Phronema

Thinking about relationship again in the shower. For some reason this morning it would not get hot and I had to fiddle with the controls a bit before it finally worked properly. What a difference between a cold and a hot shower! Only a minute difference in degrees but what a difference in comfort and a feeling of well being. A few microscopic organisms have just given me a week of suffering and discomfort with a very bad sore throat and a cold. They were responsible for sapping my energy and zest for reading and research. I felt that I wanted only to withdraw from others and cosset myself in my misery. Yesterday I awoke feeling better and feeling, literally, a different person from the one I had been the week before.

We are what we are only in the context of our physical, biological, social, psychological, philosophical and perceptual relationships. If I want to understand ‘me’ I must be aware, not only of each of them, but also that I transcend them. This transcendence is the most mysterious thing of all. The biological ‘me’ can be understood but don’t forget to take into account the influence on it of the psychological ‘me’. The psychological and the gregarious ‘me’s’ are so intertwined that they cannot really be separated. Then there is the egoistic ‘me’, that private person that no one, not even I, I sometimes think, know fully. And then, there is the ‘I’ who transcends all of these. As often as not the ‘I’ is not on stage. His role has been usurped by one of the ‘me’s’. But who is this ‘I’? Is he more fundamental than the ‘me’s’, or is he simply the agent of the currently dominant ‘me’? Are the ‘me’s’ ephemeral psychosocial constructs educed at different times by different environments? Or is the ‘I’ the centre of conscious awareness capable of transcending the empirical ‘me’s’ and the physical sensorium? Just as the ‘me’ as agent is evoked by a specific psychosocial environment and particular physical needs, so too, perhaps is the ‘I’ evoked by an awareness of transcendence.

“I shall never forget what I have never revealed to anyone, the phenomenon which accompanied the birth of my consciousness of self and of which I can specify both the place and the time.  One morning, as a very young child, I was standing in our front door and was looking over the wood pile on the left, when suddenly the inner vision ‘I am me’ shot down before me like a flash of lightening from the sky, and ever since it has remained with me luminously: at that moment my ego had seen itself for the first time and for ever.“

(Jean Paul Richter, quoted in Glover J., I: The Philosophy and Psychology of Personal Identity, (1989) Penguin, London p59)

This is a (rare?) example of what Karl Jaspers called a ‘limiting situation’.  In the awareness of limits one is aware of the transcendent as the negatively comprehended complement of limits.  In other words one is not aware of a limit as limit if one has not somehow seen beyond it.  We are not normally aware of the limits of consciousness just as we are not normally aware of the limits of our vision (this is why the figure of eight sideways, to depict vision through binoculars, on the screen jars our sensibilities.  This is not how we normally see, through binoculars or otherwise.)  Yet we know that both are limited.  It is from this that our difficulty in grasping consciousness arises – and hence the difficulty in defining it, describing it.  We cannot, from within our subjective perspective, perceive our awareness objectively, no more than the eye can see itself seeing.  By reflection the eye can see itself and the consciousness can grasp itself; but just as the eye (through the mirror) sees no more than the outer surface of the organ of sight, so too, analogously, reflective awareness is no more than the surface of the stream of consciousness and sees neither the banks, nor the depths beneath, much less the origin.

Thinking again about integrity – the shower in the morning is a great place for thinking. The mind is fresh after the night’s sleep and ideas that have been percolating in the unconscious begin to emerge. To love requires a beloved. In theory everyone we encounter, in fact everyone, should be the beloved. In practice this is not so easy. Being unselfish and putting the other person first comes easily when there are feelings and emotions as a driving force. When this is not the case, especially today in our crowded, impersonal urban society, it is almost impossible to make every encounter of the hundreds each day a personal encounter. Even if it were possible it would not be tolerated by the hurrying crowds who regard their impersonal anonymity as a shield, or defence. And so we, inevitably, slip into the prevailing mode of blind unconcern. Caught in the rush of traffic it would be impractical to stop for the stranded motorist. That is the job of the police. Hurrying to catch the train there is no time to help the harassed mother manoeuvre her pushchair and three toddlers  down the escalator. Apart from those with whom we have a personal relationship we have little or no time for the others we meet.

