"For the Lord your God is a devouring fire" (Deuteronomy 4:24). Within this statement, repeated at the end of the twelfth chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews, there lies the heart of the destruction which renders growth possible. The fire of God, like earthly fire, both destroys and purifies. All that is ephemeral is consumed; all that is of permanent value is cleansed and refined so that it may be worthy of transmutation and resurrection. I believe, finally, even what appears to be the ephemeral dross of much human aspiration is raised through apparent destruction to a realm of eternal value.
False, or at least incomplete, identification is the fundamental error in human perception. When we are born, we are surrounded by an environment with which we identify ourselves quite naturally as soon as we are able to reflect as rational creatures. We have our parents, siblings and other relations, the home and its associations, and the social background into which we have been raised. As we become more aware of a point of inward identity - and this depends in no small measure on the way we have been accepted and loved during the formative years of our life - so we are able to separate or disengage ourselves from our environment, including our parents and close relatives, and start to establish that inner centre of reflection which is the soul or true self. This centre was in fact already present, in an embryonic form, from the time of our conception, but only as life is lived with full awareness can we articulate in total consciousness with the true self and work towards its greater development. On our success in attaining a complete relationship with the centre within, depends the authenticity of our life's witness, for it is the very basis of each individual's unique identity. And yet it is a paradox that the centre which we call "the soul" is also shared with our fellows to the extent that it is our means of communicating with other people and ultimately with the whole world. The soul substance of creation, eternally begotten of the Spirit of God, is universally distributed yet uniquely differentiated into those portions of consciousness that we call human beings - and doubtless other equally sentient beings elsewhere in the universe, including the indeterminate psychic realms.
Those who are to succeed in establishing their self-identity face much work. In fact their number is few, even among those living to an advanced age and dying at the close of a life of memorable outward achievement. This is because the things of this world tend to assume an autonomy in the lives of those who possess them; the power of domination inherent in worldly attributes overwhelms the possessor instead of their being used by him wisely and with detachment. In the end he is enslaved to the world and all it contains, so that, in his own eyes, his very existence is inconceivable without material support.
This situation is seen, in its most extreme degree, amongst those who live in affluent societies, for whom the acquisition of material possessions, once considered luxuries, is now an essential prerequisite for meaningful existence. According to the number of his possessions, so the unawakened person feels he belongs to the society in which he works: Where his treasure is, there will be his heart also (Matthew 6:20). If our identification is to be anchored to something that can withstand the pressures of daily life, a deeper core of identity has to be attained. The things of this world should not be disregarded, for they too are part of the divine creation, but they must be seen in their rightful place as something apart from us.
An even more powerful illusion in the quest for self-identification that dominates the lives of the unawakened is the sense of belonging that derives from personal relationships. The warm parental and sibling relationships of our early years are, if we are fortunate, succeeded by stable friendships with members of our peer group. This may finally flower in a marital relationship to be blessed with offspring that perpetuate one's name and provide comfort for one's old age. All this is, needless to say, acceptable in its own right, and yet the basis of much apparently ideal family life is purely selfish. To be sure, the personal ego appears to have dissipated itself in a web of loving relationships within the family, but this same family can easily become a predatory animal set on defending itself against the inroads of any stranger who might threaten its security, not only directly by competition, but also spiritually by claiming its share of care and compassion. A time comes for all of us when the test of solitude has to be borne, as it did for Job when his fortune and family faded away and all that was left was ruin and disaster. Our lives all founder on the rocks of ruin no matter how noteworthy they may have been in terms of what the world calls success. That ruin encompasses three final facts of life: ageing, disease and death. Have we built an inner spiritual body around the eternal soul centre, or has our edifice been fashioned of worldly things that collapse at the full thrust of misfortune?
There are few people who are in such peace that they can dispense with the company of others around them. Few there are that can bear the silence of aloneness. From solitude they flinch in terror, and other people help to assuage their unacknowledged emptiness with the froth of surface diversions. The centre of self-knowledge, the soul, is kept well-hidden in the meretricious light of worldly illusion. It is concealed by frivolity and entertainments which stimulate the emotions and confine our attention to the more acceptable realms of amusement and escape. To escape from a deeper relationship with the ground of one's being is the aim of all materialistic philosophies. The knowledge of this ground is painful and the progress to reality is precarious. The encounter with the deep centre within is painful because it is encompassed by a wound of extreme psychic sensitivity.
This wound, which is like a pre-ordained crack in the personality, is the inner manifestation of all our personal deficiencies, all the inadequacies that prevent us being full people. Furthermore, it is not merely of personal extent, for it involves all our fellows, all mankind, and indeed the whole created universe. In this wound of the soul, we know the inner Christ that is crucified for our own sins and the sins of the whole world. It tells us of the many times we, and all men, have fallen from the mark and preferred the lesser path of ego satisfaction to the greater way of personal wholeness in communion with all life. This inner wound that we all bear as a hereditary stigma is also a way to full self-knowledge and inner fulfilment. Its outer manifestation corresponds to what in depth psychology is called the "shadow", that aspect of inner negation which balances the outer image of well-being and success that we like to project on to the world. Indeed, the outer image of confidence is balanced by the inner reality of impotence that is hidden within the person who lacks self-knowledge. And it is this type of person who often rules the world, at least in his particular realm or discipline of training.
