The hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed to sinful men. Up, let us go forward! My betrayer is upon us. (Mark 14: 41-42)
THE END OF the spiritual life is failure, not the shoddy success that the world esteems. The final manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the life of man is destruction of all he has held dear and sacrosant, not the preservation of temporal values and pious attitudes. The Spirit, if He is allowed free rein over a man, demands a new creation, not a patching-up and adornment of the present life. Whoever believes that the final good can be equated with heaven on earth, whether on a political, economic, social, or even religious dimension, is not aware of the meaning of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, heaven and earth, as we know them, have to pass away before the Word of God can be finally revealed in the deepest layer of the created universe.
Anyone who looks for comfort and reassurance in worldly things is living in an illusion. The world is in fact tolerable, indeed beautiful, only to him who has overcome that world and can enjoy it with a degree of non-attachment that does not flinch from the possibility of its complete annihilation. Only when one loves a person with that intensity of non-attachment that the prospect of his death becomes a source of comfort and strength, rather than one of intolerable grief, has one come to a knowledge of his eternal value.
All this was hinted at long ago by the Speaker (or Preacher) who summoned forth the inspirational book of Ecclesiastes. To those with a consciousness rooted in earthly things, it is a composition of cynicism, gloom and ultimate resignation to the fact of fate's unpredictability, man's frailty and death's finality. To those with a heavenly awareness, this book is a glimpse of the ultimate release man is to enjoy from the slavery of worldly things, to a realm where neither fate, frailty, nor death has dominion, and where the bliss of eternal communion with all things in a transfigured mode is to be known. Agony is the final result of a life devoted to the accretion of finite things; joy often follows their complete demolition. But the quality that has to be absolutely demolished is the present domination of the self. Its transfiguration is an important stage in that development; its apparent annihilation is the necessary ordeal before it is born anew. It is for this reason that death in all its forms is as essential for the well-being of the soul as is material life.
Death is a stage in the development of a living creature in which it is obliged to renounce its present mode of life and enter an unknown existence, of whose reality the intellect can give little assurance and whose continuity is at best a shadow cast by thoughts in the night. In what we are pleased to call "the lower forms of life", death is seen only at the termination of that life. But man dies day by day if he is living properly. For him death is the continual renunciation of a present way of viewing reality as he grows into a new awareness of his place in the universe. As fresh demands are made and new insights are given, so he dies to the old and is reborn in the new life.
The young child dies to its enclosed parental solicitude when it enters the competitive life of schooling with its peers. And the mother's close attachment dies with it. If this mutual death fails to occur, the child cannot grow into self-giving relationships with other people, and the mother cannot move beyond the imprisoning bonds of a possessive hold on her child. When a young person leaves home and begins to fend for himself, there is another shared death. The child has broken loose from the moorings of a loving family life, to enter the indifferent sea of adult participation, rivalry, and betrayal. And the parents are moving closer towards their own separation from the child. This is their first real presage of the full death they are, in due course, destined to experience. Every disappointment, every disability, every permanent separation of one friend from another, is of the nature of a small death. Some cannot bear the break with a past hope or relationship, and contract out of life. But those who are strong and imbued with faith will go on living. A part of their life has been destroyed, but a new way of living has been opened to them.
The supreme death that confronts us all while we are still alive in the world is the tragedy of bereavement. When a loved one dies, something deep in us also dies, and a void remains. The one on whom we have greatly depended for emotional sustenance has been taken from us, and a chasm of meaninglessness is all that remains. But if this partial breach of the soul can be healed by the influx of new, more widely based relationships in which service and concern for others rather than personal comfort are the dominant factors, we may start to move beyond death to life even in this world. As St John says, "we know that we have crossed over from death to life, because we love our brothers." (1 John 3:14)
This is the secret. Death means the end of a limited view of life, based on the primacy of our own welfare or that of our immediate circle. The sacrifice is inflicted on us by an apparently indifferent fate; all we have to look upon is a dark void. But it is a living void, a vibrant emptiness, into which much can be placed depending primarily on our own inner attitude. In every person there is set an obscure faith which is fed by a hope that dwells in the soul. This faith, however, becomes a real, living quality only when we have given ourselves, empty and battered, to the future life. This is the act of saving faith that allows the Holy Spirit to enter our life and participate in our spiritual development. The result of this participation is the opening up of new ways and the emergence of potentialities and gifts within us, previously unknown and now slowly brought to light. In truth, death to the old way of life has brought with it a resurrection to a new dimension of living and thinking. Those who have the courage to persist, undergo a subtle inner transformation whereby they are separated from the world of material illusion and grow slowly but inexorably into a life of joy, full of the grace of God.
