We live in the world polluted with words, images, and discordant soundscapes. The message conveyed by this cacophony of voices, strobed images and sound-bytes is urgent, delusory and unrelenting. It batters our souls.

Contemporary society

      Radhakamal Mukerjee has argued that modern society places a multitude of insupportable demands on people, demands that are at variance with their basic humanity. Foundational needs--for food, shelter, sex and recreation--are given a neurotic twist. An unhealthy emphasis is placed on power, prestige and possessions, while love, sharing and affection are undervalued. No longer supported, spiritually, by traditional symbols and myths, we are the victims of disintegrative myths and propaganda, which presage a new barbarism. We make a pretence of relating and have forfeited the capacity for authenticity. An artificial, unhealthy gregariousness, which apes genuine community, is no substitute for the loss of benefits deriving from solitude and contemplation.¹

Pollution

      Many begin the day by exposing themselves to words and images that reinforce the pathologies of modern society and recount the disasters that are their consequence. Like drug addicts, desperate for a fix, they inject themselves with the noxious effluent that has already been their undoing.

      The daily quota of bad news, that feeds our anxiety, is a basic ingredient in this concoction. While it is important to know what is going on in the world, to be constantly bombarded by accounts of tragedy, perfidy and carnage is dis-empowering. It does not contribute to the development of compassion, courage and resolve; the very qualities that are needed to structure a committed response to suffering, inhumanity and injustice. [201]

      We are seduced by the electronic media into an addiction to fantasy, illusion, sexual titillation, greed and bad news because it fills a void, banishes an intimidating silence and furnishes us with an illusion of control.

      This addiction, however, has its costs. We mistake opinion for information, information for knowledge and knowledge for wisdom. We hand control of our lives to others. The worst effect of the addiction is that we suffer loss of soul. This loss affects communities as well as individuals.

Feeding our souls

      What I am suggesting is that we feed our souls, instead of suffocating them.

      If we deliberately set out to nurture our souls, we will find our lives gradually transformed. We will discover that we are less captive to shallowness and misinformation. We will avoid becoming dupes of the latest enthusiasms and panaceas. We will be able to distinguish between knowledge and wisdom. We will recognise the degree to which the shallowness of our cultural paradigms distances us from the self-transcendent spirituality that is the gateway to wisdom and compassion. We will realise the degree to which spiritual traditions, at the grass roots, are often captive to this cultural myopia that cannot see beyond appearances.² In feeding our souls we become increasingly inner directed. This centredness will help us deconstruct the illusions in which we are trapped.

Means

      There are a number of ways of nurturing the soul.

      The nurture of the soul is what this book is about.

      I have already mentioned the importance of silence. Dream work also brings us into contact with the deeper self. Meditation is an effective means of soul-culture, of earthing ourselves in the bodyself and the wider environment and of making us conscious of the presence of the Spirit.

      What I want to urge upon you in this chapter is that you [202] feed your mind and soul with inspiring intuitions, thoughts, and images. I am not suggesting that you gulp down saccharine platitudes to distract your attention from reality. I am pleading with you to read literature that will find an echo in your innermost being. While such literature is healing, I am not suggesting that you gorge yourself on shallow "feel-good", self-help manuals. The sort of literature I am talking about, drawn from a range of religious and secular wisdom traditions, is penetrating and challenging. While it is not guilt-inducing, it will deepen your understanding of yourself, your motives, and the goals towards which you aspire.

What it will do

      Literature that ministers to the soul will help signpost your journey. It puts into words what you have felt deeply but have been unable to express. On the other hand, it may articulate conclusions you have arrived at, but have discounted, or been loath to share, because you have imagined that others would think you deluded.

      The literature that nurtures deals with the deep issues of life. It probes existential concerns--Who am I? Where have I come from? Is there meaning in life? What do I make of suffering? Can I change? How much am I in charge of myself? Is death the end? Is there a God? Is love a possibility?

      Literature that feeds the Soul has the capacity to confront us with the gods and demons that wrestle for supremacy within us. It contributes to a transformation that goes beyond superficial behavioural change. It triggers insights that are spontaneously generated by the bodyself, with wisdom associated with what Wilber describes as vision logic, or network logic.³ It may even accompany us beyond vision logic to the wisdom of egolessness.

Where do we look?

      Where do we find this literature?

      I will make a few suggestions, but merely to get you started. Once you have discovered the mother load, you will need to [203] choose which seams to follow.

      A good place to start is Thomas Moore's Care of the Soul⁴ or Lucinda Vardey's God in all Worlds.⁵

Religion

      The literature associated with the world's religious traditions speaks to the soul. I have found myself enriched, as well as intrigued, by nibbling my way through this vast corpus.