This is why integrity might be something more easily put into practice. It begins by being ‘about me’ and self interest always has a flying start. But who am I and what does it mean to have integrity? ‘Who am I?’ is the $64,000 question. One of the reasons why there is no easy answer to it is because as humans we operate on many different levels, often on more than one level at a time. (I am not sure that level is the right word. Mode, or dimension might be better.)

There is a physical-biological dimension of being a body. Much time is devoted to feeding this body, moving it from place to place, washing and grooming it, tending to its wounds and hurts and, finally, just relaxing and resting. Much of this is automatic and does not involve specific mental effort.

There is a feeling-emotional dimension. Here the reciprocity between the physical and mental states is very marked. Physical well-being can produce an emotional high. Illness can cause depression. Mental stress can produce physical effects such as headaches and ulcers. Hormones and psychoactive chemicals can determine mood and mental states. These in turn have a profound effect on the personality. Emotions authenticate meaning. Einstein’s formula E=mc² may determine the shape of the cosmos but as an abstract concept its meaning is negligible compared to that of a child holding its mother’s hand. Emotions and feelings shape our sense of morality, of what is right and wrong. Traditional Christian spirituality, influenced by Platonic dualism, saw the body as, if not evil, at least an obstacle to spiritual development. Physical urges, feelings and emotions were to be kept in check and, as much as possible, denied. Agere contra was the Jesuit watchword. The body would die eventually but the soul would ascend to heaven. At the general resurrection it would be united with a transformed body, a risen body. More about the spiritual later.

There is a social dimension. We become persons as a result of social interaction. We learn language from others. Language is the major factor in our mental development. We discover our sense of self and of self-worth as a result of being loved. It is in this social dimension where most people find their life has meaning. Life is about loving and being loved, raising a family, enjoying friendships, engaging in interactions with others in work and in projects. Existential  questions such as ‘Who am I?’ and ‘What is the meaning of life?’ only present themselves here in what Jaspers called ‘limit situations’ – times of birth, marriage and death.

There is a mental dimension. This is the dimension of stories, ideas and concepts, of maths, logic and philosophy. It is also the dimension of poetry, music and drama. These last  have strong emotional content but all have some feeling attached. Even the most abstract branches of mathematics have beauty and the feeling of knowing truth. 

There is a spiritual dimension. This exists at all levels. What spiritual means is not easy to explain. Generally it is defined as opposing matter, or the body; to do with the mind and with religion. Etymologically it comes from the Greek pneuma,  breath, and from nous, mind – the principle of order in things. For St. Augustine it was the apex of the mind, the personal and dynamic point of contact and encounter between God and man. St. Thomas Aquinas, taking his ideas from Aristotle, saw the soul as the form of the body, that which gives it individual substance. Descartes held that reality was twofold, matter and mind – res cogitans. This dividing of reality into two, matter and spirit, or matter and mind, is at the root of our difficulty of trying to understand what it means to be human. While mentally I can distinguish myself from my body, this is a mental abstraction. I am not two, a body and a soul. What I am is a living body, yet at the same time I transcend my body. Spirit is a ‘presence’. I am present to myself.*

 I am present to others, as they are to me. I am present to nature, as it is to me. Finally, I am present to the Transcendent (I say Transcendent because He does not have a name. ‘Tell them ‘I am’ sent you.’) – not all the time (though I believe that it is always present to me) but on those luminous occasions when the fabric of reality becomes translucent and I become aware of the infinite depths of being. According to Karl Rahner – ‘Spirit is ‘greater’ than man, as Pascal says, “l’homme passe infiniment l’homme”, not in the sense that it is alien or extrinsic to man, but in the sense that man is only what he is by being thus ‘greater’ than himself. The most essential thing in man is not a self-sufficient subjectivity, but a constant opening out beyond himself, which we call his being ‘there’, the presence of being disclosing itself as mystery.’

This is integrity – being open to the mystery within and to the mystery within the others we encounter and responding accordingly; being present to others as we are present to ourselves.

