Assuming that the goal of spiritual life is wholeness (see yesterday’s DM), it remains to be seen how such a goal can be obtained. Looking back at my life, I realize that for many years I was convinced that wholeness was not for me. I was not an apologist of brokenness either — I was always puzzled by those who were — and I supported the notion that the function of the divine in human life is one of healing and making whole rather than judging and condemning. Yet a small inner voice was insistently telling me that aspiring to wholeness was inadequate, perhaps a sign of hubris, most likely an impossible task.
I had internalized the Augustinian notion of original sin to a very deep level. Augustine himself was not happy to tell people that something in them was irremediably broken, or that they were hosting a “wound” which could be healed by God’s grace for sure, but never completely, at least in this life. He felt that he was telling the sad truth, that he was warning people against the risk of “ego inflation” — as we would say today in Jungian terms.
But Jung distinguishes very clearly between “ego inflation,” which is a mere fantasy by which one thinks to have achieved some kind of grand status, versus the actual integration of all parts of oneself into a coherent whole, which he calls “individuation” or aligning with the Self.
What Augustine actually achieved, unbeknownst to him, was to influence a long line of European intellectuals, which at least until the 12th century — and for many centuries more in many cases — remained convinced that each human soul is already stained at the time of birth. A depressing cloud that contributed to increasing the power of the Church over individual consciences and stunted most processes of true healing and wholeness. Western mystics were able at times to circumvent the power of the Augustinian original sin, but it took truly brave souls to confront such a theological monster, if not in academia, at least in their lived experience.
The point being that wholeness is possible in this very life. One knows when one touches it: though it does not look like perfection in the common sense of the term, it is very different from boasting or ego inflation, and it is not the same for each person. On the contrary, it is utterly individual for each person, and it can be achieved only through a sustained process assisted at each turn by determination and effort.
At one point, I met a sentence by Evagrius Ponticus which opened my eyes: If a man wishes to prepare a fragrant perfume, he must make a mixture of pure incense, of cinnamon, of onyx-stone, and of myrrh in equal parts as the law prescribes. This mixture is the fourfold number of the virtues. If they are found in full strength and in due proportion, then the spirit will not be betrayed.
Again, the fourfold archetype, which I could already see in Fox’s Creation Spirituality, and later I was going to discover in Jung. That was curious and intriguing to me. Stunning instead was the sheer force of this sentence, placed at the very beginning of a treatise on prayer. Did I wish to prepare a fragrant perfume with my life, or was I content to live in imbalance and need, as my formation in Augustinian spirituality taught me?
Was I going to keep thinking of God’s grace as my welcomed help through my continual and repeated falls — incessantly mirroring the first sin of Adam — or was I prepared to accept that God’s grace heals really and permanently? Of course, not all at once, but also not in the very provisional way I was previously picturing for myself?
The next sentence in Evagrius’ treatise on prayer is even stronger: The soul that is purified by the plenitude of virtues renders the spirit unshakable in its balance and makes it capable of possessing the state for which it longs.
Augustine also talks at length about longing, but never in his works does one get the impression that the object of one’s longing can be attained. This also launched a very prolific strand in Western literature, which now I find very problematic from the spiritual and psychological point of view.
Evagrius instead seemed sure that one can achieve wholeness. In fact, as I discovered, his whole theological system is practical rather than theoretical, and it is based on the idea that one can experience God — the theologian is a mystic. While the goal of union with the divine is attainable in this life and is equivalent to the perfect balance of the soul — which he called apatheia — the itinerary in life can be windy and, most especially, does not even start until one puts oneself totally in service of it.
The Evagrian vision of wholeness is not cheap, nor does it make cheap the precious grace of God. It is simply not wimpy. It means risking everything. Moreover, and most importantly, Evagrius makes it clear that his proposed itinerary is not an ego-trip: This apatheia has a child called agape who keeps the door to deep knowledge of the created universe. In other words, compassion is the proof in the pudding.
Quotes from Evagrius, Treatise on Prayer, ch.1 and ch.2; and Evagrius, Letter to Anatolius, from The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer, Introduction.
Banner Image: “Enlightenment.” Photo by Binny VA on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
What attitude do you take with regard to achieving wholeness in your life?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance
Meditations with Meister Eckhart: A Centering Book
Meditations with Julian of Norwich
A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality & The Transformation of Christianity
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths
Prayer: A Radical Response to Life
5 thoughts on “Determination and Effort”
Loved the Kim Nataraja.
Faithful openness to the Flow/Spirit of Divine Love~Wisdom~Creativity… Sacredly Present within and among Us in All of ongoing evolving Beautiful Co-Creation~Cosmos, including the subtle nonphysical spiritual realms/beings, in Our Eternal Loving Diverse Oneness….
Augustine became a “Neoplatonic” Mystic just before he learned about Christianity, and he melded the two strands, as best he could, because he recognized that Jesus had done so.
Some of Augustine’s theological Mystical work was condemned by the Catholic Church long after he issued it — particularly the parts where he talked about “becoming One”…
Oh, Completezza
sei tu un verso
un sorso di morte
un a capo d’estasi
che ripete la Poiesis.
David Haskell writes and speaks of our soul’s habitat where we thrive become our communities where we make walls into tables and meet in biodiversity He suggests being more interested in stories about flowers and trees the more than human world.