the
mystical experience. God is! "I AM
that I AM" was the name God gave to Moses when he was commissioned by him
at the burning bush. "I have come
that you might have Life
and have it overabundantly"
and "I am the Way , the Life and the Truth" says Jesus speaking as
the Son of the Living God. God's living Spirit underpins and breathes Life into
all that exists. ("Ex -ist" means to stand forth from what "is".)
" Every common bush is ablaze with God
But
only he who sees takes off his shoes."
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
" The universe is one stupendous whole
Whose
body Nature is and God the soul."
-
Alexander Pope
-
This idea
might be thought by some to be nothing but a primitive pantheism (God as
Nature, its forces and laws), but it goes far beyond it. To use a human analogy: Is man nothing but
the atoms and chemistry of his body and the laws governing his physiology? It is obvious to all but the most obdurate
materialist that he is more than this.
How much more then must God be than the physical
universe. He is actively involved in the whole of the universe and not merely
the Creator who has retired from the scene of
His creation. (This is a "Theist" approach
rather than a "Deist" one; an approach that believes in a God that is
"immanent" as well as "transcendental".)
Are you
entirely separated from your physical body? Do you exercise a measure of
control over it? Think then of the universe as being totally alive from its
center (The Godhead) to its uttermost parts (the physical world of atoms and
molecules). The degrees of freedom (i.e.
levels, dimensions, planes, etc. - call them what you will) vary from the
densest Matter to pure Spirit, from nearly zero to infinity, but there is
nonetheless a
continuum between one extreme and the other.
("His eye is on the sparrow ...")
Not only is there an ever present, living relationship between the
Creator and His creation (between what "is" and what "ex-ists"), there are immutable laws governing this
relationship.
Perhaps
this can best be illustrated by an example from the science of Physics - the
study of Physical Laws. Fifty years ago
students of Physics were taught the law of conservation of matter and the law
of the conservation of
energy. The
two laws were analogous but separate.
That is to say, matter could neither be created or destroyed, but merely
changed into various combinations of atoms and molecules. Similarly, energy was a constant in the
universe and although energy might be redistributed throughout space (e.g.
energy radiating from our sun and other stars) the total amount of energy in
the universe remained a constant.
Today we
know there is an equivalence between matter and energy, and that by applying
enough energy matter can be created (i.e. the fusion of matter) while in other
cases matter can be converted into energy (e.g. the fission of radioactive
uranium in an atomic pile or in an atomic bomb). This equivalence was stated by Albert
Einstein with mathmatical precision by his now famous
equation:
E =
MC2
Where:
E = Energy, M = Mass, and C = Velocity of Light (a universal constant)
By solving this equation for the constant
,"C": _______1_________
C = \/ E / M
which says that in a given system the relationship
between the amount of energy, "E", and the amount of mass,
"M", is always the same, a
universal constant.
By
extension to the metaphysical realm we can postulate that the relationship
between the world of spirit (i.e. unseen energy) and the visible world (i.e.
matter) is also a constant and that all phenomena result from an interplay
between these two realms. The teachings
of the Chinese philosopher, Lao Tsu, taught that this
interplay between the worlds of spirit and matter arose from the Tao. I am sure you are familiar with the modern
symbol of the Taoists, which shows a dark half and a white half enclosed in a
circle much like two fish chasing each other in perpetual motion.
The dark
segment represents the "yin" or earthly forces continually
reacting with the white segment which
represents the "yang" or spritual forces in
the universe. They consider the "yang" to be male in nature and the
"yin" to be female (no doubt because the originators of the system
were men). While "yin" and "yang" endlessly circle each
other, there is a point in the center of the circle which never moves. Also in this symbol of the Taoists the
lighter half contains a dark speck while the darker half contains a light
speck. This signifies the essential and
original unity of the pair in a sexless or hermaphroditic union. Throughout history the messenger between God
and man has been reprsented as both male and female -
in other words, an hermaphrodite.
(Remember in
the biblical story of creation how Adam was created
in the image of God, a complete being, and then later Eve was fashioned from
one of Adam's ribs thus removing the original unity.)
To further
strengthen the idea of matter as the female element consider the derivation of
the word from its Latin root: "materia". This is the neuter form of the Latin word
"mater" meaning "mother".
You may even wish to think of this eternal male-female duo as producing
a third, a child, whose nature partakes of both male and female natures, both
God and man. We may even say that this
child is the "Light of the World".
By referring to our restatement of Einstein's famous equation we can now
say metaphysically that:
____________
C
= \/
E / M
Where: E
= realm of Spirit
(Father)
M
= realm of Matter
(Mother)
C
= product of Spirit and Matter (the
Son) or the universal constant: Light
Light, as
we know, is an electro-magnetic vibration or wave. It acts in some ways as if
it is composed of particles (called photons) and except for being weightless
susceptible to the laws of matter. In
other ways it behaves as if it were nothing but a wave phenomenon and subject
only to the laws of magnetism. Neither
view alone
is correct.
It partakes of both natures.
There is a magnetic component and a particle component which operate at
right angles to one another and in perfect synchrony. When one component is at
its maximum level, the other is at rest.
Then as that component declines in intensity, the other increases until
it reaches its maximum just as the other component comes to a state of rest.
This
eternal alteration between the two primal universal forces is exactly what the
symbol of the Taoists is all about. We
now know that all matter is nothing but patterns of energy in constant
flux. What we call matter is simply the
nodal points (points on a standing wave where there appears to be no motion) of
energy waves in constant motion.
Scientists
have even discovered that for every known particle of matter (e.g. electrons,
protons, neutrons, mesons etc.) there is a corresponding particle of
"anti-matter". No one has ever
seen a particle of anti-matter but they have been inferred to be present by
carefully controlled scientific experiments.
I find it quite ironic
to see scientists who philosophically are often
either agnostic or atheistic in their beliefs forced to a concept of unseen
forces lying behind every known particle of matter. It would never do for them to label these
forces "spirit" so they label them "anti-matter" instead.
Esoteric
sources (the Bible included) teach that the visible realm comes from invisible
ones. Spiritual worlds come into being
long before this material one and set the stage for it. This long process of spirit descending into
ever denser levels of matter is called "involution" and is somewhat analagous to putting on successive layers of
clothing with each outer layer being heavier and
denser than the preceding one.
When the
lowest point in this descending arc is reached (the fourth level), the cycle
reverses and the long journey back to the realm of spirit begins. This process quite naturally is called
"evolution". From the
"scientific" point of view the story starts at the appearance of
matter ( the densest level) and after eons of time simple life-forms appear in
the ocean and slowly some of them migrate onto the land. Single cell creatures
become increasingly complex. Some fish learn to deal with both water and
land environments (the amphibians). Some
of these gradually evolve into reptiles and as their day wanes (some 60 million
years ago) a small shrew-like mammal begins evolving which leads to the
evolution of pithecoid, ape-like, creatures and
finally to "homo sapiens" - a magnificient
animal but an animal nonetheless.
From the
metaphysical point of view man was created by God in His own image (i.e. he was
created a spiritual being). His true
nature is God-like not animal-like. During the process of involution man was
created prior to the rest of the animal kingdom and not vice versa. Higher life forms do not originate from lower
ones; but lower ones originate from higher ones through the process of
involution.
The
biblical story of the creation of Adam in the image of God, of Eve being formed
from one of Adam's ribs, the original home of man in the Garden of Eden, and
the fall of man through eating of the apple from the tree which gave him
knowledge of good and evil - all relate to this process of
"involution", of the process of separation of man from his original
state as a spiritual being.
