In the World but not of it…
How difficult it is for those who are not on a spiritual path to understand those who are. There is a set of motivations for the adept that the worldly do not clearly perceive. Every action is attributed to a worldly cause, subjected to a worldly interpretation, either by choice or because of a boxed in paradigm. This is because that world lacks the potential motivations and the point of view that exist in the world of the adept. In addition, we often judge other’s actions by our own experience, our own unique set of limitations and assumptions. In short, we think that everyone thinks like us.
I remember some years ago at the university I attended, (I had returned to school after an absence of nearly thirty years), listening to one student, a young man of the world, a former sailor, berate another student who was straight out of high school and a Christian. The ex-sailor said that he was absolutely sure that the other must have engaged in masturbation by now, that no one could have reached the age of twenty-one without having done that. He said that if the other denied it then he must be lying. Why? Because that man of the world had no reason nor desire to control that particular urge and, in his life and experience, masturbation was so common that he was incapable of envisioning someone who would or could want to control that urge.
As I write this I am reading Monica Furlong’s biography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux and it is the particular perspective of the author that leads me to mention this. At the time that she wrote the book she had little awareness of the effect that the process of spiritual growth can have, especially as one gets some ways up the mountain. Stepping on to the spiritual path with a real depth of commitment in whatever context one chooses will eventually involve a radical change of perspective. That change can be immediate or gradual but the change happens. Ms Furlong’s perspective offers little or no comprehension of the particular viewpoint that can be the driving force behind someone’s spiritual vocation. The new environment, the new paradigm fostered by the new dedication can color and divert all of those cause and effect relationships that she so easily assumes exist in an isolated and worldly context. It is not that I do not find this easy to understand. All of the quirks of personal psychology that Ms. Furlong mentions as relating to St. Thérèse may very well play a part in the life of the young girl but I believe that they fit into the matrix of her life in an entirely different fashion than is portrayed by the author. I can easily understand how Thérèse’s struggles, her vocation and her intent as a devotee of God can be very strong and pervasive and yet be completely misunderstood and wrongly weighed by someone who is not as engaged on their spiritual path, not as immersed as St. Thérèse.
In a sense we become two people. We are still the person that acts and reacts in response to those worldly motivations so we have these patterns of behavior that reflect that level of consciousness. But we are also that spiritual being that sees those patterns for what they are even as we act them out. So, we are engaged in an interior struggle not to ‘conquer’ those patterns nor to learn to live with them as is so often the goal of psychology, but rather to move beyond them by moving beyond the outer being that fosters them.
Much of what takes place in a being struggling on the spiritual path is of a strength far surpassing the ability to account for it in the soul’s earthly environment. This can be because as an adept’s awareness expands she will find that the outer personality that she has identified with for so much of her life, that is the basic framework of who she is, turns out to be only a paper mache construct. If we aren’t paying attention to the incidental events of our lives they will pass without making much of a ripple beyond causing a momentary happiness or sadness. But when we begin to watch and examine the events of our lives in the context of our relationship with God then they become catalysts of growth and learning. It is a mistake to assume that every interior experience can be accounted for by searching the soul’s outer circumstances whether present or past. It is a mistake to assume, from the vantage point of the world, that Thérèse’s attitude towards suffering and self-abnegation can be understood or explained solely by her previous exterior experiences in that life. Her attitude is far more likely to be a response to the interior experience of her spiritual life at that moment.
