Spirit And Form

iUniverse, Inc.

Contents

Preface.......................................................xiI Alienation and Individuation................................1II Spirit and Form............................................7III Liberating the Spirit.....................................14IV Central and Peripheral Being...............................22V The Cultivation and Obscuration of Form.....................27VI Peripheral Being and Human Disorder........................39VII Consciousness and Unconsciousness.........................67VIII Psychological Sculpting..................................72IX The Spirit in the Seed.....................................88References....................................................101

Chapter One

A child's awe and wonder at life's simplicities carries the intimation that there is ultimately so much more, not less, to that which is the foundation or origin of these precious gifts. The finite somehow implies the Infinite, and reductionistic thinking is alien to the child's mind. Nothing is "just" this or "just" that, and the universe does not rest precariously on the head of a pin. It is grounded in Absolute Being, and the child seems to know this. The present moment is utterly replete in its splendor, and there is no thought of it being lost or diminished. The arctic wind of cynicism and negativity has yet to pierce the child's heart and mind, and she is joyously loved and sustained by all that surrounds her.

The age of innocence ends with the dawning of ego consciousness, as the child's awareness of self is gradually reduced to her physical organism and the spark of consciousness in her head. She is now but a speck of dust in an inestimably vast universe, one that she "encounters," as if the branch of a tree encounters the trunk from which it grows. The world that spawned her, that loves her as integral to itself, is divorced as the foundation of her being, and positioned in opposition to what remains of her. Far from being her very substratum, the universe is now hostile and wholly other, for in her state of nescience she cannot appreciate that as an ocean wave is a particular manifestation of the entire ocean, so it contains the entire ocean. Cosmologically speaking, she feels completely alone. Although a subjectively vivid reality, this feeling of aloneness is an illusion. As a physical being, the human organism is inextricable from that which it calls its environment. The act of breathing, for example, as the symbol and most fundamental aspect of human life, cannot be described without a description of the oxygen and carbon dioxide entering and leaving the lungs. And if we are to describe the oxygen, we must include a description of the plants and trees producing this oxygen, the soil in which they grow, the rain that fertilizes the soil, the clouds that contain the rain, and the heavens that contain the clouds. In short, to render a comprehensive scientific description of a particular organism, one must include a description of the surface tension of a bubble in the Amazon River, and the gaseous pressure of some star light-years away. Naturally, this is completely impractical, so it is agreed that the description of the human organism will end with the epidermis. The problem is not with the convention, but with the almost inevitable tendency to forget that it is a convention - to take it seriously.

As psychological beings we thus see ourselves as sparks of consciousness residing in our heads, looking out at the world around us. Yet since consciousness does not occupy space, and is therefore spaceless and sizeless, it cannot be positioned at any particular point in space. We cannot say that consciousness is any more in our heads than that it is "out there" in the field of objects, for when we speak of spacelessness, terms such as "in," "out," and "around" no longer apply. The object in my field of view is indeed in or of my consciousness, but where is my consciousness? Phenomenologically, the tree in front of my house is in front of my house, yet as the result of electromagnetic activity transforming into the neurochemical activity of the sense organs and brain, it is also a state of my brain and nervous system. Moreover, mind, to a large degree, is socially constituted. The act of thinking is fundamentally the internalization of dialectical and didactic relationships with others, and our very concept and sense of self are predominantly configured by the self-reflections from our interactions with these others. From the standpoint of the physical and social sciences, we are alone neither in the universe nor in our skins.

Coming of age with the profound anxiety of existential alienation, the individual looks to allay this dread. In some instances she avoids it, losing herself in endless stimulation and distraction. In other instances she attempts to bolster herself against it by questing for power, status, and wealth, or zealously adopting some idea, principle, symbol, or cause that is transcendent, fixed, and permanent. The transcendent and permanent object par excellence is, of course, God, and the pious seek affinity with him. Yet how does one get "closer" to God when, because of his infinite status, one can never be away from him? Only finite objects can be proximal or distal in relation to oneself, and to think that one can approach or pull away from God is to deny him his infinity and set him at a distance, as just another finite object of knowledge. The attempt to get closer to God is not only impossible and unnecessary, but reinforces the very experience of separateness that generates this need for cultivated propinquity.

What, then, is one to do? What can one do? It seems that the only option is to accept oneself as is. Ultimately, this is a profound truth, but it can be misleading if our terms are imprecise. If by "as is" we mean a current and chronic state of internal impoverishment and situational unhappiness, such acceptance would be little more than an act of passive acquiescence to substandard conditions. The very spirit of life is extinguished in this equation. If accepting oneself "as is" means acknowledging and embracing one's true nature or authentic self, we then hold the remedy for existential alienation in the form of spiritual liberation. The spiritual life, in this regard, is not man in his experience of finitude questing for infinitude, but man realizing his infinitude in the act of accepting his finitude. The very intimation of something greater than ourselves is our awareness of ourselves as the Infinite manifesting itself as the finite.

To accept one's finitude is to delve into the heart of individuality, and it is here that spirituality and psychology meet. So much has been written in the area of psychology and religion that one can easily get lost in its expansive body of terms, concepts, theories, and analogical models. In the spirit of William of Occam we seek the elegance of simplicity, to penetrate to the heart of the matter. We fear that if we do not discuss religious or spiritual ideas in supernatural terms, they will necessarily be reduced to naturalistic terms, and we will become pantheists. The general purview of spirituality must include such things as angels and spirits of the dead, afterlife and reincarnation, visions and...