We live in a wordy world. Why add to the noise?

      To reduce the noise, and the volume of words, one must persuade. Persuasion generally involves words, at least in the initial stages. Therefore, to diminish the noise, one must first add to it.

      The second reason for writing is that I want to offer hope to people living in a world that is becoming increasingly complicated, threatening and overwhelming.

      It is my intention to outline an approach to living that differs from pre-packaged, synthetic attitudes that often inform our behaviour. The approach is not new. It is associated with the "perennial philosophy" that underlies contemplative traditions.

Change

      One of the greatest challenges we face is the need to engage change.

      It is recognised that we are living through a period of unprecedented change. This change has outdistanced our efforts to evaluate it, or the "developments" it has spawned.

      Older folk are unsettled by the changes that are happening around them. Their knowledge is considered superfluous, chronically out of date. It is valued merely for its nostalgic appeal. With older certainties under threat, the aged bunker down to ride out the storm. Some surrender to quiet despair.

      It is often argued that young people are at home with change, because it is what they have known. While this may be true, in one sense, the lack of stability that change generates robs them of the groundedness that is essential to a sense of personal security. Furthermore, expectations of accelerated change breeds superficiality, boredom and a desperation that often turns to [15] violence. The predicament facing the young is exacerbated by decreasing job opportunities.

      Change is no less a problem for people in their middle years. Concerned to maintain their jobs, most feel trapped. The fact that they are unavoidably distracted by their freneticism, however, does not mean that they are coping adequately with change. Most are merely trying to out-run their fear.

      Many of the changes we experience diminish our confidence in our ability to cope.

      Traditional worldviews are threatened by increasing globalization reflected in technology, economics, opportunities for travel, immigration and an invasive media. While globalization breeds humility and an appreciation of cultural differences, it has also convinced us that our maps of reality cannot be trusted.

      If change has left us without faith in traditional guide-books, it has also trapped us in an acute relational dilemma. While there was never a time when so much was expected of relationships, these expectations are unreal and unrealistic. Neither romance nor sex, the two relational aphrodisiacs, fulfil their promise. The playthings of our hormones, they are designed to insure the survival of the species.

      Scientific development, another aspect of change, evokes sombre foreboding. Ecological devastation, over-population, nuclear conflict, super-bugs resistant to our pharmacological arsenal threaten species survival. While we hold such possibilities at arm's length, the fear they engender often disconnects us from ourselves.

      The notion that morality is relative, which is partially a consequence of change, has eroded traditional values to such an extent that we are seduced by disvalues. What were once regarded as positive characteristic, qualities like self-reliance, consideration for others, gentleness, truthfulness, frugality, generosity, politeness and respect are no longer considered desirable. The concept of "character" has been usurped by the ideal of self-aggrandisement. [16]

Anxiety

      Unsettled by change, frustrated by relational ineptitude, locked into a human community that appears intent on destroying itself and its environment, and faced with the unlamented demise of traditional values, it is little wonder that we are in the grip of a pervasive anxiety.

      The human race has always lived with anxiety. Paul Tillich argued that there are three forms of anxiety, each of which has been predominant during a specific era. In earliest times, when physical survival was precarious, our ancestors were in the grip of ontic anxiety. They lived in constant fear of death. During the Middle Ages anxiety was associated with guilt, and the imagination of ordinary people was fixated on gruesome visions of hell. The twentieth-century was ridden by anxiety deriving from the apparent meaninglessness of existence.¹

      In the late 20th century, we find ourselves intimidated by all three forms of anxiety. Ontic anxiety has resurfaced because survival can no longer be taken for granted. Because we have repressed our guilt for so long, on the understanding that it was no more than a consequence of societal disapproval, anxiety associated with guilt is enjoying a renaissance. Far from solving the issue of meaninglessness, as the century has progressed, we have been sucked deeper into its impenetrable heart.

      Because of the presence of all three forms of anxiety, we find ourselves beset by a fourth type of anxiety, an anxiety associated with the collapse of hope and a consequent failure of nerve. This sense of hopelessness has resulted in a loss of life energy, or libido, and in pervasive fatigue.²

      Another of the changes that deeply affects us is the unprecedented degree to which we are exposed to external influences courtesy of the electronic media.

      The byte-sized views of the world, fostered by the television industry, breed superficiality. Commercial channels have a tendency to pander to our baser instincts and our craving for distraction. The pervasive video culture is even less subject to the critique of public censorship. Its influence is more insidious. It [17] encourages us to trade-off our ability to determine the sorts of people we will become in the interests of short-lived sensual titillation. Access to the Internet throws up the same issues, if anything, more starkly. With censorship discouraged, and dismissed as a technical impossibility, issues of value and appropriateness are subordinated to the rhetoric of freedom. This freedom is defined so broadly that it looks suspiciously like unrestrained licence.

      We are subject to influences, through the media, the video industry and the computer revolution, that have a much greater effect than we realise on the way we think and act. These centres of influence, unlike tribal or village elders, who initiated the young into the wisdom of the tribe, exercise power without responsibility.

Illusion

      What we are left with is a world of contrived illusion.

      It could be argued that humankind has always been beguiled by illusion. We have created our own reality by the way we have framed what was within our field of vision. Hindu philosophy argues that the phenomenological world is itself a giant illusion that disguises the Spiritual Reality which created and sustains it.

      While people have always been more fascinated by illusion than reality, our society appears to have gone one stage further. We have become experts at deliberately contriving illusions. We have demonstrated a preference for virtual reality over reality. It is easy to see the reason for this. Reality is painful. Virtual reality can be manipulated, reconfigured!