This is
not to deny the story of how life evolved on earth obtained by examination of
the fossil remains from one era to the next, but it is only part of the story,
and from the standpoint of man the least important part of the story. That man
is a spiritual being, temporarily imprisoned in a body which was evolved for
and by him from materials on the earth over long eons of time, whose ultimate
destiny is to regain "
You may
remember the story in the Old Testament of Jacob's dream of a ladder going from
the earth up to heaven and on this ladder were angels ascending and descending.
(Genesis 28:12) Or again you may recall that when Lucifer (an archangel, whose
name means "light bearer") fell to earth after losing the battle for
heaven to the archangel Michael, he swept down one-third of the stars of heaven
(his angels) to earth with him.
(Revelation 12:4). In this manner the opposite poles
of good and evil were separated by which means man is allowed to exercise his
free-will choice to move up the ladder toward life eternal or down the ladder
toward death and destruction.
Lest you
are wont to label the philosophy expounded thus far as nothing but a
spiritual-material dualism, the eternal duel between the two poles of yang and
yin, let me quickly introduce a third element.
After all, as you will remember from the account of my "
Carl Jung
maintains that one who only thinks in terms of three is missing one of the
essential aspects of reality because the mandalas of
wholeness always appear in history, art, or out of the subconsious
of his troubledpatients as a quartenary. There are others who are convinced that
reality is septenary (sevenfold) in its essence or duodecanary (twelvefold).
The truth, of course, is that these and all other number based systems
are all only partial aspects of the one and only
reality. "E pluribus unum" (from many, one)
or better "e unibus plurum"
(from one, many) would be closer to the true nature of reality. We are all like
the "Six Blind Men of
Paul tells us in one of his letters to the
Corinthians.
One of the
oldest, if not the oldest, extant writing in the world is found in the Chinese
"I Ching" or "Book of Changes".
It supposedly was created by the legendary emperor, Fu Hsi
(2953-2838 B.C.). It forms the basis for
many of the teachings of Confucius and also of Lao-Tsu,
the founder of Taoism. It is not only a
philosophy about
the nature of things (all of which are combinations
of the primal forces of "yin" and "yang"), but also a
cosmology and a methodolgy for predicting futute events. The
concept of the Tao, while implicit in the "I Ching"
as the source of the interaction of two primal forces, was not formulated into
a philosophy until the Fifth Century B.C. by Lao-Tsu.
From his writings in the "Tao Te Ching" we
read about the nature of Tao:
"Out of the Tao, One is born:
Out of One, Two;Out
of Two, Three:
Out of Three, the myriad things." (Ch. XLII)
"There is a
Thing evolved from the chaos,
Which existed
before Heaven and Earth.
Formless and Boundless,
It stands alone and never changes;
It pervades and endures.
It may be conceived as the
mother of the world." (Ch. XXV)
Not only
do all things proceed from the one ground of all being, from "isness" to “existence", from the invisible to the
visible, but also there are cycles connected with all changes in which one
thing changes into its opposite and back to its original form "ad
infinitum". (Carl Jung calls this
process of a thing changing into its opposite "enantiodromia").
This accounts for the "I Ching" (pronounced
"Yee Ching") being used for predicition as well as for a system of cosmology. As the
French say: "Le plus ca change, le plus ca meme", i.e.,(the more it changes, the more it
is the same.) The same idea is in the Old Testament in the Book of Ecclesiates:
"For everything there is a season and and a time for every
matter under heaven." (Eccl. 3:1).
Or again from the "Tao Te Ching" (Ch. LXXVII):
"The Tao of Heaven is like the stretching
of a bow.
It brings down what is high;
It lifts up what is low;
It depletes what is abundant;
It augments what is deficient.
Such is the Tao of Heaven:
It depletes the abundant and augments the
deficient."
And from the commentary on the Feng
Hexagram in the "I Ching":
`
"When the sun has reached its meridian height,
It begins to decline.
When the moon has become full,
It begins to wane.
Heaven and Earth are now full, now empty,
According to the flow and ebb of the
season"
(Shortly
after my "
Christian
theology teaches us about the threefold nature of God (and therefore of all
reality). He is, we are told, three persons in one: Father, Son and Holy
Ghost. Many early church councils
wrestled with the question of whether the Son proceded
directly from the Father or through the dual working of the Father and Holy
Spirit. As stated in the Nicene Creed,
the Church Fathers finally decided that the Son comes directly from the
Father and the Holy Ghost is generated by the joint
action of Father and Son. (The word,
"filioque", meaning "and from the
Son", was added by the Roman Church
in the 9th Century A.D. but was rejected
by the Eastern Church who preferred "from the Father through the
Son".)
Other
religions have elected to substitute a feminine Deity for the Holy Spirit and
make the Son a product of the union of the divine Father and Mother. (e.g. Horus, the Egyptian "Light of the World", is the
offspring of Osiris and Isis, the Brother-Sister,
Husband-Wife, duo who represented the Sun and the Moon deities.) However, the Hindu Son of God, Vishnu,
springs from the hidden Father aspect of the Hindu trimurti,
Siva, but Brahma, the feminine aspect, is brought into being by Vishnu through
the action of the lotus which springs from his navel. In the Hindu triad of Siva, Vishnu and
Brahma, Siva is the Destroyer, Vishnu the Preserver, and Brahma the Creator.
The nature of Siva is "Ananda" (Happiness)
and the real life while that produced by the interaction of Vishnu and Brahma
is Maya (Illusion) - the substitute life.
In so
called "esoteric" literature ("Esoteric" means secret.) we
read about the "Logos" (which is a Greek word meaning "the
word" ) who, after his manifestation as a unity, becomes twofold and then
threefold in nature. The first aspect,
the Father, is the root of all being who is immanent in every atom of the
universe. The second aspect arises from
the first and forms the primal duality from which the web of the universe is
woven (e.g. life-form, spirit-matter, positive-negative, male-female, etc.).
From this twofold aspect of the Logos the third arises, which can be described
as Universal Mind or Consiousness, in which all
things to be created exist archetypically.
This
Divine "Logos" or "Word" is described eloquently in the Gospel
of John:
"In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with
God; all things were made through Him and without
Him was
not anything made that was made." (John 1:1-3)
John is,
of course, speaking of the Christ prior to his incarnation as the man,
Jesus. Jesus himself confirms this
identity many times in the New Testament.
"Before Abraham was, I am.", his constant reference to the
Father and him being one, the confirmation of his identity as the Christ to
Simon Peter, etc. etc.
This
fundamental "threeness" of the Godhead is
reflected throughout all creation and even in man himself, who was created in
the image and likeness of God. Consider the nature of light, which is only one octave
in a huge spectrum of electromagnetic wave phenomena (long radio waves to
cosmic rays). Light, when all its
wavelengths are present equally, is seen to be white in color. However, we know that there are three primary
colors or wavelengths: viz. red, green and blue. (Color TV for example uses
these three colors of phosphors to produce these and all the other colors which
you see on the screen.) Although when white light is separated by a prism, it
displays the familiar seven colors of the rainbow (violet, indigo, blue, green,
yellow, orange, and red), we know that violet , indigo, yellow and orange can
be produced by combinations of the three primary colors.
In
bringing celestial phenomena down to earth in mixing pigments to produce colors
we find that there are also three colors that are primary: red, blue and
yellow. All of the others (save white) can be produced by combinations of these
three. Interestingly, when the three
primary pigments are blended together in equal strength, the resulting color is
black, the opposite of white. (It is
also interesting to note that just as the three primary colors combine to make
the seven colors of the rainbow, the ancient wisdom teaches that seven creative
spirits spring from the Third Logos.