To know the true self, which alone is durable and partakes of eternal reality, requires a radical acceptance of ourselves as we really are, of the whole personality in fact. As the outer layers are recognised and put in their proper perspective, so the core, or centre, of the psyche is revealed. How radiant and warm is it, but how few of us know it! We are deterred from this knowledge by the surrounding layers of cold and darkness. Many people strive for this central place of warmth, of which they are intuitively aware and may even have touched momentarily in meditation or during some great aesthetic experience. But few will attain its full comfort until they have made the surrounding darkness their own possession also.
Speaking of meditation reminds us that are some techniques widely used at present, that aim at the achievement of a knowledge of the divine principle, the spirit, within the soul. Many such methods completely by-pass both the emotions and the reasoning faculty by the steady repetition of phrases or "mantras", and it is not unusual for the meditator to attain a state of inner calm and quiet. In this state the spirit may be encountered; this spirit of man, also called the spark or apex of the soul, is the domain within the total psyche where God is known, both immanent and transcendent. Unfortunately, this type of contact with the higher centre is only temporary; its transience is all too apparent, especially to those who know the meditator, for there is seldom a noticeable effect on his general level of spirituality. If anything, he becomes increasingly smug and self-contained as he progresses on his particular path, and seems to be less involved in bearing the tragedy of the world in his own life. Our inner feelings are often poor guides to our state of spiritual progress.
There are some mental techniques that act on the soul in much the same way as anaesthetic agents and pain-killing drugs act on the body. They may be invaluable during short periods of emergency, but they do not in any way get to the root of the problem or lead to the healing of the person. Often, on the contrary, the psyche will, in due course, hit back with all its emotional power that was previously suppressed and by-passed, and the effects on the person can be shatteringly intense.
It is the way of renunciation that leads us to the centre within, where God is known. The essence of renunciation is sacrifice, the voluntary giving up of something that is dear to us for a person or an ideal that is of even higher value. Jesus tells us that the gate that leads to life is small and the road narrow, and those who find it are few (Matthew 7:14). The narrowness of the path can accommodate the spirit only; our encumbrances have to be left behind. This is what renunciation means in practical living. The way to mastery of the self is through dedication to the highest we know. Unburdened by possessions, we are free agents and can traverse the dark terrain that surrounds the centre where God dwells within us. This is the form of meditation that brings us to God, not merely in an evanescent glimpse, but in full corporate unity, because the darkness is brought with us to the light within, and is transfigured by that light.
In the lives of most of us there is no burning desire to venture on this perilous journey, but a time comes when the soul can no longer be satisfied with surface comfort and is impelled by the spirit within to seek the heavenly kingdom. What appears to be a misfortune in the previously evenly-tempered life of a successful person is in all probability the thrust of the soul itself, bringing the person, despite himself, to a fuller realisation of God. In the famous words of St Augustine, "Thou has made us for Thyself, and our soul is restless till it rests in Thee," with which he opens his Confessions, there is acknowledged an impetus in the soul which will never allow it to rest in any country save that where God is known. This knowledge is one of unitive love that embraces all creation.
The thrusting activity of the soul is energised by the Holy Spirit, who works through the spirit of man to drive the whole person irresistibly forwards on the spiritual journey. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, it was the spirit within him that bade the son leave the security of his patrimony and enter the wide, sinful world. When all the allurements of sensuality had been tasted and every possession stripped from him, only then could the young man experience the spirit in its divine authority. He came to himself and returned to his old home, but with a completely new outlook on reality and a changed attitude to life. Indeed, the relationship between the Spirit of God and the powers of evil is closer than our comfort would allow us to contemplate, but a time comes when even the most radical speculations have to be given expression, at least in our deepest imagination. The devouring fire of God, which divests us of all outer appurtenances, including those whom we believed were our friends, often shows itself in our lives more in the form of destructive evil than constructive good. He who can traverse the pit of darkness will emerge a stronger, more compassionate person. Nevertheless, even the one who appears to be over-whelmed in this life by the powers of darkness still has a place prepared for him in the life beyond death.