Let it not be imagined moreover, that the forces that encompass these partial deaths during life are pleasant or benign. They are harsh, invariably bitter, and often vicious. Rivalry, disease, mental breakdown, persecution, bereavement, the collapse of one's dearest hopes due to the betrayal of those whom one regarded as friends, are cruel facts of life. They cannot, indeed must not, be diminished, explained away, or dismissed as illusory products of false thinking. To do this would be a betrayal of all that is noble in human nature. It would also be a betrayal of the dark side of life, which too must be given its weight. Those who speak figuratively of giving even the devil his due are nearer the truth than they are probably aware. We cannot escape the dark, demonic influences that overshadow life in the world of becoming, for they too have their part to play, and until they are acknowledged, there can be no end to darkness, no completion of the suffering of mortal creatures, no victory of immortality over transience.
In the spiritual life that directs the activity of the universe and works for its perfection, there are two reciprocal actions: a downpouring of God's Spirit on to the created world, and the manifestation of that same Spirit in the life of every creature. The Spirit that pours down "from heaven" bathes matter in radiance, infuses it with life, and works to release it from the law of death and corruption that governs all mortal things. The Spirit that manifests itself in the creature works for its perfection, modest in forms of life of lower potentiality, but of the stature of Christ in the human dispensation. Thus there are two directions in which man is "divinised" and the world resurrected, from above downwards and from the depth of the human soul upwards. Illuminated saints of all ages, cultures, and religious traditions have shown the light within, and their witness has never been obliterated because the light of the Spirit cannot be extinguished. And yet this light has been dimmed, at times to a point very near total extinction, by proceeding generations of those who call themselves believers and try to follow the way. To be sure, "The light shines on in the dark, and the darkness has never mastered it." (John 1:5) But neither has that light ever overcome the darkness of the world, and the two seem to be locked in a conflict that has no mortal end.
Times of political enlightenment and religious liberalism tend to bring in their wake a revolt against the mediocrity such systems unfortunately seem to engender. Man can never remain content with a static view of life that prevents the full flow of the Spirit within him. It was necessary for the Prodigal Son to leave his rich patrimony behind him and enter into the degradation of hedonistic existence before he became a real person who could make his own decision, even in the most abject humiliation. Times of political repression and religious authoritarianism, which no one with intelligence could possibly applaud, bring in their turn a generation of heroes who are prepared to sacrifice their lives for the principles of truth and nobility that are the most enduring heritage of human history, at once bestial and Christ-like. History redounds to the memory of these heroes and pioneers, but who follows them? All too often those who are centred in selfish concern and are unaware of the greater demands of life or the potentiality lying deep within mankind.
The remarkable intelligence of the human mind has solved many scientific problems. Perhaps the most striking advance is the steady progress against disease that modern medical research has achieved, so that, at the present time, there is an increasing number of people who are destined to live to an extreme old age, a burden on society and a misery to themselves. They have been prevented from dying mercifully and have never learned to live constructively. It is a matter of debate whether the scientific revolution of the past few hundred years has been a blessing or a curse to mankind. While no one should deny the benefits that sciencific knowledge has bestowed on the world, the more far-seeing of us know that these are essentially peripheral to the goal of man, which in the East would be called "liberation" (from the illusion of a self centred consciousness) and in the West "salvation" (from a life that is centred in selfishness to the exclusion of man and God). Inasmuch as these great objectives are more easily attained in a body that is well cared for, well nourished and healthy than in one that is degraded, starved and diseased, it can be said that the contemporary concern for social and economic justice and scientific research is well based. But this has been achieved at the cost of individual liberty (which in some countries is absolute) and great suffering to animals, who must necessarily bear the brunt of biological experimentation. It is very unlikely that the light of God will finally transfigure a world in which one form of life is gratuitously sacrificed for the selfish ends of another, which is more advanced intellectually but all too often of rudimentary morality and spirituality.
Do not, however, let it be thought that there are easy solutions to these worldly problems. Indeed, there is no intellectual solution to any of them, and realising this fact has a strangely liberating effect. While extremists, as for instance anti-vivisectionists on the one hand and enthusiastic biological research workers on the other, will denounce each others' views uncompromisingly and often with little real understanding of the complexity of the matter, and - the more moderate, constrained majority will look for a middle way in which as little damage is done or pain inflicted as is compatible with furthering the cause of what is generally regarded as human progress, the man of spiritual vision knows that these problems are solved from a different point of vantage altogether. In this respect it usually transpires that people who hold extreme views on any basic issue tend to be emotionally unbalanced; hatred for the protagonists of the practice they denounce is more often the motivating factor in their attitude than compassion for those who suffer under it.
It is also generally true that the large, moderate majority is generally concerned more about salving its own conscience in an uneasy situation, or when faced with shadowy injustice, than in penetrating to the roots of the problem and genuinely initiating a change in policy. It therefore comes about that the rational approach to fundamental problems concerning human welfare stumbles awkwardly on the rocks of prejudice, cowardly expediency, and frank self-interest. And by the very nature of things, it cannot do any other, because the rational faculty is under the domination of the unredeemed personal self. Thus the light flickers on in a worldly society, in some places emitting a diffused glow of dim compassion amid the darkness of human indifference, and elsewhere burning brightly in the souls of individual saints who have sacrificed all thoughts of personal gain for the journey to the vision of God.