*[There is the presence of the object to the subject, of the spectacle to the spectator; there is also the presence of the subject to himself, and this is not the presence of another object dividing his attention, of another spectacle distracting the spectator; it is presence in, as it were, another dimension, presence concomitant and correlative and opposite to the presence of the object. Objects are present by being attended to but subjects are present as subjects, not by being attended to, but by attending. As the parade of objects marches by, spectators do not have to slip into the parade to be present to themselves; they have to be present to themselves for anything to be present to them (Lonergan, 1967, p. 226, quoted in McCarthy, Michael H. (1990), The Crisis in Philosophy (Albany: SUNY Press). , 1990, p. 234).]

This question of what it means to be a human person keeps circulating through my thoughts – especially in the early hours of the morning in the intervals between waking and returning to sleep. I am sure Whitehead’s  event metaphysics is a better way to approach this problem than the classical metaphysics of Plato or Aristotle. The dualist approach cannot be right – much as we would like it to be. It would so simplify things. For me the biggest problem is understanding what is meant by the soul. Is it the individual self-consciousness of being a person? I don’t think so. Self-consciousness only begins to emerge a year after birth. Is it the organising life-force which drives the process of being human? Both the egg and the sperm are separately alive. At the moment of conception they lose their individual identities and become one. There is a non-material force which drives the development of the embryo – perhaps something analogous to Sheldrake’s morphic resonance. Is this the soul? I think this was Polkinghorne’s mistake. He identified the soul with what he called the organising pattern and of course this comes to an end with death. But there is more to soul than being the form of the body. You only have to look at a child, for example, to see that there is more here than a living body. There is a person, a presence. Is this what the soul is? If so when does the person come into existence and what happens to the person on the death of the body?

You can see, looking at young children, how quickly a baby becomes a person. At one moment, it almost seems, there is a little baby, barely distinguishable from any other baby – mother excepted, the next there is a little person with unique characteristics and idiosyncrasies. We know from the studies by people like Bowlby that a loving environment is required if the person is to develop and where this is absent, development is inhibited and damaged people result. I am inclined to think that the soul is the person. The problem with the word ‘soul’ is that it is a static term. It does not allow for growth, development and change. It is something we have, whereas a person is something we are. The problem too with the classical position is that it holds that the soul is created by God and infused by him into the body. I think souls grow. This growth is initiated by the love of the parents. Then all the various relationships in the life of the individual have a part to play. A relationship is like a dance in which each partner affects the other, weaving and shaping a pattern of formation. The closer and more intimate the relationship the greater is its power to form and change the person. This is why sin is so terrible. Sin is a destructive relationship which damages each and sometimes destroys one or both. Jesus had it so right when he put the emphasis on the inner attitude which precedes the outer action. Refraining from actions is not enough. The inner attitude has to be right.

From all this it would seem that the soul, the person, is not a self-contained individual entity. Our being is not confined to the limits of the body but extends outward and is intermingled with that of others. ‘The centre of the self is not limited to the interior of the individual; the self of a mother is to be found in her child.’ [Nishida Kitaro; Zen no Kenkyu, 1921. Translated as ‘An Enquiry into the Good‘ by Masao Abe and Christopher Ives. Newhaven CN: Yale University Press 1990]

 Donne was quite right. No man is an island entire of it self. I think also that Teilhard de Chardin has something in what he says about an evolution towards the Omega Point. The process is towards greater and greater unity – a merging of all the individual selves without the loss, but rather the enhancement, of individuality. This is similar to advaita non-dualism and to pantheism in general but with these individuality is lost. It begs the question, though, as to what individuality is, or rather, what the true self is. I agree with much that Buddhism has to say about anatta. 

I came across a marvellous story the other day in a talk given by Joseph Campbell on Hinduism. He was talking about the Indian concept of the spiritual value of performing ones duty, of acting in accordance with ones station in life. I would call it having integrity. During the time of the Emperor Ashoka the Ganges flooded and threatened the city.