"As above, so below.")
Similarly,
in music there are seven notes in the major and minor scales (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la and te with the
eighth note forming the octave, exactly double in frequency to the first note
), but the fundamental chord of all harmony is the triad (do, mi, sol).
Further
examples from the physical realm could be given to illustrate the universality
of the threeness of things, but let us look instead
at man - the "paragon of animals", as Shakespeare calls him. The psalmist asks:
“What is
man that Thou art mindful of him?
And the
son of man that Thou visitest him?
For Thou
hast made him a little lower than the angels,
And hast
crowned him with glory and honor.
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands;
Thou hast
put all things under his feet."(Psalm 8:4-6)
In the
quotation above the word translated as "angels" in the King James
version is the Hebrew word "Elohim" which
can be translated either as "God" or as "Gods". Thus the
psalmist actually means to elevate man even closer to God than the angels. In the story of the creation we read that on
the sixth day:
Thus the
bible clearly states that man is a spiritual being created in the image of God,
who has been placed on the earth to watch over and have dominion over it and
over
all of its creatures. Since the Godhead is threefold in nature, so,
therefore, must be man. It is not
surprising then that ancient as well as modern concepts describe man
as being three-in-one: Spirit-Soul-Body (where the
soul is a compound of his mental and emotional natures). Not only do we think of ourselves as being
composed of Body, Soul
(or Mind) and Spirit, but there is also a threefold
division within each of these three realms.
Let us begin with an examination of the threefold characteristic of the
body of man.
In the
physical realm we know that man, and virtually the entire animal kingdom that
reproduces sexually, evolves from a fertilized cell (called the zygote) which,
as it begins to subdivide and multiply, separates into three primary types of
germ layers: the ectoderm, the mesoderm, and the endoderm. Just as the ancient wisdom teaches that the
one became two and the two, three, so does the one fertilized cell, the embryo,
first separate
into two types of cells (the ectodermal
and endodermal layers). The middle layer, the mesodermal, then develops from and between the other
two. From the ectodermal
cells arise the outer layers of the animal including the skin and the nervous
system. From the endodermal
cells evolve the internal organs and alimentary canal. Lastly, from
the mesodermal cells are
developed the connective tissues, the muscles and skeletal framework.
The
anthropologist, Shelton, even developed a primary classification of human
bodily types based on which layer of cells apparently were predominant during
gestation: the ectomorph, or skinny type, when the ectodermal cells predominated; the endomorph, or corpulent
type, when the endodermal cells were predominate; and
the mesomorph, or
muscular type, when the mesodermal
cells dominated the development.
In the
fully developed individual or animal we learn that there are three dynamic
processes going on within every cell in the body: anabolism, catabolism and
metabolism. Anabolism is the process by
which food is assimilated by the organism while catabolism is the process by
which waste products are excreted. The
anabolic forces are thus engaged in building up the organism while the
catabolic are engaged in the tearing down process. Metabolism is the process by which these two
opposing forces are kept in balance.
They are in short: the creating, destroying, and preserving forces
necessary for the well-being of all organic life.
Does this
remind you of the Hindu concept of the nature of the Godhead? You will recall that Siva is known as the
Destroyer, Brahma as the Creator, and Vishnu as the Preserver. Or how about the dream of Jacob seeing the
angels ascending and descending the ladder?
Do we not live in a world where new life constantly appears while other
life dies and disappears in regular and ordered progression? Is it not plausible that this eternal cycle
of birth and death, of appearance and disappearance, of life forms is simply
the ebb and flow of that all pervasive Causeless Cause, the Ground of All
Being, Great Spirit, the Tao, life-force, elan vital
or by whatever name you choose to call it?
Now let us
move up the ladder of life from the physical realm to the realm of soul or
mind. It hardly needs to be stated the
mind is superior to or dominant over the world of things. It makes a good analogy to the method by
which the third aspect of the Logos creates the visible world. Man, who was created in the image of God,
is also a creator and brings into being creations
which once were only in his mind. One of
my favorite little verses (whose author I don't recall) tells us about this
creative power of the mind of man:
"Mind is the master
power that molds and makes;
And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes
The tools of thought and thinking what he
wills,
Brings forth a thousand joys and a thousand
ills.
He thinks in secret and it comes to pass.
Environment is his looking glass."
I
particular like the line in this little verse "and Man is Mind"
because it is the middle kingdom between Body and Spirit, between Heaven and
Earth. In this realm
arises consciousness not only of the world about us,
but also of the world within us and also of our consciousness of self. (I can see you have already guessed the triad
of
mind and its analogy to the triads of the physical
body.)
I could
very easily put on my metaphysical hat here and talk about the triad of the subconsious, conscious, and superconscious
levels of mind; but instead let us use
the threefold division of the psyche introduced by
Sigmund Freud: the Id, the Ego, and the Super Ego (or Ego Ideal) which will
reflect a more "scientific" approach to the
subject.
As you may
recall from Psychology 101, the Id is short for the Libido (pronounced "Luh bee'doh") from which
arises all of man's sexual and instinctual urges. ("Libido" is the
Latin word for "instinct".) Freud
taught that there are two basic types or classes of instincts: one concerned
with life and its preservation, the other with death and the destruction of
life. The Greeks personified them as the
deities, Eros and Thanatos. (Yes,
here comes anabolism and catabolism again - the life
force and the death force.) I remember
the first time that the idea of a "death wish" or death instinct was
impressed on
me as a reality and not just as a philosophical
concept. I was involved in constructing "mortality" tables for oil
pipe lines to be used for ICC valuation and ratemaking purposes. In doing research on the shape of mortality
curves I ran across a discussion of how a statistician named Gompertz had developed the human mortality curve by
assuming that we are born with a given quantity of life which dissipates slowly
throughout our life. In other words each
day we die a little. At birth the life
force is at a maximum and the death force at a minimum (the anabolic processes
are stronger than the catabolic ones.)
As time goes on, however, the life force diminishes and the death force
increases. Much the same process is at
work in the decay of radioactive isotopes into lighter and
more stable elements. This theoretical construct almost perfectly
fitted the facts of human mortality except for corrections for accidental death
and for countries which had a high incidence of infant mortality due to poverty
and a lack of proper medical facilities.
The libido
or Id, then, represents an unconscious realm of the psyche from which springs
all of the primitive urges accumulated by the race since its creation
millions of years ago. As Carl Jung discovered, the unconscious
levels of mind also contained all of mankind's mythological motifs, which, when
activated, took on a life
of their own.
"Archetypes" was the name he gave to these primordial images
inherited by all men no less than they inherit the anatomy of their physical
bodies from their
progenitors.
Interestingly, Jung condidered Freud's libido
to be synonymous with "psychic energy" - again pointing to a fountain
of primordial instincts and urges.
The middle
layer of the psyche, the ego, is the one most obvious to us since one of its
primary components is the sense of individuality - the "I" or
"me" feeling each
of us has. It
includes also the rest of all that we are conscious of at any one time. The ego as Carl Jung defines it is simply:
"the centrum of consiousness".