How often it seems that, to the two different types of people, those who are consciously on the path and those not consciously on the path, things seem the opposite of each other. When one reads the lives of the saints or first starts on the path of spiritual growth saints can be completely misunderstood in both their actions and their words. In the writings of St. Thérèse of Lisieux when she is near to her death she speaks of her gratitude to Mother Marie de Gonzague for her lessons in humiliation. This is not a subtle way of rebuking Mother Marie for her careless handling of the health of St. Thérèse. I am sure that from the viewpoint of the little saint it was recognition of the fact that Mother Marie’s actions and behavior had prompted her to learn lessons in humility that made her express gratitude to the Mother for being an instrument of God’s divine Will. This was regardless of whether the choice on the part of Mother Marie de Gonzague was conscious or unconscious. It was regardless of the outer motivation that prompted Mother Gonzague to act as she did. That was not important to the lesson learned. Thérèse’s gratitude applied to the lessons that the Saint learned through the experiences she had as a result of the behavior of her Mother Superior regardless of the Mother’s awareness or spiritual attainment. If you are saved from drowning by a floating log it doesn’t matter if the log did it intentionally or not. It doesn’t take long on the path to realize that suffering is an integral part of it and that one may come to value suffering greatly. If the saint doesn’t specifically say that it is only as a means to an end it may be because the means and the end are so closely identified with each other in her perception. Thérèse may well have had an unattached attitude towards suffering caused by a growing level of desirelessness and an awareness of how closely suffering is connected to spiritual growth. The willingness to pay the price increases and so the price becomes more reasonable in the perception of the devotee of God’s Will. We stop desiring things for what they can do for us and start desiring only to please God and often suffering can do just that. Is it because God wants us to suffer? Of course not. It is because that suffering leads to an end that is desirable.
It doesn’t take long for a devotee to realize that happiness isn’t the goal of life, that any particular physical, emotional or mental state isn’t the goal at all. The goal of life, once one has ceased to deny the existence of God and so can look upon existence with some degree of true understanding, is a spiritual one - to reunite with God - and that desire eventually becomes so much the singular goal that all other considerations fade, especially our own personal comfort. Once that goal is reached then happiness and all other desired qualities can be added. Without the achievement of that goal everything else is only diversion during the period of striving.
As to making much of little things in life, being overly concerned with the ‘little’ faults, this is seldom a problem from a spiritual point of view. It is in the little things that first allow for the entry of evil into our consciousness, not in the big things. As we progress upon the path we realize that everything that we may think, say, do, desire, feel etc. is either going to get us where we want to go or it will take us in the opposite direction. If we use the energy that we are given to create something that isn’t going to take us to our goal then we have done that which will eventually return to us in a manner that will serve to separate us from God because that energy will not return to God until it is restructured to be like God. It will instead remain to form an energy veil between our consciousness and our goal. It becomes more and more important to each soul on the path to eliminate all barriers between them and unity with God. I have heard it said that the closer you get to the gates the bigger the lions get who guard them. Or another might say that the path gets more narrow, sharper and sharper until it becomes a razor’s edge of discrimination.
In her biography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Ms. Furlong states, “The question of sanctity was, as always, the unanswerable conundrum. If she said she was a saint she would be guilty of the sin of pride and therefore would not be one. If she said she was not a saint and actually was one, then, out of false modesty, she would be guilty of a lie.” This is a misunderstanding of both humility and the adept. St. Thérèse might well have known the truth of the matter and said without pride that she was a saint. It would depend on how she defined it. Personally, I like Paramhansa Yogananda’s definition. He defines sainthood as..., “One who God considers to be holy”. Therese may also see herself as a saint simply by the fact that she has dedicated herself to her path. Humility isn’t thinking of ourselves as less than we are. Humility is the recognition of our true relationship to God, not taking our abilities personally. How delighted the world is to judge the godly in terms of a humility they are unable to comprehend.
In reply to the second half of the conundrum if St. Thérèse was a saint and said that she was not, was she automatically assumed to be lying? Could she not be a saint and yet be unaware of the fact, being concerned more, as saints so often are, with her defects than with her saintliness, and so in truth be able to say no? To be unaware is not to be lying. That seems so obvious as to not need saying. That brings us to another question – Can one be a saint and be mistaken? Of course. The measure of a saint is not their level of mundane knowledge but their love of and unity with God. Can one be in union with God and still not be cosmically aware at all times? A saint does not always know the true measure of themselves and can often be seeing their own flaws magnified when all that others see is the God Light shining through them. They tend to see their faults as being larger than they are both because of the momentum they have often built up of self-introspection in order to cleanse the smallest defect from themselves and because of the background of stainless purity which is the result of their continual striving.
All you can really do is the best you can, ignore the voice of self-condemnation and guilt and just keep on keeping on. The point is that if even we can play those games with ourselves on that macro level then what of the saint who will look at the smallest of flaws as through a magnifying glass and therefore see themselves as falling far to the negative side of the razor’s edge?
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