The journey to God is also the journey into hell. Before Jesus' resurrection, He descends into hell to redeem the souls of those whom the world has regarded as lost in damnation. I personally believe that this final descent was Jesus' great testing experience of love in the face of the intolerable darkness which He had tasted to the full on the psychic dimension during His agony in Gethsemane. Only when the entire underworld is illumined with the light of God can the Father be completely revealed; only by way of the Son can the Father be truly known. Our own descent into hell is a perilous, groping journey into the darkness of our own personality, which invests the spirit so closely that only the dedicated traveller through inner space can penetrate it. It is told in mythological terms, in Genesis 3, that when God drove Adam out of the Garden of Eden to till the ground from which he had been taken, He stationed cherubim and a whirling, flashing sword to the east of the garden to guard the way to the tree of life. There is indeed no easy way back to the knowledge of the centre where God dwells and where man was to know intimate union with Him. It is only through persistence and courage that the wrath of the guardian of the threshold of the heavenly garden can be assuaged, and man enter once more into his predestined home. There was indeed only One who could perform this enormous task, but through Him we too can venture into the dark wrath and begin to fulfil our destiny as sons of God.
When the darkness of the psyche is explored, an enormous power of evil is unleashed, and one has to come to terms with its high charge within oneself. Many sectarian religionists are obsessed by the great evil that dominates the world; this they conveniently project far from themselves on to other people of different religious views, or on to whole races or societies whom they suspect of destructive or degenerate tendencies. The devil is to them a menacing external force who is to be combated ruthlessly until he is completely annihilated. "Awake! be on the alert! Your enemy the devil, like a roaring lion, prowls around looking for someone to devour. Stand up to him, firm in faith, and remember that your brother Christians are going through the same kinds of suffering while they are in the world" (I Peter 5:8-9). This admonition is apposite enough so long as we remember that the evil one is to be found first and foremost within ourselves. It is here that he has to be sought and confronted. Once we divest ourselves of him, at least in our rational consciousness (he can never be excluded from the unconscious depths of the psyche) and project him on to an external object of revulsion, he assumes demonic power and becomes an agent of terrible destruction. It is well attested in human history that more cruelty has been perpetrated in the name of religion than in any other sphere of human endeavour. When one includes such secular religions as fascism and communism in this saga of human bestiality, we can see how man reaches the depths of depravity when, paradoxically, he is seeking what he believes to be ultimate truth. The totalitarian type of personality, which dedicates itself absolutely to one particular path of human salvation, invariably becomes an agent of total destruction. The fanatical elements of the world's higher religions have around them the debris of human life, violated and destroyed, as a memorial to man's inability to attain divine knowledge until he has come to terms with the darkness inside his own psyche.
The fire of God brings us to the darkness within ourselves. It is an instrument of discrimination; it forces us to discern the hatred, the lust, the resentment, the jealousy, the unacknowledged selfishness within the deepest part of our own being. It leads us to see how every apparently noble endeavour or charitable concern with which we pride ourselves is tainted with unattractive elements of disdain and self-interest. It brings us to an awareness of the immense power of destruction that lies at the root of our personality. This is liable to be activated at any moment when our personal or communal security is threatened, but it is politely concealed under such convenient fictions as religion, patriotism, morality or public decency. There are few emotions more pleasurable than hating other people because we believe them to be a threat to public order. The demonic thrust of actions that tend to deny or thwart other people's enjoyment or way of self-expression is seen in the puritanism that raises its baneful head during the periods of extreme reaction that punctuate most types of religion.
Puritanism is, in essence, a way of avoiding the dangerous elements of life by occluding them from one's consciousness. The three ultimately threatening forces that are defined in religious thought' are "the world, the flesh and the devil". Each of these is highly seductive, but none can in fact be avoided, because they are the very stuff of life. It seems strange to include the power of evil, which is personified as the devil, as part of life's substance, yet until its influence is accepted and worked through, constructively but unsentimentally, in one's own life, one will be deprived of immense psychic energy, and something both creative and dynamic will be excluded from one's personality. The shadow side of our personality is the receptacle of immense power, which, if used beneficially, could transform our lives and the world.
Furthermore, the Christian need not be afraid, for he affirms that his Lord has won the victory over sin. He should also, if he understands the theology of creation properly, know that God is master of all things, whatever moral quality His creatures have assigned to them. What God has created is good, very good indeed. Even the fall of man from intimate communion with his Father as a result of the perverse use of the will has not altered the fundamental goodness of creation or of the seed of God implanted in the soul of all men, no matter how corrupt and terrible their outer personalities may show themselves in the testing fire of mortal life. For there is a spark of the divine in all creatures, and until that spark is allowed to flame into a fire of purification and illumination, the dark side of the personality will prevail. "The light shines on in the dark, and the darkness has never mastered it" (John 1:5). That light is the eternal Word of God that lightens every man in the depth of his being, and came freely into the world in the incarnation of Christ (John 1:9). It devours all that is unclean, but even more significantly, it later returns all that it has taken up, renewed and beautified. What was unclean is now a source of radiance.
MeditationTeach me, O Lord, to renounce myself daily in your service. Cleanse me of all unworthy desires except that of knowing you in the service of your son, Jesus Christ, even to the extent of entering the world's darkness and giving myself as a living sacrifice for the spread of your gospel of love.