"THOU SHALT LOVE THY neighbour as thyself" Is the second great commandment. The mystic would expand this by adding, "because he is yourself". But such love requires great experience and is the real testing-ground of the spiritual life. Love is, above all, honest. Therefore you cannot start a relationship by blinding yourself to the defects in the other person. The tendency of some well-meaning people to ignore the dark side that is in all of us and to concentrate on the divinity that they feel is present in everyone is laudable in intention but fallacious in practice. It may lead to a condescending attitude of tolerance, but it does not bring about any true relationship with the person, by which both are healed. We must start by facing the reality that confronts us without judging, but at least accepting that all is not well.
This awareness is once again the mode of action towards spiritual enlightenment. The more aware we are of the difficulties present in another person, the more the inner searchlight illuminates our own shortcomings. It is a well-known axiom that we most dislike in others those defects that are part of our own burden. Thus a period of candid introspection should be the sequel of a feeling of antipathy towards someone else. This is far more constructive than scolding yourself for your lack of charity, an attitude that has undertones of condescension. Once again the principle is seen: face the facts of life, including your own deficiencies, with a calm appraisal and not an emotional outburst. Nothing is, in the final analysis, either irremediable or perfect. We work from the first polarity to the second; this is the most we can do. Detached commitment is the foundation on which to build our relationship, and this can never be cemented except by years of hard work and dedication of the self.
In relationships there are some people whom we instinctively like. There seems to be a pre-ordained harmony between us, and we flourish in each other's company. If this affinity were to be analysed it might be found to depend on minor mannerisms, a certain lightness of touch or sense of humour, or else agreement on some intellectual or political proposition. It is not difficult to flow out from our depth to such people. Towards others we feel neutral, some we tolerate in polite silence, and a few we find unbearable. And yet we have to love them all without in any way demanding that they change their character to conform with our own wishes. We have to learn that love is not an emotional response or a feeling. It is a state of willed tranquility in which we can absorb the personality of the other individual and give of our very being to him. Indeed, we can do none of this on our own, but depend on the Holy Spirit to lighten our soul with love, which comes to us as a revelation of the greater meaning of the life of the person against whom we may be fighting.
To start to love anyone, whether someone we already like or someone we actively dislike, requires a combination of silent attentiveness to him and prayer to God. In this attention we give of ourselves to the person and listen to him. What he has to say or what mood he emanates speaks to our own condition, telling us about the state of our own life. This attention culminates in a response, which must be both definite and honest. In the early stages of a relationship much unpleasant psychological material from the unconscious is released, and we have to learn to assimilate it. We may betray our own ideals of calmness and politeness in the heated exchange, but however humiliated we may feel, we are at least being led to the truth about ourselves, and are really relating to the other person. Bland politeness is often a negation of relationships.
The constructive role of conflict in the establishment of harmony is not fully appreciated. The importance of conflict is that it lays the soul bare and also reveals to the light of reason the dark elements of the unconscious that usually obscure the soul. Relationship means willed attention to another person and a positive response to him. This response may be conventional and polite in neutral circumstances, but when the question of moral values arises, truth triumphs over politeness. It is not a all bad that in the early stages hard words and hurt feelings should abound. The very break in psychic communion is an important landmark in a relationship, for it teaches one in a negative way the wrong approach to another person and the deep need one has for real harmony. This harmony is not one of uniformity of belief or practice. It is a harmony of mature people who can be themselves without embarrassment or apology in the company of others. Peace at the price of betraying one's own deepest convictions may be necessary in certain circumstances, but it has nothing of harmony in it. At the very best it is a makeshift compromise, and the equilibrium maintained is an uneasy one.
Yet many, and probably most, relationships are of this order. It is uncommon to find husband and wife relating to each other in such a way that each is completely free and realising his (or her) full potentialities as a person. It is much more frequent for one to submerge the drive for growth in order to accommodate the other. The same applies in the family where there is tension between parents and children, or in working life where there is disharmony between different grades of employees or between employer and employee.
None of this is necessarily bad, nor is the judgement all in the favour of the one against the other. The sharp distinction between black and white is an attitude of immaturity. The purpose of living is to penetrate ever more deeply into the lives and characters of other people, not in order to judge or change them but to learn more about oneself. You learn half this lesson during periods of solitude when you are thrown back on your own resources, and the other half when you are responding to various assaults of the outside world, which in practice means confrontations with other people. And the final goal is to be able to love those people and the whole created universe around you.
The first step in loving is to be able to distinguish it from liking, which is, as already stated, a superficial emotional response. It is largely instinctive and it cannot be cultivated. But love is a life's work, and it requires the consecration of your whole being to achieve it. It is in fact impossible to love anyone with mature power until one is tractable to that love which comes from outside. This is the love of God. But we can make ourselves more receptive to that all-embracing love by discipline in relationships.
