The encounter with psychic despair and disintegration is the ultimate trial in the life of one who is destined to know God and be transformed into His image. Only he who has confronted the darkest depth of himself - and therefore of the whole created universe, so close is the solidarity between the person and the cosmos - can bring that unfathomed hell to God, Who will redeem it through the mediation of His Son for He took on the form of the most despised criminal in order to save the world. He who flinches from the ultimate darkness flinches also from a true knowledge of God. To worship God in the light of His glory and His love is within the bounds of even a sinful man. To worship God in His impenetrable obscurity is the vocation of a saint - and we are all destined to become sanctified human beings. "I am the Lord, there is no other; I make the light and create darkness, author alike of prosperity and trouble. I, the Lord, do all these things" (Isaiah 45:6-7). In a subsequent passage we read: "Surely God is among you, and there is no other, no other God. How then canst thou be a god that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the deliverer?" (Isaiah 45:14-15). God appears to hide Himself from us when things are going wrong, at least by our understanding of fortune and misfortune, but until we can know the divine presence in the darkness of unknowing as clearly as in the light of reason, the one we know is not God.
The knowledge of God of which I speak, is an intense, glowing inner relationship, the authenticity of which is proved by our change from the separative human consciousness of everyday life to the unitive participation in eternal values. It is the same knowledge that the blessed spouses of antiquity had of each other when a child of promise was conceived: Abraham and Sarah, Elkanah and Hannah, Zechariah and Elizabeth. Isaac, Samuel and John the Baptist were the fruit of this inner knowledge, of whom the Holy Spirit is the true mediator. And all culminates in the fully virginal conception of Jesus Christ, which is a mystery to be withheld from the gaze of the uncomprehending until the end of time. Only then will the glory of a full birth in God be revealed for all to understand. When one can worship God in the stillness of obscurity as well as in the light of His manifest presence, one has attained a level of prayer that can never cease, but proceeds from glory to glory until all that is created is carried up into the throne where the angels cry perpetually: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory."
The encounter with God's obscurity need not always be mediated by mental or emotional torment. Our physical body, the body of our humiliation which is sown in the innocence of childhood and flourishes in the glory of youth, is also the scene of our ageing and decay. To the chagrin of those practitioners of the occult who are dominated by the gnostic view of reality that matter is evil (if not illusory) and spirit alone is good and real, the physical body does make its claims on our attention and its demands on our solicitude. These esotericists tell us to get beyond the body, to rise above its discomforts and enter the purely spiritual world of elevated thought and rapt contemplation. It is fortunate for us lesser mortals that the divine nature did not spurn the virgin's womb, nor consider it beneath His dignity to assume human flesh and bone and live amongst us as an ordinary man. It is, in fact, impossible to ignore the claims of the body since it is the temple of the Holy Spirit while we are alive in this world, and it is the means of our activity in whatever situation we find ourselves. It is also destined to be resurrected to full spirituality according to the resurrection shown by the humiliated body of Jesus; indeed, the way of authentic spirituality is through our body of flesh to the Word of God who dwelt in a similar body. The way of ascent that tries to evade the encumbrance of that body leads to the void of unreality, not the vale of divinity. There are not a few of us who will attain a knowledge of eternal values through the agency of the physical body, not so much in its glorious moments of joy and prowess as in the longer period of decline and dissolution.
The body is the seat of much personal anguish. It is not only the receptacle of pain in its many forms, but it also registers that failure in function that makes life so tragic, especially during the last period of earthly existence. How much do we take the faculties of sight and hearing for granted when all is going well! How seldom do we thank God that our digestive and excretory functions are working smoothly until illness strikes! If we were living in full command of the moment, we would be aware of every incident that occurred around us and would thank our Creator for every healthy impulse we felt within ourselves. The practice of awareness is an essential exercise in spiritual development. We will never reach a comprehension of divine things while we remain unmoved by earthly things. "If a man says 'I Love God', while hating his brother, he is a liar. If he does not love the brother whom he has seen, it cannot be that he loves God whom he has not seen" (I John 4:19). This statement of the way of love reminds us that we work from the known to the unknown. In the end we discover that it is through a perfect knowledge of the known, that which we take casually for granted day after day, that we discover the unknown within it. The glory of God, His Spirit that pervades all created things, is found in the little things of life, those which we often dismiss summarily as being of no value or a waste of time.