In the life of the transfigured one, there comes a final ordeal, the confrontation with naked evil. The unprepared soul rightly flinches from this terrible test, but there is no escape for the soul that bears the light of the Holy Spirit. According to the manner in which the test is concluded, depends the future of the world. Well do we pray, as Jesus taught us: "Do not bring us to the test, but save us from the evil one." (Matthew 6:13) We could not face the impact of concentrated evil in our normal, dimly-aware state of consciousness, for we would be overwhelmed by it. We need God's grace to protect us against the psychic darkness that emanates from the cosmic spheres and is projected into the personalities of receptive human beings. Even so, unspeakably evil things have been done to helpless individuals since the birth of human consciousness, and bestial acts have been perpetrated against racial and religious groups that have, in some instances, led to their annihilation. The manifest triumph of evil over good that occurs in the annals of history from time to time is surely the greatest stumbling-block to a belief in God. To the rational mind there is no God or this God is either impotent or as brutal as the creation He has fashioned. There is certainly no intellectual answer to the fact of evil; there is no theodicy that can justify all the facets of evil action in the world. Yet perhaps we may learn that evil too has its place in the scheme of things for setting man free from the comfortable world of mediocrity to enter into a new phase of consciousness where he is unencumbered with mortal concerns.
In the world we inhabit, a world of form that changes, undergoes corruption, death, and renewal, and that moves to its destiny in unceasing hope of total redemption, we see the process of becoming. It is a dynamic universe; it moves perpetually. There are two basic powers that control the universal flow - a power of good that directs the creation, renewed and transfigured, to union and consummation, and a power of negation, which we call evil, that draws the creation back to the primal chaos that existed when the creation had been decreed, directed and initiated by God's Word through the power of His Spirit. The power that denies is an inevitable by-product of the free will God bestowed on His rational creatures, which, in terms of the world we inhabit and therefore know, means man. Legend speaks of a prior, fateful turning away from God by members of the angelic hierarchy who took upon themselves the power of the psychic dimension and misused it. To me this view is full of meaning, and it emphasises the presence of good and evil, light and darkness, in the psychic as well as the material world. In the world of becoming, the world God created at the dawn of time which emerged in timeless eternity, there is a perpetual interplay and conflict between the power that affirms and the power that denies. This is not Manichaean dualism, which tends to see these two forces as the very basis of reality, but a secondary dualism based on the free choice offered by the one Creator to His creation. And both aspects of this dualism, the darkness as well as the light, are under the dominion of God.
"Where can I escape from thy Spirit? Where can I flee from thy presence? If I climb up to heaven, thou are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, again I find thee...If I say, Surely darkness will steal over me, night will close around me', darkness is no darkness for thee and night is as luminous as day; to thee both dark and light are one." (Psalm 139: 7-8 and 11-12)
The same truth is expressed in the Book of the Consolation of Israel written by a disciple of the prophet Isaiah: "I am the Lord, there is no other; I make the light, I create darkness, author alike of prosperity and trouble. I, the Lord, do all these things." (Isaiah 45:7) This disciple had the tragedy of the Babylonian exile with the destruction of Jerusalem on which to meditate. Had it not been for this tragedy, which cost countless lives, a renewed, purified Judaism could not have arisen which not only had its own glory to give the world, but was also to be the author of Christianity and Islam. To Dame Julian of Norwich it was revealed: "It behoved that there should be sin, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." (Revelations of Divine Love, Chapter 27). So sin is necessary, and what we call evil plays its part. It cannot be eradicated; it has to be brought into the greater light of reality. The Buddha expressed this in his own way: "Hatred does not cease by hatred; hatred ceases only by love. This is the eternal law." (Dhammapada 1:5) It is interesting that the next verse states a truth that at first consideration seems quite remote from its immediate predecessor, but in fact is extremely relevant: "Many do not realise that all must one day die. In those who know this fact, all strife is stilled." In learning how we are to die we come to knowledge of the ultimate reconciliation of good and evil.
Let us remember finally that Satan plays an important, and by no means isolated, part in the Biblical narrative. It is he who slays Job's past life of reliance on earthly and even religious things so that he can either die or else move to a new understanding of God. It is Satan who acts as adversary to accuse the high priest Joshua before the heavenly tribunal. He is the malevolent angel, who is man's enemy, but he acts in concert with the heavenly host. (Zechariah 3:1-2) The wise, humble man learns more from his enemies than from his friends, because enmity evokes qualities previously latent in the person, whereas friendship, except of the deepest intimacy, tends to stifle weaknesses of character with a veneer of kind words that do not deal with the source of the trouble.
When the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus after His baptism, that same Spirit leads Him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Once again there is a close relationship between God and the devil, a relationship that reaches full tension at the time of the Crucifixion. We would do well to penetrate deeply into the nature of evil, but only the transfigured one can do this with authority. He must expect destruction for his enterprise, but on this destruction rests the world's redemption.