To create a world of inner and outer sanity, a world free of the limitations and consequences of the mentally fabricated personal self, we must return home to our true self. In the words of the poet Derek Walcott:
“The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror. And each will smile at the other's welcome, and say sit here, eat. You will love again the stranger who was yourself.”
And we may add, is yourself. Although obscured by the ramblings and diversions of our ordinary mind, our natural essence is ever present. When the clouds of mental activity cease there it is, revealed as it has always been. We return home to who and what we have always been, a homecoming! Our vision of the possible human.
Why is it so difficult to see through to the core truth of our life, to the essence of who we are and have always been? Stated simply: We have forgotten who we are and deeply believe in who we are not. What happens when we follow a false and limiting vision of self? What happens when we lose touch with the center of our being?
We search endlessly for what we have forgotten, mistakenly looking outward towards materialism, ambition, success, relationships, drugs, entertainment, and even relaxation-based meditation practices for our natural self that has long been obscured and forgotten. We look and look and look to outer experiences invariably suffering disappointment, frustration, and loss.
However, if we look closely and listen carefully, we recognize a subtle persistent ache that breaks through, an insistent longing, a sense that we have missed life, a sense that there is more. A poignant and critical reminder from our depths.
The Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung said it well when speaking of the root source of alcoholism, as an example of this misdirected outer search – “(The) craving for alcohol (is) an equivalent on a low level of the spiritual search of our being for wholeness expressed in medieval language: the union with God. … The only right and legitimate way to such an experience is that it happens to you in reality and can only happen when you walk on a path that leads you to higher understanding.” And that walk is a spiritual walk, an inner walk. That walk is the second and traditional vision of contemplative practice.
What happens when we wake-up to the essence of our being? We progressively discover that we are not the self-cherishing, disconnected personal self that we believe we are. We are then free and primed to begin our journey home by growing and developing our psychological self into its healthiest version – loving, kind, generous, virtuous, wise, patient, and non-judgmental. Yet our growing does not stop there. As we upgrade our personal self, we discover the subtle remnants of self-centeredness and disconnection cannot be completely overcome only through self-improvement strategies.
Simultaneously, we begin to touch deeper and beyond, revealing and recognizing our true and foundational self. Progressively, we shift the center of being from our psychological self to our natural self, to our spiritual self. And, our life takes an irreversible turn.
As we awaken to our natural state of being, many of the futile and exhausting efforts of daily life begin to drop away. We increasingly live from our essential self. It makes no difference what our actual calling or work is. If we live from the center of our being, our work will be healing work, our relationships marked by otherness, our presence will be love. The ancient Greeks called this the good the true and the beautiful. They knew the preciousness and possibilities of human life.
Our vision, we find, is not new. It is the shared vision of humanity expressed in different ways in varying cultures. Christian faith there is a double movement - the movement towards the divine state of being, the true self, and the subsequent return to green the world through agape, through selfless service. In the Hindu tradition Aurobindo referred to these movements as the ascent and descent. Campbell in his Hero’s Journey referred to this universal movements as the apotheosis and return. The ancient Greeks called it the hierosgamos, the sacred marriage. Here we call it a homecoming – the modern term for the second aim of meditation.
The words of the poet, T.S. Eliot, speak to that homecoming:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
And that is our vision