In modern man the ego usually is a reasonably well-defined and unitary complex. In primitive man, however, consciousness is
not nearly as well-defined and partakes only occasional forays into the realm
of self-awareness. Dr. Bucke's book, "Cosmic Consciousness", describes
the
evolution of consciousness in four quantum leaps:
(1) the perceptual mind; (2) the receptual mind
(simple consciousness); (3) the conceptual mind (self-consciousness); and (4)
the intuitional mind (cosmic consciousness) each builds upon the former and
contains all the earlier stages. He
makes the analogy of these various levels to dimensions of awareness with
cosmic consciousness corresponding to the fourth dimension of reality. Only man has attained the third level of
self-consiousness and only a few men have thus far
achieved the level of "cosmic" consciousness. ("Many are called, but few are
chosen" to inherit the
As Freud
defines it, the third division of the psyche, the superego (or ego ideal),
arises as a reaction formation between the ego and the libido. It is largely an autonomous complex and
therefore often acts as if it were an independent person. It is often heard by those suffering from
paranoia as a voice. To most of us
though the ego ideal or superego is simply the "voice of conscience"
that prompts us when we are about to do something not in accord with this ideal
standard and then makes us feel guilty after we disregard this "still
small voice".
The end
result of this mental triad is that the ego finds itself in the middle between
often conflicting urges and standards of behavior. What I "ought" to do is often in
conflict with what I "desire" to do.
The greater the tension created by the polarization of the libido and
the superego, the greater the sense of anxiety felt by the ego. If the libido has its way and goads the ego
into action, the ego suffers disapproval from those who it needs for support
(parents, teachers, friends, family, peers, society, etc.). It thereby suffers "the slings and
arrows of outrageous fortune". One's sense of self-respect and self-worth
are diminished by giving in to these primitive urges from the libido.
On the
other hand if the superego has its way and inhibits the action which would
gratify the libido, the urge is repressed from consiousness
back into the unconscious where it remains only at the expense of considerable
psychic energy by the ego. This can
become the basis for phobias and even neuroses unless a resolution for the
conflict is found. So it appears to be a
case of "damned if you do and damned if you don't" - a
real "Catch 21" situation.
This is,
however, nature's way of bringing to your attention those areas in your life
that must be faced and overcome in order for soul growth to occur. ("I
have set before you Life and Death .....", Eros and Thanotos, "Therefore choose Life that both thou
and thy seed may live." - Deut. 30:19).
Repression may succeed in driving the urges and fantasies from the
libido back into the unconscious where they very well may take on a life of
their own (an autonomous complex). They more often are projected onto an object
or situation in the external world (an object cathexis)
again and again until the conflict is either finally resolved or personality
disorders manifest themselves.
The key to
a healthy mind and psyche is to bring repressed urges, feelings, and
unconscious desires back into consciousness, deal with them out in the open,
and make them part of the conscious personality (i.e. the ego) ("First
cleanse the inside of the cup and of the plate, that the outside also may be
clean." Matthew 23:26.) Some of this unconscious material may not be very
pleasant to deal with. It may even be
dirty and filthy. An oldalchemical
maxim tells us that the philosopher's stone, the pearl of great price, is
buried in filth ("In stecore invenitur".
It is found in filth.).
Carl Jung
refers to this hidden aspect of the personality as the Shadow archetype. He is usually the same sex as we are and
often is with us in our dreams. Some may perceive him to be evil in nature
(i.e. a "d'evil", or derived from evil) -
hence the difficulty in
admitting that he is part and parcel of our own
personality. Nevertheless, to admit his
existence, even at the risk of damaging our precious ego, is a necessary step
in the normal growth and development of the psyche. Fortunately, there is
another component in the subconscious which more than compensates for the
presence of this Shadow nature, or darker aspect of the personality.
Another
way of looking at Freud's widely-taught concepts of the id, ego, and ego-ideal
structure of the psyche is to consider it in terms of subconscious, conscious,
and super-conscious levels of reality - analogous to the body, mind, and spirit
of man. Freud
would undoubtedly turn over in his grave for someone
to suggest that his notion of the superego is nothing less than the spirit of
"Christ within you, the hope of Glory",as
This is
the same concept that is embodied in that magnificent monument we call the
Sphinx erected thousands of years ago in the Egyptian desert alongside the
pyramids. Here is a mysterious figure
with the body of an animal, the face of a man, and the headdress of a God.
"What is man that Thou art
mindful of him . . .
Yet Thou hast made him little less than God
And dost crown him with glory and honor."
(Pslm 8 RSV)
"For as many as are led by the
Spirit of God, they are
the sons of God - the Spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit, that we are the children of
God; and
if children, then heirs; heirs of God,
joint-heirs
with Christ . . (Romans 8:14-17)
"I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you
are children
of the most High." (Psalm 82:6)
Thus man
himself is the Sphinx with the body of an animal but with a covering around his
head meant only for the gods.
Psychologists and psychiatrists speak in terms of "wholeness"
as the desired result of their treatments while ministers, rabbis, and priests
speak of "holiness" as the desired end result. As you probably know, the words
"wholeness" and "holiness" come from the same root and
therefore point to the same or a similar desired outcome - one at the level of
the mind or psyche and the other at the level of the spirit.
The symbol
used by the Y.M.C.A. is an inverted triangle, which stands for the threefold
nature of man: body, mind, and spirit.
The fact that the triangle is
inverted indicates that the organization's primary
emphasis is on the physical portion of the triad. The Star of David, on the other hand, which
is the primary symbol of Judaism, is composed of two interlaced triangles, one
of whose apexes points downward while
another points upward. A variation of this symbol is called the Seal
of Solomon. In this symbol the triangle pointing downward is black and the one
pointing upward is white with both triangles inscribed within a circle.
(This is the
symbol I used as the "logo" for my "Realize Your Potential"
course. The correspondence of the Seal
of Solomon with the symbol of Taoism and the cosmology found
in the Chinese "I Ching"
will be the subject of another essay.
Suffice it to say at this point that the "I Ching"
bases its whole philosophy on two groups of trigrams each
composed of three elements, one trigram representing
the outer reality and one the inner reality.)
The
introduction of the second triangle not only gives more balance to the single
one standing on its head, but it also reminds us that man has a spiritual
nature as well
as a physical one. The Hindus, who have been
studying the nature of reality longer than any of the other major religions,
even provide us names for each of these six points - three associated with
Brahma, the female aspect of the Hindu trimurti, and
three associated with Vishnu, the second aspect of their trinity of beings
contained in the Godhead. They call
these aspects "gunas", or modes of
being. The three gunas
or aspects of Brahma, the creator of the outer world, are "tamas", "rajas", and "sattwa", translated roughly as "matter",
"energy", and "law" respectively.
In the
inner world, the world of mind or consiousness,
characterized by Vishnu, are the three gunas of
"ichchha", "jnana", and
"kriya", translated more or less as "will",
"love", and "thought"
respectively. Sometimes the second
aspect is also called "wisdom" and the third, "activity". A
diagram may make the relationship of these six gunas
to
the points on the Star of David and Seal of Solomon
a
little clearer:
Ichchha (Will) Sattwa -------------- Rajas
/\ (Law) \
/ (Energy)
/ \ \ Brahma
/
/ \ \ /
/ \ \ /
/
Vishnu \ \ /
/ \ \ /
Jnana
/------------\ Kriya \/
(Love)
(Thought) Tamas (Matter)
THE
INNER WORLD THE OUTER WORLD
Mind,
Consciousness, The realm of
Existence,
Time (as succession) Space (as extension)
Not shown,
but symbolized by the circle in the Seal of Solomon and by the mystic center in
the heart of the interlaced triangles, is "The "Unmoved Mover",
"The
"Causeless Cause", "The Root of All
Being", "I AM", "The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob",
"Brahman", "The Father", "The Within-Without",
"the circle whose point is everywhere and whose circumference is
nowhere".
