THINK! - 3 - Footprints in the Sand - Archives
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- Written by Marian Moore
KRYSAN
THE WELLBEING CONSULTANCY
T H I N K (!)
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SOCRATES
“He is nearest to God who needs the fewest things.”
FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND
by
MARIAN MOORE
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Leona Lewis - Footprints In The Sand
'It is better to light the smallest light than to moan about the general darkness.'
Confucius
I'd better explain.
I awoke this morning with a plan. I would (after breakfast) start my search for answers to three deep philosophical questions. How, on waking up, do we know that we're not asleep? How do we know that we're not simply dreaming that we're awake? And, how do we know that everything around (including ourselves) is not an illusion, a trick played by some malevolent sprite? From this high vantage point, I would explore the work of Rene Descartes, the famous seventeenth-century philosopher who doubted absolutely everything, but eventually arrived at the realisation that he could doubt everything but the fact that he was doubting. I would accompany my new friend Descartes as he inched towards the conclusion that if you can think, you must exist. Finally, I would ask my unseen Internet audience (you) the question, 'Who amongst us is not aware of the Descartes' legacy, 'I think, therefore I am'?'
Q.E.D.
I've now had my brief (very brief) morning workout around existence and consciousness. But, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men ... This morning a received another new book - Green Spirit - which was to send me off in a different direction, one with more immediate relevancy to the Krysan enterprise. The book had fallen open to reveal a page explaining the four paths to Creation Spirituality. Curious, I read on to learn that these four paths were set out in a book called Original Blessings by Matthew Fox. I also learned that the poet William Blake said, 'The eye altering, alters all'. This is what the four paths do: they enable us to see through 'different eyes' on the subject of 'the emerging consciousness of an evolving universe'. These 'enabling paths are intended as insights of understanding on becoming part of the Earth community and are:
The second path (The Via Negativa) was introduced as the most radical of the four in that it takes an alternative route towards understanding and embracing the 'paradox of good and evil'. In relation to the 'dark night of the soul', which I have spoken of elsewhere, think on these words by T. S. Eliot,
I said to my soul - be still / and let the dark come upon you / which shall be the darkness of God.
Wise words, indeed. Starting from the wider awareness that the wholeness within which we have our being contains and reconciles all opposites, this second path - the negative way - calls us to enter into the pain and the tragedy of existence. We are asked that, 'Instead of denying the pain and sorrow, we allow ourselves to feel and experience it; instead of conquering the darkness by will-power or stoicism, we acknowledge it, living with it and through it'. We are then told that, culturally, our way of dealing with the darker side of existence follows the path that emerged in the eighteenth century during the period known as the 'Enlightenment'. It was at this time of radical change that we set ourselves to control and defeat Nature. One cannot but agree that most of our Western industrial, technological and materialistic society is a reflection of this attitude. But, as well as a devaluing of the Nature without, we in the West have long devalued our own human nature - the Nature within. As Carl Jung pointed out:
"The predominantly rationalistic European finds much that is human alien to him, and prides himself on this without realizing that his rationality is won at the expense of his vitality, and that the primitive part of his personality is consequently condemned to a more or less underground existence."
It is not the questioning of human spirit that is the issue here, but its direction of flow. If our cultural assumption is that we can defeat and overcome suffering, and overrule the basic expressions of emotion within ourselves, then an admission of these realities is seen as failure. The result of all this denial is the 'stiff upper lip' strength of will, the suppression of the natural expression of grief, and so on. Above all else, The Via Negativa is about 'letting go' of our desire to control and manipulate and to be 'in charge'. There is no doubt in my mind (and in the mind of Matthew Fox) that it is only possible to move beyond suffering by going through it. As Matthew Fox says, 'When the heart is broken, compassion can begin to flow'.
Significantly, we are reminded that the extent of our willingness to embrace and engage with the darkness is in direct proportion to our openness to the awe, wonder and delight of The Via Positive: 'Thou shalt fall in love three times a day', a concept just up my street and ripe for some close examination another day. I end by agreeing with Fox that the extent to which we deny the reality that wholeness includes 'both pain and joy, both light and dark', is the extent to which we diminish and undermine our own spiritual growth. Think on this little rhyme which I am certain you will easily recognise,
Man was made for joy and woe / And when this we rightly know / Through the world we safely go.
Here's something else to think about. There is little doubt that our human desire to avoid the 'dark and pain' has given rise to the pursuit of power over others. This has led to the devaluation and abuse of human by human. Before concluding, we also need to acknowledge the hidden potential within ourselves - of both light and dark - for it is only by accepting all that we are that we can ever become whole. And so, just as Descartes inched his way towards I think, therefore I am; and Blake inched his way towards The eye altering, alters all; in more recent times Matthew Fox inched his way towards The Via Negativa - embracing the dark and letting pain be pain.
However, everything comes at a price. Today's discussion has not had the appeal to wit and humour of last session's Breakfast with Socrates, but - despite all - it has had some great relevance for me and maybe for you also. In matters of the soul, as in much else, it is better to light the smallest light than moan about the general darkness. Agreed? I urge you to buy the brand new book, Green Spirit. I can guarantee the writings contained therein will make you think, not least about the Socratean quote from whence we started,
'He is nearest to God who needs the fewest things.'
Join me next time
for a return to
THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
Jus' Like that - Tommy Cooper
Marian @ Krysan
REFERENCES
SMITH, ROBERT ROWLAND (2009), Breakfast with Socrates: The Philosophy of Everyday Life, London, pub. Profile Books.
VAN EYK McCAIN, MARIAN (ed.) (2010), Green Spirit: Path to a New Consciousness, pub. Winchester, UK., O Books.
RECOMMENDATION
Green Spirit. Never before have so many important ideas on these subjects been assembled between the covers of a single book. Robert Sheldrake, Ph.D., biologist and author of A New Science of Life.
T. S. ELLIOT ON
THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
"I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing." T. S Elliot
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