Campbell goes on ‘Now there is an Indian notion that if you have fulfilled your life duty to perfection, you may perform what is known as an Act of Truth. You can say (and this is magic now): “If I have performed my duty without any trace of ego, but, like the sun rising and the sun setting, have done just what I should have done, every hour of my life, then let such and such happen!“ And such and such will happen. This is called an Act of Truth. For, since you are part of the organism of the universe, and perfectly so, you partake of the power of the universe. You have become a conduit of universal energy and can perform miracles.’ The Emperor asks whether there is anyone who can perform the Act of Truth and save the city by making the flood waters recede. Everyone shakes their heads – all the important people, the nobles, the priests, the merchants – not one has lived life with sufficient integrity. And then on the edge of the crowd an old prostitute says, ‘I can.’ And the waters begin to recede. The Emperor is astonished and he asks the woman how she, a wretched sinner, an outcast of society, could perform the Act of Truth. 

The woman replies,  “Whosoever gives me money, your Majesty, whether he be a Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, or Shudra, I treat him as any other. I make no distinction in his favour if he is Kshatriya; and if a Shudra, I do not despise him. Free both from fawning and from contempt, I serve the owner of the money. And this your Majesty, is the Act of Truth by which I caused the mighty Ganges to flow back upstream.”

The remarks of Jesus about prostitutes immediately spring to mind. The moral of the story is that any way of life whatsoever is a way to God, if followed faithfully, selflessly, in perfect humility. Perhaps ‘any’ is a bit too sweeping and needs to be qualified. There are certain ways of life which, by their nature, cannot be reconciled with what it means to be human. Hindus, with their more liberal attitude to sex, would not have a problem with prostitution, though Christians would. Buddhists rule out any occupation which involves killing, animals or men. The early Christians did not see how being a soldier could be compatible with being a Christian. Times have changed, as has society. Possessive individualism reigns supreme as a worldview (though there are signs that this is slowly changing) leading to the apotheosis of the individual. Fidelity, selflessness and humility are not seen as appropriate virtues, not if you want to be competitive and, as they say, competition is what it’s all about. 

To me integrity seems to be the key virtue. Love gets overloaded with sentimentality and with the idea that you have to like someone in order to love them. The concept agape is not understood, or where it is understood, is seen as impractical. Integrity, being true to yourself, is much easier to understand and appreciate – or would be if we each had a clear idea of what it means to be a self, a human being.

I don’t think my mind is as good as it used to be. I find it difficult to take in what I am reading and I am very slow to see the implications and relate what I am reading to a wider context. This is disappointing because I so hoped to be able to write a book on what it means to be human. I keep doing the research, much more slowly now since my heart started playing up, but I am no nearer to putting it all together. I find it hard to grasp the wider picture. Part of the problem is a growing conviction that the answer is not something that can be put into words. It cannot be grasped intellectually but has to be experienced. I read an article evaluating the various theories of consciousness this morning. It was really beyond me and I struggled even to grasp the thread, never mind the distinctions within distinctions. The rational mind can be marvellously subtle when dealing with concepts and can weave the most elaborate tapestries with them. Nevertheless consciousness is simplicity itself, grasped in all its glorious immediacy without any intellection. I know what it is. I know many of its many states but I cannot explain it. No one can. Pascal was right when he said there were things only the heart can understand. 

Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point. 

Likewise what it means to be human is something I suspect can be grasped better by feeling and the emotions than intellectually.

I had never realised before how much time we spend on trivia. Elliot was right. We cannot bear too much reality. We flee from it and cultivate areas of interest which we invest with the utmost importance. ‘Oh, I couldn’t live without my….’ Or, ‘I must have my…’ I am no better than the next person. I do it just as much but I am also afflicted, if that is the right word, with the awareness that these preoccupations, in the greater scheme of things, count for nothing. They are pass-times – literally. 

This would not matter if Reality itself were not so elusive. At present it is a black hole, a yawning nothingness gaping open before me. At Mass the other day the priest spent long moments on a eulogy of a parishioner who had just died. He went on and on about how much he had done for the parish, how much he would be missed. I was wondering what this paragon had done when the priest went on to describe the hours the man had spent working on the drains in front. It was a moment of pure bathos and it was all I could do not to burst out laughing. Of course, drains are important, especially if they are not working properly. I suppose this should remind me that  am being too extreme. When it comes to human activity intention is all important. The intention of the doer can elevate the utterly trivial to the sublime. The reverse is also true. This is the incredible thing about being human. We have the power to turn the dross of humdrum activity into the pure gold of love.