Phronema

Solitude is not a natural state. We are, in our deepest essence, social beings, constituted by the relationships which make us what we are. Take these relationships away, as happens when one finds oneself all alone, and it is as though various aspects of self have been torn away leaving bleeding wounds. There is an overwhelming temptation to alleviate the pain these cause by drifting into a fantasy world, living vicariously, a fantasy self engaged in fantasy relationships. This escape is all the more tempting if it distracts from the nagging worries which thrust the stark reality of the three brute facts of existence into the forefront of consciousness. The quicksands of insecurity surround on all sides, far more real than the possibilities of success and a good outcome. But the fantasy self is a chimera and its insubstantiality only adds to unhappiness.

The irony is that the notion of solitude is itself a fantasy and not real. Oh, it is possible to be solitary, even in the midst of a city, but one is never alone. Being alone is a state of mind. Even weather beaten tramps in their incessant walking impinge on the consciousness of others and are themselves dependent. At a superficial level we may look like ants scurrying to and fro but at a deeper lever we are all engaged in a dance to a song we cannot hear but whose rhythms shape our lives. At a deeper level still we are one with the singer of the song. But we are not aware of the deeper levels. They exist in our minds, if they exist at all, only as a possibility and possibilities do not assuage hunger or keep out the cold, nor are they a shoulder to cry on, nor a friend to laugh with. The possibility has to become a reality. This is where religion and meditation come in.

Reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. What Sogyal Rinpoche has to say about Dzogchen has set ideas sparking in my mind. Dzogchen is the primordial state, our true nature. This is what we naturally are. The problem, however, is ignorance. Dzogchen is not part of our experience and we imagine ourselves to be other than we really are. People take many paths pursuing different goals. Enlightened ones take the path which leads to fruition.

This fundamental nature is buddha nature – a term that describes the ineffable. In Christian terms we could say the divine. I am reminded of Athanasius: ‘God became man so that man might become God.’ Cats and rabbits grow naturally to the fullness of their nature. They are biologically determined. We humans are far more complex. As persons we are multi-faceted with biological, conscious, social and volitional dimensions. Each of these is determining to an extent. Sometimes one is dominant, sometimes another. It is in the volitional element that our freedom lies. It has the ability to override the other determinants, the biological, the social and the rational. And there is something else – a spiritual element. We use words like soul and spirit but we do not know what they mean, or have only a vague idea.

If we were only biological, social and rational animals then the behaviourists would be correct and B. F. Skinner’s Walden Two could become a reality. But we are also free agents in that we have the power to stand back from ourselves, look at ourselves reflectively, and make a response not dictated by the stimuli we are exposed to. We do not always exercise this power. Very often it is not in our interest to do so. The biological impulses to eat and to reproduce are vital and are only denied at our peril. A perceived social demand to be slender rather than plump may lead to anorexia. An ideological imposition of celibacy may result various psychological problems. Yet at other times the witness of a hunger strike may change the mind of a whole nation, as Gandhi discovered, and celibacy provide the freedom to reach out to others.

There is also a very mysterious dimension to being a person – the fact that we can be aware of transcendence, of a spiritual dimension to reality. This, taken together with the ability to act freely, is the very essence of what it means to be human. We are animals, but not just animals. We are social beings, but not just social beings. We can also reason and act freely. And there is something else, something we cannot describe, explain or easily put into words – a feeling, but more than just a feeling, of infinite depth. People have described it in different ways at different times but the description I like best is from the Chhandogya Upanishad.

In this body, in this town of Spirit, there is a little house shaped like a lotus, and in that house there is a little space. One should know what is there.
What is there? Why is it so important?
There is as much in that little space within the heart as there is in the whole world outside. Heaven and earth, fire, wind, sun, moon, lightening, stars; whatever is and whatever is not, everything is there.
If everything is in man’s body, every being, every desire, what remains when old age comes, when decay begins, when the body falls?
What lies in that space does not decay when the body decays, nor does it fall when the body falls. That space is the home of Spirit. Every desire is there. Self is there, beyond decay and death, sin and sorrow; hunger and thirst; His aim truth; His will truth.

Our growing and becoming is not predetermined. We are songs woven by many voices. And yet, in a sense, we become what we have always been. The becoming is an awakening from a dark and claustrophobic dream.

Ireneus was not a Platonist and he represents a Christian worldview which quickly disappeared under the influence of Neo-Platonism. His emphasis on the materiality of the body is an important counterweight to the influence of dualism and the remains of Manichaism. I suddenly realised how little weight is given in spiritual writing, and in mysticism generally, to the fact that we are social beings. There is the ‘love your neighbour’ bit but this is seen as an interim ethic for this life, important, but a sort of second best to loving God. The more the religious life is directed towards contemplation the higher it is believed to be. Carthusians are held in awe – solitary lives dedicated solely to contemplation. There is the idea of the Communion of Saints but it does not loom large in the writing of the mystics and I began to wonder why not.

The fact that we are social beings is of fundamental importance in our ordinary lives. It is social interaction which makes us what we are, gives us our identity and provides meaning for our lives. True, possessive individualism is a modern phenomenon and pretty widespread in this country. I listened to a programme driving in the car yesterday on why more and more women were deciding not to have children. The basic reason seemed to be the desire to be free of commitments so that they could do their own thing. To me this leads to the impoverishment both of the individual and of society. Paradoxically, we are most fully ourselves when we are most fully involved in relationships with others. The loners, those who hold themselves aloof from demanding commitments, are one-dimensional.

Of course relationships can be, often are, difficult. The more we give, the more is expected of us and we can often feel more drained than filled. Perhaps one of the roots of romantic love is the hope of finding one individual who can encapsulate all that we need in loving and being loved. One relationship is so much easier to deal with than a multitude and the couple becomes a microcosm of society. But even a true love can never be enough and we remain a son/daughter, father/mother, uncle/aunt, friend, cousin, neighbour, whatever. All these are aspects of our personality and to abandon them for just one relationship, or deny them, or cut them off is to diminish ourselves. Donne had it right all those years ago when he said,

‘No man is an Island, entire of it self; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’

All the more surprising then to find that in mystical experience generally there is very seldom the idea of union with others. There are experiences of union with nature, with the cosmos, with God but not, as far as I am aware, with other persons. The talk is of being oned with nature, of God dwelling in the depths of the soul, of the soul being caught up in God. It is all on an individual and one-to-one basis. This is understandable from a monistic worldview. The analogy of the individual drop falling into the ocean fits in with Hinduism but not with Christianity. Given that God is God, the transcendent, the absolute other, creator, origin of all that is – in comparison to whom the individual is less than a speck of dust, as Isaiah puts it – one can understand that the experience of union with him would be so overwhelming that all other relationships would fade to insignificance. God is love and all love is subsumed in him. If all individual love is subsumed in the love of God then so are the individuals. We are back to a sort of monism. This may be the reality of mystical experience but is it the reality of life after death?

If in loving one’s neighbour one loves God, the reverse must also be true. Love is self-giving. It is the giving of oneself to another. The strange thing about it is that the more one gives the more one has to give. It is an emptying of oneself but, like Elisha’s pot, the love does not run out. It is also a strange thing that one can love more than one person. In fact the more one loves the more one is able to love. Surely then in the utter transparency of life after death, when one encounters God face to face, is loved by him and loves in return, everyone else does not vanish from the picture. The experience of Heaven must also be an experience of a community of love. If then the communion of saints is a reality why does it not figure in mystical experience? People experience God, encounter Mary, sometimes individual saints, but never the community of love of all the blessed. Why? More on this later.