Suddenly,
or so it would seem, our original trinity has become sixfold
and by including the ever present mystical center, sevenfold. If it were not for the
inter-relationship and intertwining of the inner and
outer worlds expressed so well by the Star of David and the Seal of Solomon, we
could easily have portrayed these two
triangles in the form of the letter "X"
with the upper two points connected to form the upper triangle and the lower
two points connected to form the lower triangle. This
brings home the fact that the two worlds always
intersect at a point of individualized manifestation, while the worlds without
and within recede from that point in all
directions. (That is to say that the universe
without and the universe within extend beyond the individualized expression in
all directions without limit.)
"The
world hath many centers, one for each created
being, and
about each one it lieth in its own circle.
Thou standest but half an ell from me, yet about thee
lieth a universe whose center I am not but thou art."
Thomas Mann (Joseph
in
I
mentioned earlier a spiritual parallel to Einstein's formulation of the
universal relationship between matter and energy expressed by his famous
formula: E = MC square
There is a rather startling confirmation of this
parallel expressed by the three gunas of Brahma which
are often translated by "matter", "energy", and
"law". Law after all is is a settled direction and like the velocity of light is a
constant. To consider that these notions were formulated several thousand years
ago is even more remarkable. (For more about the psychological nature of these
three gunas read Chapter XIV of the "Bhagavad Gita", the sacred
Hindu "Song of God").
Naturally
the three gunas pertaining to the inner world of
Vishnu (i.e. mind or consciousness) are more psychological in nature. Let me remind you only at this
point the parallel between these three aspects and
Dorothy's three companions in the Land of Oz:
the cowardly lion who wished to find courage (i.e. the will to act), the
tin man who had lost his heart, and the scarecrow who wanted a brain (i.e. the
ability to think).
Volumes
could and have been written about analogies with these six (or seven) modes of
being. (God created the heavens and earth in six days and on the seventh he
rested.) The pseudo-science of astrology
is based on modes of behavior of the seven visible heavenly bodies in our solar
system and the firmament of "fixed" stars behind them - the zodiac.
These seven heavenly bodies are:
1.
The Sun O and children of the Sun
2.
Mars -|- and 3. Venus O
O -|-
4.
The Moon ) and children of the Moon
5.
Jupiter )_|_ and 6. Saturn _|_ And
| | )
7.
Mercury )O-|- the child of both Sun
& Moon
The glyphs
for these familiar seven bodies may seem a little unfamiliar, however
characters available to me to portray the conventional glyphs make necessary
the above
approximations.
(The sign for Mercury, for example is lying on its side). These signs,
however, do convey the primal character of the Sun and Moon and the derivative
character of the remaining five. Further, the circle of the Sun symbolizes it
as the source of all life while the symbol of the crescent moon indicates its
life is obtained
by reflection from the sun. (The similarity between this primal duo of
Sun-Moon and Yin-Yang should be obvious.)
We are so accustomed to the names of the seven days of the week, we tend
to forget that they correspond with the names of the above heavenly bodies of
astrology and astronomy and that they are in turn names for ancient Gods:
Sunday (Sun's day); Monday (Moon's day); Tuesday (Tyre's
day); Wednesday (Woden's day); Thursday (Thor's
day); Friday (Freya's
day); and Saturday (Saturn's day). If you are curious about what happened to
Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus, recall the days of the week in French
and Spanish whose languages are closer to the Latin
of
English French Spanish Planet
---------- ---------- --------------- ----------
Sunday Dimanche Domingo (Lord) Sun
Monday Lundi Lunes (from Luna)
Moon
Tuesday Mardi Mardes
(Mar's Day) Mars
Wednesday Mercredi Miercoles Mercury
Thursday Jeudi Jueves Jupiter
(Jude's day)
Friday Vendredi Viernes Venus
Saturday Samedi Sabado
(Sabbath) Saturn
Thus the
ancients identified the visible heavenly bodies with the names of gods. (Uranus,
Neptune and Pluto although invisible to the naked eye were also named for
ancient gods by our modern men of science). Before you label this as simply the mistaken
notion of earlier, and therefore more primitive, civilizations who believed in
many gods (i.e. polytheism) condider the possibility
of a deeper and hidden meaning. The
number seven has been regarded as a sacred number by many cultures, both
ancient and modern.
You will
recall the Hebrew account of the Creation in Genesis (which was only written
down after countless generations of oral transmission) whereby Yahweh or
Jehovah created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. For thousands of years the Jews have
considered every seventh day as holy and commemorate God's resting on the
seventh day. The Jews called this day
the Sabbath named after Jehovah Sabaoth, a Jewish
equivalent of
Saturn. (Compare "Saturday" in English
with the Spanish "Sabedo" which is still
our seventh day of the week.)
Also from
ancient Hebrew tradition comes the use of the minorah,
the seven branched candleholder, prominently displayed in their temples. Lighted candles are considered by almost all
religions as symbolic of the spiritual side of reality. The shape of the minora
is of interest:
As you may
recall, there are three branches to the left of the central candle shaft and
three branches to the right. Further,
each of the three branches on the left side are connected by a single arc to
the corresponding branch on the right side of the central
shaft. It
takes very little imagination to see the analogy of this figure to the
six-pointed star resting on a seventh (but invisible) point in the center. The form of the minorah
also brings to mind the prophet Isaiah's vision of the seraphims
(one of nine divisions of the angelic kingdom) who had three pair of wings and
hovered above the throne of the Lord (Isaiah 6:2) - the head being the
counterpart of the central candle shaft.
Some
examples of the symbolism of the number seven can also be drawn from the New
Testament. Recall John's vision on the
Isle of
name of "The Revelation of
Edgar
Cayce in one of his clairvoyant readings on the Book of Revelation says that the
seven churches refer to the seven psychic centers within man and each of these
is
stimulated in proper order by repeating the Lord's
prayer. "Our Father" represents the pituitary gland located in the
top of the head, the master gland in the body which
controls all the others. "Thy Name", the Logos in Greek,
represents the pineal gland in the middle of the head, the "third
eye" of the Hindus and Buddhists. "Thy Will" represents the thyroid
glands around the throat which controls our activity and energy levels. (These three glands or centers are analogous
to the inner triad of gunas associated with the Hindu
God, Vishnu, and therefore are all located appropriately in the head of man,
which represents his spiritual nature
"Our daily bread" represents the gonads or sexual
center of the body, the seat of earthly or terrene
energies, to which the Hindus give the name of "kundalini". "Our debts" (or
"trespasses") represent the adrenal glands located above each of the
kidneys, which are the source of the hormone adrenaline which stimulates
the activity of the autonomic nervous system. Cayce tells us that the adrenals are also the
seat of the soul within the human body.
"Temptation" represents the Lyden
gland
or "cells of Lydig"
located just above the gonadal area. Cayce tells us
that this is the center that controls the balance between the male and female
natures which we all
possess.
Lastly, "Evil" represents the thymus gland located behind the
heart, the center of the body. ("As a man thinketh
in his heart, so is he." "For out of the
heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,
fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." Matt. 15:19).
We can see
the same symbolism in legends and fairy tales (e.g. Snow White and the seven
dwarfs, Mohammed's rope with seven knots, etc.). Further, I have already alluded to the seven
component colors of sunlight and the seven notes of the musical scale in the
realm of physical phenomena. But enough
of allegories and allusions for the moment.