The three actions needed in this discipline are willed attention, honesty and quiet receptiveness. The first is the intention to listen and observe. Too much conversation is merely a means of relieving ourselves of words and ideas, of speaking at rather than to people. We have no real interest in what they feel or how they are fulfilling their own lives. We are concerned only about their reaction to us, to our ideas, and especially to our personality. The number of people who can bear to remain silent and listen, is very small when compared with those who have to be in the company of others and to be talking the whole time. And yet it is the silent ones who are usually communicating at a far deeper level of personality than those who are garrulous. Nothing separates people so completely as words and ideas, when they are afraid to reveal themselves fully to others. To pay the other person the compliment of being interested in him and what he has to say is the beginning of a real relationship with him. If one can also be pleased to see him the relationship is flourishing, and love is beginning to develop.
But there must be honesty. One cannot be pleased to see everybody, at least in the early stages of the spiritual life. Therefore we must acknowledge our unease, and try not to diminish it or explain it away. It is in the height of conflict that the truth about ourselves and the other person becomes revealed. To understand all is to forgive all, but it takes a long time before complete understanding can be established. First you have to gain deeper knowledge of the background of the other person and secondly, you have to understand your own weaknesses that are so devastatingly exposed in this relationship. All this is not easy. In the spiritual life you are confronted by a psychoanalyst who is you own soul guided by the Holy Spirit. When we are most abject we are also most receptive to divine grace.
This brings us to the matter of quiet receptiveness. We can never mend a relationship or start to love another person by our own efforts alone. Something else has to be added. Even if we have considerable insight into the cause and nature of the disharmony, we can never effect that change of heart that is the true measure of inner healing. This change comes as a thief in the night, when we least expect it, and it is wrought by persistent prayer.
It is this ability to submit to the inevitable and to God at the same time that brings love into the personality. And prayer is rendered in the quietness of the soul where we are most receptive to God. The first and last insight of the spiritual life is that we alone can do nothing, but that both within us and outside us there is a power ready to come to our aid if we but have the humility to invoke it. It is a manifestation of God once more, this time much less personal and much more transpersonal. By this I mean that the divine nature does not reveal itself to us as a personal relationship between God and the individual, but rather as an all-embracing power of love that cares for all its creatures infinitely. It moves beyond the narrow confines of personality to reveal a unity that contains all created things within it, and transcends the sum of these creatures. This revelation of divine grace is an even more perfect meeting with God than an early conversion experience in which He speaks directly to the soul. A relationship of this latter type is rather exclusive, whereas an experience that brings in all created things ends not in exclusive claims but in an all-embracing love. When we throw ourselves open to divine grace it is the soul that is laid bare. Once the soul is experienced, its intimate communication with all other souls is realised, and a mystical awareness of the soul of all mankind in communion with Christ dawns on the observer. In such awareness, personality (including personal antipathy) is included in the larger communion of men, which is the mystical body of Christ, and enmity against a particular person simply ceases to exist. Instead, loving care develops.
The act of forgiveness is one that is given to us by God. We can never by our own will forgive with that complete change of heart which is the proof of real forgiveness. And as we surrender ourselves to forgive others, so we ourselves are forgiven. The proof of this change in heart of which I speak is a changed attitude not only to the person who has been forgiven, but also to the meaning of our own lives. Once we know of the forgiveness of God to another person so we begin to guard our own inner domain of personality with less anxiety. We become less concerned about our reputation, about the danger of betrayal by others, about the sincerity of the one whom we have forgiven. Indeed, the episodes of the past that caused the disharmony fade into insignificance and eventually into oblivion when compared with the radiance of God's love in the soul. He who knows God in the height of his being no longer needs the propitiation and approbation of men. Instead he has their love, for he no longer demands it but rather flows out in love to them. It may take years of patient endeavour in constant prayer to reach this state of unconditional forgiveness, but when it is attained, we are changed. We have known God face to face. A new view of reality is cleared in front of us.
What a difference there is between this growth into harmony and an attitude of mind that refuses to face the fact of disharmony in the first place and merely plasters a broken relationship with platitudes and cliche´s! There are unfortunately some relationships that will not be healed in this lifetime. It may be because of the absolute intransigence of the other person; it may be a symptom of a severe mental illness. This type of difficulty is seen repeatedly in marital relationships when there is a fundamental incompatibility between the two partners, and it also blights the working lives of many employees and employers. Once again there is no magical solution to the difficulty. To break connection at once is not the answer. It is right that we should persevere in faith for an amelioration of the discord. Often a completely unexpected event, such as a communal tragedy, shows the difficult person in a new light, and quite unsuspected kindness and consideration flow from him. We should never despair of anyone, nor should we exhalt another person too highly. We all have feet of clay in certain circumstances, and we all show the undistorted image of God that lies in the soul on other occasions. The more we grow in spiritual depth, the more repeatedly are we put to shame by the kindness, loyalty and patience of people who are dismissed as being of no account by the world at large. And who knows when Christ may reveal Himself once more in the cleaner, the labourer, or the garage attendant! He is much more likely to appear in such a guise than in that of the distinguished professor, auspicious prelate, or powerful magnate. These latter are all too often so aware of themselves and their important role in society that they have no contact with the unseen world at all.