      Father Bede Griffith, a Benedictine monk, spent over 25 years in India. Along with two Frenchman, he established the Saccidananda Ashram, at Shantivanam, in Tamil Nadu, the former Madras State. The foundation was an attempt to develop a Christian community that followed the customs of Hindu ashrams. It was established as a prayer centre where people of different religious traditions could meet and grow together towards unity in truth, which he saw as the goal of all religious striving. During daily worship he read from the Scriptures of the world's major religious traditions.

      In suggesting that you delve into this religious literature, I should warn you that its value is not uniform. You will sometimes have to search for the wheat among the chaff. It will also be important to keep historical and cultural contexts in mind and to make allowance for idiosyncratic, developmental, even pathological elements.

      Because knowledge changes so rapidly, those of us who have entered the new millennium are tempted to dismiss the wisdom of the past, particularly if we find the packaging strange or out of date. Few of us have had the advantage of immersing ourselves in the living texture of an alien culture. It is difficult for us to discern gems of wisdom in unfamiliar settings. It is important, therefore, that we approach the literature of the major religions with both discrimination and openness. It will be important to familiarise ourselves with the tradition before reading the text. We should approach the text intuitively and sensitively. [204]

Literary classics

      If we have never read any of the literary "classics", writing that has stood the test of time, our minds have been impoverished. If we imagine that all we need to know has been written by our contemporaries, we are sadly misinformed and are the poorer for our disdainful neglect. Dialogue with the world's greatest minds, and with its most advanced souls, through our reading of the celebrated literature of the past, is a deeply rewarding exercise.

      Our age, in comparison with others, lacks a sense of history. While accounts of the past are necessarily biased, and benefit from continued reinterpretation, they are nevertheless instructive and cautionary. As Thucydides, the Greek historian, argued, it is important for us to be aware of the past because history has a habit of repeating itself.⁶ We cannot effectively manage the present, and prepare for the future unless we have some knowledge of the past. Unfortunately, younger generations, fascinated by the glitz of the cybernetic age, are generally locked into worship of the new.

      I am not suggesting that all wisdom resides in the past. What I am contending is that we should value the wisdom of the past more highly than we do. Wisdom, unlike knowledge, is unchangeable. It is a universal constant.

      Mining the riches of this literature is a long and painstaking task. The language and thought forms are strange, and the pace needs to be leisurely and discursive.

By-products

      There are additional by-products in the exercise. We gain insight into what life was like for others in different periods and cultures. We are able to clamber inside their minds and experience their emotions. We will also be aware that our own age, in the not-too-distant future, will be judged quaint, if not uncouth. This will be a salutary exercise in humility.

Further suggestions

      Books that have nurtured me, besides religious texts and literary classics, are the writings of: [205]

• Carl Jung and his school,
• the archetypal psychology of James Hillman,
• Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee's writings on the Sufi tradition,
• the many works of Henry Nouwen
• and Thomas Merton,
• Thomas Moore's books on soul-culture and re-enchantment,
• the works of contemporary Tibetan Buddhists who are writing for the West,
• the writings and recorded conversations of Adi Da,
• and the oeuvre of Ken Wilber, the doyenne of transpersonal psychology.

      This represents a fraction of the literature that has fed my soul, but it may give you some idea of where to begin.

      While the purpose of this chapter has been to encourage you to read good literature, I would also urge you to nurture yourselves on great art, music, theatre and film.

Cautions

      I need to offer several cautions.

      First, different personalities will be drawn to different types of literature. Second, each of us appreciates different books at different times in our pilgrimage. It should also be recognised that progress will rarely be linear. Nor is there a uniform trajectory appropriate for all people. Furthermore, we will not be able to determine, in advance, where the journey will take us. I have frequently purchased books that have remained on my shelves for years, even decades, before I have taken them down and read them. When I read them, I discovered that they were exactly what I needed at the time.

      I should also point out that my "soul" reading is balanced by professional reading in theology, ethics, history, psychology, philosophy and sociology.

      In my younger years, history and politics fascinated me. I have a considerable collection of political biographies. I have [206] written several histories. I am fortunate in teaching spirituality. Because spirituality involves almost every aspect of life and experience, I have needed to research, not only the classics of the Christian mystical tradition and the contemplative insights of other religious traditions, but also the writings of those scientists who have written for the general public. I have been particularly interested in genetics, brain physiology and those areas of physics that impinge on human and ecological issues.

      Praxis, or learning through doing, both in my own life and in the experience of communities to which I have belonged, has also contributed major insights. [208]

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