Short-sightedness

      Another consequence of our being seduced by immediate gratification is that we opt for short-term benefits over long-term consequences. We will grasp what we want now, even if it means we pay a high price for it sometime in the future. This preference is an indication that we live without a sense of history. We also have difficulty discerning the signs of the times. [18]

Desperation

      Most of us live lives of quiet desperation.³ We exist in a world where we are whisked into the future on the wings of change. We are confused about the meaning of life and lack the confidence to grasp it firmly. We despair of ever engaging in satisfying, long-term relationships. We are threatened by destructive forces. We are devoid of an accepted system of values and lack the instruction of those celebrated for their exemplary behaviour. We are short on hope and are afraid of losing our nerve. We are under the influence of forces beyond our control. We recognise that we have been seduced by influence peddlers but haven't the will to shake ourselves free. We are aware that we prefer illusion to reality, but can't help ourselves. We take the short-term view because it is convenient. We prefer not to face the fact that the devils, to whom we have sold our souls, will chase us for payment.

An answer?

      It would be presumptuous of me to indicate that I have the answer to the contemporary human dilemma, to the issues I have outlined. However, I can suggest a way forward. It is a route that I have tried and found helpful. It aims to answer the question of how one can live healthfully, fulfillingly and generously.

      What I want to suggest is that to survive, flourish, and contribute positively to the welfare of others, in a world in which there are few secure foundations, we must be grounded in ourselves.

      This groundedness will involve a recovery of soul, or soulful living.

      Soul is not an ethereal substance, separate from the body. It is the passionate, engaged bodyself. It is myself when I am most in touch with my feelings, the rumblings of my unconscious,⁴ and my body.⁵ James Hillman contended that "Soul" is a treasure house, both rich and confusing.⁶ He went on to argue that this undefinable soul⁷ is the instrument of enlightenment.⁸ [19]

      In many ancient cultures, disease was attributed to the fact that one's soul had strayed or been stolen.⁹ Thomas Moore has argued that the great malady of the 20th century, affecting individuals and society, is a "loss of soul".¹⁰ There is a sense in which the intellect, with its hyper-rationality, has raped the soul. Unfortunately, it has also laid claim to the heritage of the spirit.¹¹

      Jung's description of the soul as the "heritage of this Spirit", and Sam Keen's comment that the soulful life is concerned less with getting the words right and more with tuning in to the rhythms of the universe,¹² point to a close connection between soul and Spirit. Spirit is the Otherness that engages soul and stirs it to its depths. There is a serendipitous givenness about Spirit. It connects us with others and with our environment. It is the constituent energy of the universe. It nourishes and grows us.

Realisers

      Most of us have encountered people who seemed to be deeply in touch with themselves. A spiritual energy flows from them. They appear to be more fully human than others. We feel alive when we are with them. These individuals have been described, in Hindu and Buddhist traditions, as "Realisers of God", or "Adepts".¹³ In the presence of such people we feel accepted. They differ from adherents of the various religious traditions whose lack of such "realisation" results in forms of theological dogmatism that substitute for experiences of God.¹⁴

Becoming

      To achieve centredness, we need to participate intentionally in the process of becoming truly ourselves. This process is ongoing. It will lead us, eventually, to appreciate that the individual identity of the bodyself, that is us, is separate neither from others nor from the Spiritual Presence that binds together the whole of reality. This Spiritual Presence is variously called the Word, Brahman, the Dao, Yahweh, Allah, and God.

      Attending to this Presence will lead us into an appropriation of wisdom, a wisdom that ultimately appropriates us. Growth in [20] wisdom is accompanied by a diminishing of the ego's need to dominate the quest. For this reason, it is called by Buddhists the "wisdom of egolessness".¹⁵

Cautions

      Before you read further, I want to offer a number of cautions.

      In this book I will be concentrating on the individual. In doing this, I am not intending to suggest that societal, economic, political and ecological issues are unimportant. Nor am I overlooking the degree to which these factors influence personal development. Still less am I arguing that we should wait until we have perfected our individual development before we attend to communal concerns.

      Nevertheless, attending to ourselves takes priority. If we have not first worked on ourselves, we are ill-equipped to reform society. As Carl Jung argued, it is only as we work on ourselves that we are in a position to help change society.¹⁶ If we don't pay attention to our personal pathologies, and attempt to deal with them, we will impose them on others and weave them into the social, economic and political solutions we put forward. While the transformation of individuals does not guarantee the transformation of society, it is its necessary foundation.

      This book is not a "how to" manual. Nor is the advice designed merely to alter external behaviour. The aim is to effect a slower, more substantial transformation.

      I hope that you don't expect perfection of yourself. If you do, you will be disappointed.

      I do not anticipate you will agree with everything I have written. Jung argued that psychological theories are a reflection of the personalities of their creators.¹⁷ The approach in this book is no less individual. We are all different and our journeys will be different.

      It was with diffidence that I approached the writing of this book. Spirituality encroaches upon every field of endeavour and I [21] recognised that my experience was limited. I am very conscious of my inadequacies.

      I am also aware that specialists, who have a professional interest in guarding their territories and preserving their reputations, are uncomfortable with approaches that span a range of disciplines.¹⁸ However, while detailed research is of paramount importance, there is also a place for what Wilber calls "orienting generalisations", generalisations that help us orient ourselves to the wider picture. The far view, or comprehensive overview, is as important as the near view, or the focussed attention given to discrete issues in particular fields.

      I am also encouraged by the testimony of the world's wisdom traditions that suggest that there is a givenness to intuitive insights that locates the deepest knowledge, or wisdom, in a palpable, Spirit Presence.

      Phil Cousineau described Joseph Campbell as the sort of person the French call an animateur, a charismatic teacher who brings a subject alive, and, at the same time, gives those listening insight into themselves.¹⁹ I am hoping that you may find, in what I write, an insight or two that resonates with feelings about yourself that you have never been able to put into words. [22]

[LS 13-22]