I hope your are off to a great start this week. Thanks for taking a few moments to focus your mind and heart.
This subject has been at the forefront of my mind for several weeks in part because of my studies but also because I have had so many really good conversations about our
identity: namely what it is and how it works.
Merton's quote typifies the direction of this discussion especially among the writings and teachings of the mystics. Namely, that within us are to expressions of our identity/ self/ soul:
- One aspect is that perfect or ultimate self/soul that was perfectly created in God's wisdom in eternity past and that God is tirelessly, lovingly bringing back to him/herself.
- The other aspect is
the self/soul that is weak, fragile and entirely controlled by ego and distraction.
As always, I end up seeing things from a slightly different perspective.
Typically, the goal of spiritual work is the putting to death (mortification) of the false self, in order to let our authentic (real/ true) self rise out of the ashes. This is a deeply personal process that can take place in all religions, in counseling, through athletics,
education, through suffering, or beliefs or practices. The apostle Paul put it this way; "For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live." ~Romans 8:13
I agree with the trajectory of the concept, but I think the practice ends up confusing people who discover that the
false self doesn't actually die. This necessitates a cognitive split between our reality and our
intelligence and this can make us weird or obsessive or hyper-critical.
I actually think we need to think of our identity/self/soul as BOTH externally defined and internally defined. By integrating the two aspects of our identity, we actually move into greater conformity to authenticity than we do if we sequester ourselves in either camp.
For example:
- If you define yourself as a "Spiritual" or
"religious" person, you will go to great lengths to diminish the one side while you strive to develop the other. Your model is: RIGHT-DOING + SPIRITUAL = BEING
- If you don't define yourself as spiritual and you tend to minimize spiritual practice then your being is assumed. Your model is: LIVING = BEING
BUT what if
mortification really means to "Re-Train"? If so, then amputating aspects of our identity can be replaced with the right-function of those aspects of our identity. Then we don't need to vilify the false-self, we can correctly define it as those aspects that are externally defined.
The model would be:
LIVING + SPIRITUALLY RE-TRAINED MOTIVES =
BEING
- It's not that we are more authentic without ego. It's that we are more authentic when ego is spiritually retrained.
- We are not more authentic when we abandon or despise aspects of our humanity, we are more authentic when those aspects are spiritually re-trained and germinate into better humanity.
The externally-defined self is always falling on its face. If our goal is to integrate that aspect of our
identity rather than eradicate this aspect, then the falling will never be a derailment to authenticity, but the only path to it.
Thus there is a sense in which those former aspects of our identity/self/soul can never really exist. Like a face of a newborn, we recognize it's there, but it can never really last. Thus identity is in FLUX not FIXED.
The implications of this are amazing. We will explore them in the next two
weeks.
Have a great week.