This does not mean that a spiritual man suffers in silence under abuse. Not only is this a denial of relationships but it also does nothing to help the abuser, who is in great need of healing. A positive response, even if threatening and hostile, at least clears the air so that honesty can prevail. If the abuse continues, it may well be necessary to fight the unbalanced person until he comes to his senses. Honest conflict reveals depths in all the combatants and helps them to meet one another with respect. It is thus that love develops. There are also times when it is right to turn the other cheek and put up no resistance. This is especially so when one is attacked by obviously deranged, unhappy people. What they need is loving care so that they may cease to fight society for its indifference to them. The important thing in any difficult situation of this type is that one should detach oneself from the anger of wounded pride. This can be done only by praying to God for help and support during the heat of the encounter. In this way one is spared adding to the unhappiness by saying unpleasant things or behaving in a wounded, sulky fashion.
It is this type of forbearance that is at the heart of the injunctions against violence in the Sermon on the Mount. If we wait on God, His Spirit will guide us into the truth of the situation and tell us when to respond with positive action and when to submit in charity. For too much discord is based on the desire for personal justification. As we grow in the spiritual life we need to justify and excuse ourselves much less than before, for we are more in control of ourselves and can act more in acceptance with the divine will. Thus we are more able to lose our lives in love for others.
Not every difficult relationship will be mended in this lifetime. In that case circumstances will conspire to move us away from the focus of trouble, but only after we have learned our lesson well. The lesson has two parts : the reason why we are involved in the first place, and the strength that has been gained as a result of the trial. When we are freed, we should come out as stronger, more alive people, less likely to make the same mistakes a second time. But if we move away at the slightest intimation of trouble, we cannot grow into mature human beings. One unfortunate relationship will follow another, and we will never come to understand the weakness in our own character. Only by confronting the difficulty here and now can we reach true understanding. We may emerge battered and bruised, but at least we know where we stand. Our very wounds will be made worships, as Dame Julian of Norwich was shown. The one glorious result of prevailing over a personal tragedy is that our perspectives enlarge, and we realise how trivial were many of the things that we had previously considered essential to our happiness.
While the spiritual life leads to an increasing depth of communication with many different types of people, there is also a place in it for the uniquely deep relationship of marriage. The marriage relationship should be a stable union between two people who are growing in maturity together. This growth is both physical and spiritual. Neither aspect is complete without the other. The pendulum has swung far from the traditional position that the physical part of sex, though inevitable, is best dismissed as soon as possible so that the spiritual side of marriage can be extolled without shame. Of course, this division of anything in the world into "physical" and "spiritual" is fallacious. The incarnate Christ speaks, as no other religious figure in the world's history does, of the glory and holiness of matter, a tradition that is part of the Judaic heritage of which He partook. The physical part of sex is a sacrament, and it is dishonoured only to the shame of those who corrupt it. But if the sexual act is to be consummated in holiness, there must be real love between the two partners. Admittedly the concept of love deepens in sublimity as we grow older in the spiritual life, but the caring of the one for the other should be present from the start of the relationship.
It is unfortunate that the pendulum has now swung so far towards the side of physical gratification that the emotional and spiritual results of sexual union are seldom given their due. Thus sex has to a great extent been separated, even divorced from love. It has been reduced to a pleasurable physiological act whose performance is helpful psychologically! From this attitude develops promiscuity and an animal-like attitude to the welfare of other people. In short, thoughtless sexual gratification leads to ever increasing selfishness. The other person becomes a mere chattel for satisfaction, and when this person is a woman and she is discarded, there is often a festering wound left behind. The view is widely current in some quarters that permanent marriage is a bad, if not impossible, state of affairs, and that men (less often women, interestingly enough) should be allowed variety in their sexual life once they become bored with their present partner. Understandable as this may be on a biological level, it is not conductive to the growth of the person to full maturity. There is no real personal relationship in such a life, only a succession of selfish liaisons. True concern for another person cannot use sex in this selfish way. Sexual union is, on the contrary, a manifestation of the deepest regard that one human being has for another. And the sexual part of marriage, vital as it is in most instances, is only one aspect of a loving relationship. It is the growth of both partners in the love of God, where there is complete liberty, that is the true end of marriage.
Celibacy is to be seen in this light. It is the path of the few who are so filled with love that their concern is for God in all His works, and therefore with all mankind. Instead of devoting his attention to one particular person (and the family that may arise), the celibate is involved in all the world's tragedy, and his work is giving himself to be a living sacrifice for many people. This is the life of Christ. It is not to be exalted above the married state, for both are ways of life that lead to God. But it must be understood that the celibate life is not an escape from deep commitment to another person. It is a giving of one's whole self to the world. It is a state of the liberty that comes from the Holy Spirit, but it has little worldly comfort to enjoy.
"I Must be about my Father's business" is the watchword of the celibate life. No one should take that way until he knows his motives well. It is the harder path, but its prize is all the more worth while. This celibate life is sometimes also the completion of married life when one of the partners has died. It is then that the love of man is extended through a love of all men to the threshold of God. In Him all are united, the living and the dead, in eternity.
I have touched on the role of suffering in spiritual development. Now we must look at this in much greater depth, for it is profoundly relevant to the growth of the spiritual life.