As we become proficient through experience in the knowledge of earthly things, so our bodies begin to fail us and we find ourselves confronted by such misfortunes as a progressive failure of sight or hearing. To an extent this curtailment of our means of external communication with those around us is an inevitable accompaniment of growing old, though I have little doubt that people who love their bodies and cherish their faculties tend to enjoy a physical usefulness even at an advanced age. Conversely, those who squander their physical resources in selfish indulgence tend to reap the fruits of their folly in a premature failure of vital bodily function. This is not, of course, the whole story. Some people appear to thrive on a riotous, hedonistic way of life whereas others, of apparently blameless disposition, are marked out for progressive crippling diseases even in their youth. The end of individual life is inscrutable to human understanding, as the prophets and sages of Israel knew when they debated these deep matters in their own hearts with God. "O Lord, I will dispute with thee for thou art just: yes, I will plead my case before thee. Why do the wicked prosper and traitors live at ease? Thou hast planted them and their roots strike deep, they grow up and bear fruit. Thou art ever on their lips, yet far from their hearts. But thou knowest me, O Lord, thou seest me; thou dost test my devotion to thyself" (Jeremiah 12:12). The tragedy of human suffering lies not only in the terrible agony of pain, impotence and despair, but even more in the obvious transgression of the law of justice in the individual life that all men cherish no matter how often they betray it in their behaviour.
The answer to Jeremiah's question about the manifest in - equality of men's destiny according to their deserts was given to some extent in the subsequent history of Israel: most of the people were exterminated, but a chosen, chastened remnant returned from Babylonian exile to recolonise the Holy Land. But were all those who did not return from exile evil men? Were they all less worthy than the survivors? Amongst those who died miserably in Egypt, and through no fault of his own, was Jeremiah himself. His confessions record a constant dialogue of revolt against the unfathomable will of God, and God no more explains His ways to Jeremiah than He does to the fictitious Job. In that masterpiece of religious literature, Job has to confront the mystery of a transcendent God who has created all things according to His will. In the great Hindu scripture, the Bhagavadgita, the warrior Arjuna is in constant conversation with the incarnate lord Krishna, who again tells him to get on with his duty as a warrior and to redress evil actions with the sword. In the Eastern scriptures the fact of survival of death and a rebirth sequence into new phases of life is taken for granted - a view that appears to have some substantiation according to recent psychical studies - so that the manifest unfairness and tragedy of this life is painted on a vaster canvas of time. But Arjuna too is shown the terrible side of God, so that he flinches in awe and is brought to silence. Time am I, world-destroying, grown mature, engaged here in subduing the world. Even without thy action, all the warriors standing arrayed in the opposing armies shall cease to be" (Bhagavadgita, 11:32).
The body is our instrument of self-expression when we are young and vigorous. As we become older and decrepit, so it becomes our prison of isolation. The prospect of old age, especially when accompanied by disease and immobility, is forbidding to all of us, but especially to the sensualist. No longer can he escape the reality of the present moment by magnificent exploits into personal grandeur, for he is increasingly anchored to an inefficient, failing mechanism that thwarts his every action. The diseased, ageing body is a tomb in which the truth of its occupant's life is recorded day by day. Its suffering is the moment of truth continually revealed to the person, and its end marks the completion of one portion of the individual's life. To grow in spirit while incarcerated in a failing body is to make use of the present misfortune for eternal blessing. Just as the person who has traversed the gloom of psychic despair and emerged on the other side as a changed being radiates the light of God, so the sufferer who has moved beyond the imprisonment of an irremediably failing body to spiritual understanding is an agent of healing for the world. The great truth of Isaiah 53:5 is borne in on us: "By his scourging we are healed"; indeed, we shall have to investigate this doctrine further, for on it depends the healing ministry of pain. The one who has experienced this crucial ministry in his own life can alone be an effective agent of God's healing powers.
The problem of personal suffering is not finally solved until we move beyond the emotional limitations of an ego-centred consciousness. All attempts at justifying the ways of God indeed a belief in the very existence of a divine agency in the face of the world's unrelieved suffering - fail, in the end, to convince any save those who already believe on deeper spiritual grounds. The exercise of theodicy moves uncomfortably between the Scylla of a loving God unable to control the world He has fashioned and the Charybdis of an omnipotent God whose ways are not those of the creatures He has made and who cares at most only peripherally about their well-being. In other words, there appears to be a limit either to His power or to His love. Jesus reminded His disciples that the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices were no more sinful than their compatriots who were left unharmed. Likewise, the eighteen people who perished under the collapsed tower of Siloam were no more guilty than all the other people living in Jerusalem. But those who were left behind had a chance of repenting lest a similar type of disaster should befall them also (Luke 13:1-5).
