Seeing with an eye for initiation — embracing soul-centricity
Reflections from a life looking within
Deep inner work is no quick fix, rather a slow return to Self
We live a life in three chapters: the kingdom is abundant (we are someone); the kingdom falls into ruin through some calamity (we are nothing); and finally, the kingdom is restored and our whole world is seen differently (we are everything). We have to be crucified before we are resurrected. Suffering is simply part of the equation, the breaking of the shell that contains our being lifts the veil that separates us from the whole.
I like meeting a soul that’s like mine…that’s not vanity but the relief of recognition, the joy of kinship, and the blessing of being instantaneously known and seen, and watching the seeds of deep friendship unfold, an eternal flower, in this thing called time…. the late John O’Donohue, author of Anam Cara, says it like this: ‘That which is ancient between you, will mind you, shelter you and hold you together…each comes in out of the loneliness of exile, home to the one house of belonging.’
It is in love that we confuse the finite with the infinite, expect heaven on earth, ascend like Icarus only to burn and fall and make cosmic connections that often end in a dread thud. What is up with romance? Very simply, we have mixed elements that barely belong together in a cocktail that breeds unhappiness. As the Jungian Robert Johnson points out, friendship — the true ground of love — is not in romance’s province. In fact, they are diametrically opposed. And yet in the seeds of our longing for a transcendent love there is a pathway to the infinite and the deeper desires that still lie dormant in the collective unconscious of western culture. Despite the pain and suffering so many of us endure in the name of love, our evolution lies entirely bound up with our desire for something finer.
It is one of the great ironies that psychology, which originally meant study of the soul, does not attend any more to the part of us that it names as needing healing. The soul is missing from modern therapy and we continue looking in the wrong place with a limited view and we fail through a lack of vision that is not our own but a culture’s that has ditched meaning for meaninglessness, replacing soul with sound bites.
‘Each man’s soul demands that he be, and that he live, every great archetypal role in the collective unconscious: the betrayer and the betrayed, the lover and the beloved, the oppressor and the victim, the noble and the ignoble, the conqueror and the conquered, the warrior and the priest, the man of sorrows and the self reborn.’
Robert A Johnson
Just as an iceberg is mainly under water and a tree largely underground, it is good to remember that we too are often in the dark. Many people live on the surface of life thinking that is all there is, but real life begins when we actively plant our hands in the soil and dig deep into our own depths. Often it takes a sudden shock, a personal loss or calamity, but eventually we all have to face our own shadow.
I like to see with an eye for initiation that sees past the veils sensitive souls wear to sheave their subtleties against an insane world. The more adapted and effective a person’s mask, often the more special is what is hidden. It is designed to fool those who deserve fooling and keep them away from the injured place within. The soul on a mission won’t reveal itself to those too blind to see.
The soul has two conflicting desires: to move out into the manifest world of experience; and to return to its source, the clear sky that exists beyond and behind the dramas and complexities of this life. We could conceive this in other ways — spirit ascends, soul descends or, the conscious and unconscious drivers in opposition. This war within the Self is often exaggerated in therapy clients, often at a loss to understand their plight.
There is one surefire way to get happy quick smart — put yourself in service to a power greater than yourself. When life moves from ego centric to soul centric, happiness arises without effort.
The soul pulls us toward those people, places and things that best serve its evolutionary purpose. But here’s the rub: the gravitational pull is to our deepest security needs which are rooted in the past and when that is threatened by the prospect of transformation — which is what the soul desires — attraction turns to repulsion. In relationship, it translates as hating the very things in another one was first drawn to. Evolution means understanding and transcending the ego’s love for its own particular bondage.
These things long to fly free: the bird from the nest;the prisoner from his cell; the child from the home; and the spirit from the flesh.
© simon heathcote