The point of all of these illustrations and examples is to persuade you
that behind these ancient, primitive, and abstract notions lie great truths and
insights into the nature of reality. It
is a very sad and tragic mistake to assume that our era with its great
scientific knowledge and marvelous inventions is
superior in all respects to those civilizations which have gone before us.
We have
but to consider the erection of the pyramids thousands of years ago without the
benefit of "modern" technology to put our achievements in proper
perspective.
Furthermore, if the true nature of man is spiritual
and not animal, then past cultures who studied the invisible worlds of the
psyche and who walked and talked with the spirits all around them may have been
closer to the ultimate reality than any of our modern thinkers, who either
consider the only reality to be that which we can feel, smell, taste, touch or
hear or that man represents the pinnacle of creation whose spiritual concepts
are nothing but a carryover from our primitive progenitors. (Jerry Falwell and others refer to this type of philosophy as
"secular humanism".)
After a
rather extended excursion into the realm of the symbolism connected with the
numbers 3, 6, and 7 let us now return to the discussion of the three triads
connected with the body, mind (or soul), and spirit of man. By far the most difficult of the three levels
of reality to explain on my part, and to understand on the readers' part, is
the realm of "spirit". It is
most difficult on the one hand because it is the most abstract
of the three realms, that is most remote from the
material world in which we are enmeshed, and on the other hand because our
modern era has conditioned us to accept the visible world as the one and the
only true reality.
An excerpt
from one of Robert Browning's poems makes the point about the nature of Truth (
i.e. the ultimate reality) far better than I ever could in clumsy prose:
"Truth is within ourselves; it
takes no rise
From outward things, whate'er
you may believe.
There is an inmost center in us all,
Where truth abides in fulness;
and around,
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
This perfect, clear perception, which is
truth.
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh
Binds it, and makes all error: and to know,
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without."
(From his "Paracelsus")
It is in
the effort to discover this "inmost center" that the real
"Self" and "Spirit" of a man may be discovered. Shakespeare admonishes us:
"To thine
own self be true;
And it follows as must night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any
man."
Also you
may remember those famous maxims:
"Know the truth, and the truth shall
make you free."
and simply
"Know thyself."
Or as Jesus
tells us through the Christ within him and within us all potentially):
"I am the way, and the truth, and the
life; no one
comes to the Father, but by me."
(John 14:6)
The key to
unlocking Truth, Freedom, and Knowledge, as shown by the above quotations, lies
within oneself. The question to be
answered then is: Who are we really? Are
we who other people think we are? Are we who we think we are now? Or are we who
we would aspire to be? The answer to a
large extent depends on our state of being or what
psychologists call our "self-concept", our
perception of ourself. How we decide this question of who we are
largely determines our life experience.
What we make of our lives is largely up to us. Again let us call on some, perhaps familiar,
quotations to make this point more eloquently:
"You will be what you will to be;
Let
failure find its false content
In
that poor word "environment",
But
Spirit scorns it and is free.
It masters time, it conquers space.
It cows
that boastful trickster Chance,
And
bids the tyrant Circumstance
Uncrown and fill a servant's place.
Be not impatient in delay,
But
wait as one who understands;
When
Spirit rises and commands
The
Gods are ready to obey
The river seeking for the sea
Confronts the dam and precipice,
Yet knows it cannot fail or miss;
You will be what you will to be!"
(Ella Wheeler Wilcox)
"A man's reach must exceed his grasp;
Else
what's a heaven for?"
(Robert Browning)
"Life is too short to waste
In
critic peep or cynic bark.
'Twill soon be dark;
Up!
Mind thine own aim, and
God
speed the mark!"
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)
"I am only one, but still I am one!
I
cannot do everything, but I can do something!"
(Edward Everett Hale)
"Truly, I say to you, whoever says to
this mountain
'Be taken up and cast in the sea' and does
not
doubt in his heart, but believes that what
he says
will come to pass, it will be done for
him. Therefore
I
tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that
you will receive it, and you will."
(Jesus, the Christ) (Mark
"Believe that life is worth living and
your belief will
create the fact. Be not afraid to live."
(William
James)
"Do something worth living for, worth
dying for;
Do something to show that you have a mind, and a
heart, and a soul within you."
(Dean
Stanley)
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy
might; For there is no work, nor device,
nor know-
ledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither
thou goest."
(Ecclesiastes 9:10)
"There is a tide in the affairs of men
When taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Missed, the balance of their lives
Is
spent in shallows and in miseries."
(Shakespeare)
"Man
makes the circumstances, and spiritually as well
as
economically is the artificer of his own fortune."
(Thomas
Carlyle)
"Knowledge we ask not, for knowledge Thou hast lent;
But the
will, oh Lord,
There lies
our bitter need.
Help us to
build above the deep intent
The deed!
The deed!"
(John Drinkwater,
English Theologian)
"Man
in his weakness is the creature of circumstances;
Man in his
strength is the creator of circumstances.
"Whether he be victim or victor depends largely on
himself."
(David Starr
"Man
is not the creature of circumstances;
Circumstances are the creatures of men."
(Benjamin
Disraeli)
"Our
belief at the beginning of a doubtful undertaking
is the one
thing that insures the successful outcome
of our
venture."
(William
James)
"The
universe is not to be narrowed down to the limits
of the
understanding,
which has
been men's practice up to now;
but the
understanding must be stretched and enlarged
to take in
the image of the universe as it is
discovered."
(Francis
Bacon)
"You
cannot put new wine in old wineskins."
(Jesus, the Christ)
"Men
at sometimes are masters of their fates;
the fault,
dear Brutus, is not in our stars
but in
ourselves, that we are underlings."
(Julius
Caesar, Act I)
"I am
the master of my fate.
I am the
captain of my soul."
(From "Invictus" by Ernest Henley)
"I can
do all things thru Christ who strengtheneth me."
(
"Let
that mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus."
(
"Do
not be conformed to this world, but be transformed
by the
renewal of your mind, that you may prove what
is the
will of God, what is good and acceptable and
perfect."
(
"To
dream the impossible dream
To fight
the unbeatable foe
To bear
with unbearable sorrow
To run
where the brave dare not go
To right
the unrightable wrong
To love
pure and chaste from afar
To try
when your arms are too weary
To reach
the unreachable star
This is my
quest to follow that star
No matter
how hopeless, no matter how far
To fight
for the right without question or pause
To be
willing to march into Hell
For a
heavenly cause.
And I know
if I'll only be true to this glorious quest
That my
heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm
laid to my rest
And the
world will be better for this
That one
man scorned and covered with scars
Still
strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach
the unreachable stars.
(The
Impossible Dream - The Man of LaMancha)
The
essence of Spirit is Life, the "sine qua non" of anyone and anything,
and it expresses itself as a separate entity or being. Many books have been written "On
Becoming a Real Person", "How to Win
Friends and Influence People", and how to overcome all of our anxieties,
fears, and feelings of inferiority and inadequacy. What usually
is not written about, however, is how to find out
who you really are and how to let others see the person you discover yourself
to be. (Paul Tillich's
"The Courage To Be" being a notable exception to the rule.) Some of
us simply accept what others have told us about ourselves as being true (both
good and bad) and bury or repress any feelings or ideas that run contrary to
this image. In time we identify more and
more with this "outer-directed"
person until we, in fact, become what others have
said about us. (Notice that this is a
self-fulfilling prophecy built around the identity we have accepted about
ourselves.)