The arbitrary nature of God's actions is so disturbing to our sense of justice that even God's friends seek hard to make Him obey the rule in their hearts. Did not Abraham say to God, "Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?" (Genesis 18:25). In this episode God agreed to spare the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah if even ten just men could be found in them. As human conscience grows in understanding, so the suffering servant, made manifest in Jesus, can give up his life for the redemption of the world. But the justice of this is overshadowed by the love revealed in unremitting self-sacrifice. To the unbeliever the arbitrary workings of fate present less of a problem; he simply denies the existence of a divine agency, and attributes human bestiality and natural disasters, such as Jesus discussed, to the deranged workings of the human mind and the impersonal forces of nature. In this respect we accept the natural powers without comment when all goes well for us, but do not cease to complain when these same powers turn against our interests and threaten to put an end to human life.
But there is a yearning for a morally perfect world deep in our hearts; it is the outer manifestation of the immanent God in every soul, who reveals Himself in the human spirit. It is apparent that there is no rational explanation for the fact of evil in the presence of a loving, all-powerful God. Even if we attempt to explain a present misfortune on the basis of a bad action performed in a previous existence - an approach that satisfies most adherents of the hypothesis of rebirth - we are in no way nearer understanding the origin of that bad action than we are the present misfortune that may have accrued from it. The expedient of time, whether in the past or towards the future, extends our present suffering on a wider scale, but it neither explains its origins nor points to its solution. This incidentally is why those pictures of the afterlife that promise personal rewards based on our present attitudes and actions fail to impress the truly spiritual soul. "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" is the real objection of authentic spirituality both to the welfare-state type of humanism that dominates our worldly aspirations and the ego-centred spiritualism that many people associate with the life beyond death. While, of course, we should all work towards the relief of injustice, suffering and poverty wherever we find them, we should also begin to realise that the agencies of reason that dominate our lives on earth are poor instruments for this work of social healing. Only a complete inner change will suffice and this is not to be effected by human manipulations. It comes from the Spirit of God to those who are open to the healing power of suffering. These, needless to say, are the few, the very few, but they form the company of saints and martyrs on whom the welfare of the world depends. But their number is not restricted, as is the case with human societies that exclude all except an elect membership; rather it is we who exclude ourselves from this truly elect brotherhood by refusing to take up our cross in faith and come with our Master.
Most people gauge their usefulness to society by the intensity of their activities. Most people judge the success of their lives by their capacity to accumulate things, whether these be money, friends or power. The meaning of their life is dependent on what they can acquire; indeed the material commodities of this world are amongst the most innocuous, since their life history is limited. The acquisitions based on power and influence are far more dangerous since their effects can long outlast the life of their progenitor. But there comes a time when we can no longer be of use in the way that we would have it, when the acquisitions on which our sense of belonging depends are taken from us, and when we have to face our essential nakedness. This stark truth is usually borne in on us through the inroads of incurable disease or else the inevitable process of growing old. As the Buddha was shown at the beginning of his ministry - as I have already mentioned - the three final facts of mortal life are ageing, disease and death. They each immobilise us and bring us to confront our impotence as living beings. A fourth tragedy that has come to the forefront in our allegedly civilised century is the unjust imprisonment of many people for prolonged periods of time on account of their religion, race or political opinions.
When a person is confronted with the fact of his powerlessness in the face of ill-health or indefinite imprisonment, he undergoes different phases of response. There is first his childish incredulity that anything so final and irrevocable could happen to him. Of course we all know that these things are to be, but they are for others only, never for ourselves, because we are in some way special. Indeed, each one of us is special in his own way, but the uniqueness of that person lies in his particular contribution to the whole and not in his exemption from suffering. Indeed, the Lord told the Israelites: "For you alone have I cared among all the nations of the world; therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities" (Amos 3:2). In this instance the terrible sufferings that Amos was the first of the writing prophets to predict were the result of apostasy and idolatry. But later on in the career of the Jews, suffering takes on a different character in the person of the suffering servant described in Isaiah 53. Clearly a new way of life is opening for the sufferer, the end of which is still beyond his imagination.