This outer
self, the face we show to the world, is what Carl Jung calls our
"persona". This word has the
same root as "person" and "personality". Its ordinary English use (and original
Latin meaning) is to designate an actor
or person appearing on stage. In ancient
theater presentations the actors frequently wore masks (e.g. a sad or a happy
face) and the word "persona" was also used to designate this
mask. If we break the Latin root
"personae" down into its components, we have "per"
(through) and "sonare" (to sound). So the "persona" is an actor who
"sounds through his "mask", his false self.
As we
mature, we become conscious of the fact that much of our lives is spent in role
playing (e.g. as child, parent, teacher, student, boss, employee, etc.) Many people expect those playing these roles
to be what they expect a person in that role to be like; (e.g. We expect our
ministers, priests, or rabbis to be above reproach, like Caesar's wife, and we
expect children to respect their elders and to be obedient, etc.) and because
people expect it, we play the role.
Most of us
realize, however, that we are not really the person other people think we are
or the person they want us to be. That
is, we have a private as well as a public side to our concept of self. One is a
reflection of our being, our individuality, at the level of the world of sense
while the other, although including this level, also includes the largely
hidden world of our private thoughts and feelings. Carl Jung believed that each of us turn a
portion of our true selves to the world as a primary emphasis (either our
thinking, feeling, sensual, or intuitive natures) with the other portions remaining
partially or totally obscured. "Wholeness", in his view. requires that during our lifetime we expose
all of these functions to the outer world so as to achieve a balance
between the opposite natures within all of us.
Many of
us, particularly men, identify their essential self or sense of individuality
with their mind, while others, usually women, more often identify with their
emotions or feelings. You may recall the
phrase from the verse I cited on the nature of mind, "and Man is
Mind", which illustrates those who
make the identification of the self (with a small "s") with the
mind. You may also recall the now famous
starting point of the philosopher, Rene Descartes: "Cogito, ergo
sum". ("I think, therefore I am.") Those of us who have had some type of
"mystical" experience might think it makes more sense to begin our
philosophy by positing: "Sum, ergo cogito", but that is getting ahead
of our exposition on the threefold nature of the spirit, or the essence of
one's being.
As
mentioned earlier in this little essay, what we call our
"self-consciousness" is of comparatively recent development in man
and not very well developed at all in primitive tribes living in isolated areas
of the world today. We can infer this
from observing the development of a child.
When he first begins to talk, there is no reference to self. Later he learns to identify himself by the
name people call him and later still does he begin to use the pronoun
"I".
Just as
the fertilized egg goes through a lengthy process of retracing all of its
ancestral history within the womb ("Ontogeny recapitulates
phylogeny."),so too does
the development of one's mental and psychological
capacities retrace its ancestral phylogeny in early childhood. (Dr Bucke's book has an interesting discussion of this
process.) Since knowledge is a function
of being, our sense of self goes along, hand-in-hand, with the development of
our mental and moral faculties.
Sometimes, it is true, one may develop a sense of self which overreaches
one's knowledge. When one is puffed up
with self-importance, we say he is an egotist and
has a "big head". Conversely,
one may have considerable knowledge but, as a result of innate shyness or
conditioning, have an inadequate or lower than warranted sense of self. In extreme cases we say such a person is
suffering from an inferiority complex.
The most
common cause of an over-estimation or under-estimation of one's self-concept is
an over-identification with the persona, the outer directed personality, which,
as we discussed earlier, is never the true self but merely roles that we play
or are expected to play in life. "Don't judge a book by its cover."
or "First impressions may be deceiving." are typical admonitions from
the conventional wisdom of society.
Over-estimation or under-estimation of our self-concept can result,
however, not only from the outer society or what Jung calls the
"collective consciousness" but also from the impact on the individual
of that inner society that Jung calls the "collective unconscious".
Some have equated this concept with race memory, but it is much more than
this. Just as we inherit our physical
bodies as a result of millions of years of evolution of life here on earth, so
too do we inherit the distilled essence and knowledge of the entities that were
responsible for this development.
Dr. Jung,
although accused by many of being too mystical in his concepts, was first and
foremost a scientist of the psyche and had very little patience with metaphysical
speculations (e.g. Theosophy). That
around which he developed his concepts of the psyche was based on his own
clinical experiences with many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of patients. It was as a result of these real life
experiences of similar patterns and motifs emerging over and over again from
the depths of his patients'subconscious minds that
led him to a study of mythology, ancient religions, primitives, alchemy, fairy
tales, theancient Chinese book on divination known as
the "I Ching"etc., etc.
After
years of observation and study he concluded that these primordial images, which
he named "archetypes", form as much the substrate of our psyche as
does the human body
with all of its marvelous organs and structure form
a common framework for our physical nature.
Jung gave names to these archetypes such as "the anima" (or
"animus" in women), "the shadow", "the wise old
man", the great mother", etc.
(See his essay entitled "Archetypes of the Collective
Unconscious" for a fascinating esposition of
these and other archetypes.) The
quintessential (the fifth essence, and therefore the highest) archetype,
however, is one that Jung simply calls "the
Self" (with a capital "S"). [Just so you will be able to follow
this somewhat rambling exposition, I am now moving into a discussion of the
third level of spirit, or sense of "I am" - the first two being the
persona (or outer self) and the ego (the centrum of
our customary sense of self).]
There is
much to be said for the old maxim: "Let sleeping dogs lie" when we
begin to discuss this aspect of reality because once you stir it up from the
depths, it
may come to the surface (your consciousness) and
upset your carefully constructed sense of who you are, what you are, and what
you really should be accomplishing here on earth. ("I charge you . . . that ye stir not
up, nor not awake my love till he
please."
- Song of Solomon 2:7).
In Jung's
psychology the Self is the totality of one's being, both conscious and unconsious. It
therefore embraces the outer self, the private self, and the potential self -
all that you are now, have been and can ever hope to be. The essence of the mystical experience is the
bringing to life of this primorial image, this
archetype of the collective unconscious.
While the rewards for stealing this "fire" from the gods can
be
great beyond measure, the penalties can include a
profound sense of isolation and sadness.
As Isaiah said when confronted by a vision of the Lord sitting on his
throne in heaven: "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of
unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine
eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." (Isaiah 6:5).
The
struggle to comprehend these spiritual visions can be an all consuming one. That is why Jung advises (if one has a
choice) to delay this quest until the second half of
life when the pursuit of worldly ambitions has
hopefully run its course and one's sense of self is firmly established. (The invasion of consciousness by these powerful
primoridal images from the collective unconscious can
easily overpower and swamp a poorly developed ego resulting in a full blown
psychosis.)
The
stories of this quest for the heavenly prize are legion. Recall in Greek mythology Jason and his quest
for the golden fleece, the knights of yore and their quest for the Holy Grail,
Ponce de Leon and his search for the fountain of youth, the alchemists and
their quest for the "lapis philosophorum"
(the philosopher's stone), Jesus in
his parables of the Kingdom (e.g. "the pearl of
great price"). Or consider the
centuries long quest by the Jews for the "promised land", the
messianic vision of "a new heaven and a new earth", the vision of the
"new Jerusalem", the lion lying down with the lamb, the
millennium following the second coming of Christ,
etc., etc., etc.
Just as
the whole history of mankind has been one of millions of years of involution
and evolution - of a descent from spirit into matter and now an ascent (however
slowly) from matter back to spirit, so does the life of an individual man (or
woman) undergo a similar metamorphosis. In between incarnations his (or her)
abode is in the spiritual realms and only after a considerable time does the
soul make the pilgrimage into another body of flesh. (At least this is the
usual case if you can believe the testimony of those who have clairvoyantly
investigated it.)
The rule
of life, however, is not just one of endless birth and death but rather one of
growth and becoming what one was destined to become. For an acorn it is to become
an oak tree and for a caterpillar it is to become a
moth or a butterfly; but for a man it is to become like his heavenly Father, an
immortal being with unlimited power and glory.
("God created man in his own image, in the
image of God created he him." -Gen. 2:27.
"I have said, ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most
High." Psalm 82:6)
Like the
rest of creation this growth is better when not forced but allowed to unfold in
the fullness of time. However, what unfolds in man depends upon the seeds he
plants in his mind and waters regularly.
The seeds are his thoughts, hopes, dreams, and beliefs. The German poet, Goethe, expresses this
planting, watering and growth cycle eloquently:
"Plant
a thought, and reap a deed.
Plant a
deed, and reap a habit.
Plant a
habit, and reap a character.
Plant a
character, and reap a destiny."
More
simply: "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is
he." If you can visualize what it is you want clearly and hold fast to
that vision, the thing you visualize will come to pass - either good or evil
depending on the nature of your thoughts.
Do you remember what Job said after he had lost his family and all of
his worldly possessions? "For the thing which I greatly feared is come
upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me." (Job
How much better then is it to recall and meditate on
[I am
tempted to write a few pages at this point on the trinity of "power, and
of love, and of a sound mind", but suffice it to remind you only that
Dorothy's companions in the Wizard of Oz on her quest for the witch's
broomstick were: the cowardly lion who wanted courage (i.e. the power to act),
the tin man who wanted a heart (i.e. love), and the scarecrow who wanted a
brain (i.e. a sound mind). These
companions plus her four-footed friend, Toto, comprise the septenary
nature of
man with his animal (four-fold) and spiritual
(three-fold) natures. Of course, the
Wizard (the Great and Powerful Oz) turns out to be a humbug which would take an
essay of
its own to expound upon. (Shades of Friedrich
Nietzsche and the "God is dead" brand of theologians and
existentialists). The Wizard of Oz is
just a modern story of the ancient quest, albeit a very delightful one.]
And Jesus
tells us to take no thought ("be not anxious", says one translation)
for the morrow, for the problems that each day brings are worry enough.
" . .
. whatever is true, whatever is honest, whatever is just, whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there
is anything
worthy of praise, thing about these things."
(Phil. 4:8)
That which
distinguishes man from the rest of creation is his power to choose, "You
will be what you will to be." Why then, you will surely ask, is there so
much misery in
the world: poverty, disease, drug abuse, murders,
rapes, robberies, wars , hatred, etc., etc.?
Surely, no one deliberately chooses these things. The debate about the
origin of evil in the world has been going on for
thousands of years and has never been satisfactorily resolved. Even
man born blind, whether it was the man himself or
his
parents who had sinned, Jesus answered:
"Neither, but that the glory of God might be manifest in him." Similarly, when
his "thorn in the flesh", the Lord
replied: "My grace is sufficient for you.
My purpose is made perfect in weakness."
Without
shadows we could not see the light.
Unless we experience sadness we cannot know true happiness, and unless
there is both good and evil in the world we would not be able to exercise our
free will to choose life and growth instead of death and destruction. ("I
have set before you Life and Death, blessing and cursing.
Therefore, choose Life that thou and thy seed may
live." Deut. 30:19) Remember, sin
(and the concept of evil) did not enter into man's experience until Eve was
tempted by the serpent (i.e. Satan) to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge
whereby she and Adam would know the difference between good and evil and become
like gods. As Shakespeare tells
us through the voice of Hamlet: "for nothing is
either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." (Act II, Scene II).When man
in his evolution reaches the point of self-nsciousness,
a separate individual, he begins to lose his close association with his creator
and thus also his identity with all creation - his "participation
mystique", as Levy-Bruhl calls it. The fall from the Garden of Eden and
therefore separation from God has begun, and the
journey back to
Dualism
the awareness of opposites, goes hand in hand with the development of
self-consciousness. What we identify
with becomes part of the ego consciousness and what we exclude as not belonging
to it becomes part of that which is outside of us or is repressed by the ego
into the subconscious portion of the mind.
When we only identify with our good qualities and exclude our bad ones,
we tend to become "holier than thou" and look down our
noses at those less perfect than we are. In Jesus'day many
of the "scribes and pharisees", those most knowlegeable about the Judaic and Mosaic laws, fit into
this
category. He
repeatedly called their self-overevaluation to their
attention:
"Woe
unto you, scribes and Pharisees! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and
platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which
is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! for ye are like whited sepulchers, which
indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and
of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but
within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." (Matthew 23:25-28)
The first
step, therefore, on the road back to our original state as a spiritual being is
to admit our sins and imperfections and not to place ourselves in our minds
above other people in "goodness".
Jesus reminds us to: "Judge not that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be
judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."
(Matthew 7:1-2)
In order
for constructive growth to occur much of what we have considered true and real
must be seen as false and as illusion.
In order to find a new and greater life we
must lose the old and lesser life. Just as the outer self, the persona, is a
mask through which the actor speaks his part, so too is the ego nothing but a
reflection, a shadow really, of our true self.
Jesus tells us: "He that findeth his life
shall lose it; and he
that loseth his life for
my sake shall find it." (Matthew 10:39).
Again in one of the other gospels he says: "Except a corn of wheat
fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but
if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." (John
12:24).
We must
therefore discard the old man (our carnal self) and put on the new man (our
spiritual self, our Christ self). For
you cannot put new wine in old wineskins or mend an old garment with a piece of
new cloth. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new
creation; the old has passed away; behold, the new
has come." (2nd Corinthians 5:17). "And the Spirit and the bride say,
come. And let him that is athirst
come. And
whosover will, let him take the water of life freely."
(Revelations 22:17). For "I am the
Way, the Truth and the Life. No man
cometh to the Father except by me." (John 14:6).
"Build
thee more stately mansions, O my soul As the swift seasons roll.
Leave thy
low-vaulted past. Let each new temple,
nobler than the last,
Separate
thee from heaven with a dome more vast
Till thou at length art free
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting
sea."
(From the Chambered
Nautilus by Oliver Wendell Holmes )
For most
people the quest is a goal that they seek from time to time but not one that
requires all of their energies. For
those who are fortunate enough to have glimpsed "the heavenly city",
"the promised land", the quest becomes an all-consuming effort, a
constant
attraction; and like the moth that is attracted by
the light and flame they may, if not careful, may be consumed by it.
"So come my Sovereign, enter in.
Let
new and nobler life begin.
Thy
Holy Spirit guide us on
Until the glorious crown be won."
(George Weissel, 1642)
"Spirit divine, attend our prayer,
And
make this house thy home;
Descend with all thy gracious power,
O
come, Great Spirit, come!"
(Andrew Reed, 1829)
"Come Holy Ghost, our souls inspire,
And
lighten with celestial fire.
Thou
the anointing Spirit art,
Who
dost thy sev'n fold gifts impart.
Thy
bless-ed unction from above
Is
comfort, life, and fire of love.
Enable
with perpetual light
The
dullness of our blinded sight.
Anoint
and cheer our soiled face
With
the abundance of thy grace.
Keep
far our foes; give peace at home;
Where
Thou art guide no ill can come.
Teach
us to know the Father, Son,
And
Thee of both, to be but One.
That
through the ages all along,
This
may be our endless song:
Praise
to thy eternal merit,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
(9th Century, Latin prayer now used in
the Anglican Church by the Bishop at
the rite of confirmation.)
END OF PART I