When the reality of the new situation has been fully grasped, the sufferer tries to wriggle out of it by devious routes. Once orthodox medicine has proved unavailing, recourse is had to a host of alternative therapies including what is called spiritual healing from various agencies, ranging from the charismatic to the spiritualistic. Each in turn may provoke an amelioration, but in due course there is a return to progressive enfeeblement, and the false hope of esoteric teachings is followed by the despair grounded in reality. Likewise those suffering prolonged, unjust imprisonment may delude themselves with hopes of early release because of their special connections with those in authority. Some may even collaborate with their persecutors in order to curry favour and attain freedom. But there comes, in due course, the final realisation that the process is irreversible. One can go on, but there is no turning back. This is the moment of truth; at last the victim has arrived at adult stature. "No one who sets his hand to the plough and then keeps looking back is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62). Admittedly the sufferer would protest that he is not aiming at the celestial kingdom but aspiring only to the health or freedom that he once enjoyed. But in fact he is on the journey to a new dimension of reality, whether he accepts it or not. Like Job, he is in the hands of the powers that destroy, and none of his protests can arrest the process. He can either quit the race on a suicidal note or else persist against all odds.
When the fact of suffering's irreversibility has been finally grasped, there is a period of revolt. The previously religious man's faith in God is severely taxed - indeed the ritual superstition that so often passes for true religion will soon be abandoned. This so-called faith is really a travesty of true spirituality; it is more like a spiritual insurance policy against the day of trouble than the way of transforming the ego-consciousness into something resembling a real person. Even Job's obsequious religious observances aimed at placating a jealous God whom his hedonistic children might have offended, came to an abrupt end when misfortune struck him and reduced him to a pauper with a repulsive skin disease, sitting down in an ash-heap. The stricken Job contends with God, refusing to submit gratuitiously when he knows his own conscience is unclouded. For the first time in his life he has begun to relate to God, not in rapt awe, but in personal dispute. There are indeed many passionate atheists, passionate because of the manifest wrongs in our world, who are much closer to the God they deny than those religious devotees and fanatics who spend their time worshipping God and defending Him against heresy and unbelief. The atheist is in conversation with a real being, while the devotee is more often in fact worshipping a mental construction that assumes the power of an idol. If he knew God authentically, he would be at peace with himself and the world.
The religious person has to come to terms with the unpalatable fact that God is at the centre of the trouble. He was as much involved in the extermination of European Jewry by the Nazis in our own time as He was in the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the exile of His people in 587 BC. These terrible thoughts, so often averted from the gaze of the pious during smooth times of peace and affluence, come to us like burning darts at the moment of calamity. We who think we can fathom the divine mind stand speechless before the terrible power of God's Word. "Where can I escape from thy spirit? Where can I flee from thy presence? If I climb up to heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in Sheol, again I find thee ...... If I say 'Surely darkness will steal over me, night will close round me', darkness is no darkness for thee and night is luminous as day; to thee both dark and light are one" (Psalm 139:7-12). It is the same Lord who appeared to Moses in the burning bush and gave him his commission to lead the Jews out of Egyptian captivity that met Moses in the night, while they were encamped, meaning to kill him (Exodus 4:24-26). Only the action of his wife Zipporah, in performing an immediate circumcision, caused God to let Moses alone. To the modern mind this story is repulsive and hideously primitive, but it nevertheless is an episode of initiation comparable with the conflict between Jacob and the angel of God, again occurring during the night. The act of circumcision identified Moses, who had had a privileged position in Pharoah's court categorically with the Jews whom he had been commissioned to save from destruction.
The sufferer has to learn that the justice of man is but a pale image of the providence of God. The divine way is not to maintain the status quo or even to initiate a movement to reform. There has to be a new insight which finds its consummation in a completely changed person. Thus all that Job had secretly feared had to come upon him before he could be so transformed as to bear the vision of the living God and hear the story of continuous creation. In the vision of God's transcendent majesty, Job's suffering took on the severity of a child's complaint. This is the end of personal suffering - to prove oneself worthy of it. For it is the supreme fulfilment of becoming fully human - and therefore starting to partake fully of the divine nature to which we were all called at the moment of our creation.
Only when one has come to this great transformation can one begin to fathom the ineffable glory of God, whom the greatest mystics have told us is beyond good and evil. In Him, what we call the power of good and evil are both eternally transformed. In the Spirit they issue forth as life, the life abundant which is eternal. No wonder Jesus Himself refused to be called good when the rich young man asked Him what he had to do to win eternal life (Mark 10:18). Though He was supremely good by human standards, yet Jesus knew that in His carnal body He could not transcend the polarities of good and evil. This experience was to be His only in the final part of His ministry, starting most horribly in the Garden of Gethsemane and ending triumphantly, by way of the cross and the descent into hell, at the moment of bodily resurrection.
MeditationGrant me the strength, O Lord, so to traverse the valley of death's shadow that I may emerge from the other side a better, more compassionate person of greater use to you as a witness and to my brothers as a servant.