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Troubadour
Press
Lou Marinoff opens Chapter 10, "Are You A Spiritual Being?," of his book Therapy for the Sane with two quotations: one by the great Romantic Transcendentalist poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson; and one by the great 20th century Physicist, Albert Einstein. Given the title of the Chapter, a quote from Emerson comes as no surprise. On the other hand, we think of the life and genius of Einstein as the ultimate confirmation of the authority modern man bestows on reason and science. Yet Einstein points clearly to the fact that it is the spiritual component of our nature that is the source of our vision and creativity, and as such intimates the need to acknowledge, cultivate, integrate and engage this aspect of our human nature if we are to be complete, if we are to comprehend the mechanisms that drive life and purposefulness.
ARE YOU A SPIRITUAL
BEING?
Take a concrete example: obesity. America and the developed world are witnessing an obesity epidemic. Too many American adults and children, from diverse cultures and many ethnic backgrounds, are grotesquely overweight. This is partly because they lack good dietary habits. So they consume fast food and junk food, as well as bovine growth hormones (thanks to the dairy industry), all of which contribute to obesity. They also watch too much TV and get too little exercise. But there's something else going on here: I believe that many such people are starving spiritually, and are trying to satisfy their spiritual appetites with food. Of course it doesn't work; in fact, it backfires. People who are fulfilled in life eat less and better food on average, not more and worse; whereas people with unexamined diseases are trying to fill a spiritual void with cheeseburgers and fries. John Lennon once sang, "Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall" - meaning an infinite number. You can say the same about obesity, in an opposite way: It takes an infinite number of Big Macs to fill a spiritual void. Take another concrete example: cigarette smoking. People smoke cigarettes for many possible reasons. The standard ones include addiction to nicotine, enjoyment of the addiction, habituation, diversion for the hands and mouth, oral gratification, amusement with the smoke, and peer pressure. Additionally, people used to smoke because of direct and indirect advertising: The Marlboro man was "cool," and everyone's favorite movie stars used to chain-smoke their way through feature films. Even though smokers can kick the nicotine addiction (which disappears after a few days), find other enjoyments, acquire better habits, redivert their hands and mouths, discover alternative gratifications and amusements, and resist peer pressure, many still can't quit smoking. Why not? Maybe there's another reason why people smoke, which is not on the above list so isn't being overtly addressed. At bottom, it's a spiritual reason. People smoke cigarettes in order to sense their breath. When you inhale through a cigarette, you really feel the smoke (and therefore the breath) entering your airways and lungs; when you exhale, you can both feel and see the smoke (and therefore the breath) exiting your lungs and airways. Breathing is the basic fact of your life: It's the first thing you started doing when you were born, and drawing your last breath will be your final act in this life. The breath and the spirit are intimately related. By learning to breathe correctly, you bring your body and mind under control. Then, and only then, can your spiritual energy manifest fully. So people are right to want to feel their breathing, but need to learn helpful rather than harmful ways of doing so. You can't fill a spiritual void with smoke any more than with cheeseburgers. Obesity and smoking
are just two examples of pervasive and serious problems that prove quite
resistant to conventional treatments. Perhaps that's because they -
among many other issues - are rooted in nonmaterial domains. If so,
then they need spiritual remedies. Needless to say, even if you're already
eating healthfully and breathing properly, there's always room for spiritual
progress.
While Freud's basic
premise is right at home with our runaway diagnose-and-drug approach
to dis-ease, Jung's insights support a more holistic interpretation
of life's challenges. Jung saw each of us as a pilgrim on a personalized
spiritual quest. In his view, life is a miraculous journey filled with
surprises and challenges, brimming with joys and sorrows, teeming with
thoughts, feelings, and experiences that bring both ease and dis-ease
alike. But we are mistaken to treat life's intermittent dis-eases as
symptoms of disease. When we are doing the thing we are made to do -
when we are pursuing our quest - we endeavor to attain unity and harmony
among the competing forces of mythos (mythology), logos (reason), cosmos
(order), and chaos (disorder), forces which otherwise push and pull
the human being in many different directions. The unifier and harmonizer
of this quartet - in other words, its conductor - is spirit.
Kevin's first philosophical lesson, however, was to understand the pitfalls of hedonism, which was the philosophy he had lived by for some time without being aware that he was doing so. A hedonist is essentially a pleasure seeker who values the attainment of pleasure above all else. Hedonists face at least three big problems. First, they choose immediate pleasures of the senses over deferred pleasures of longer-term (and longer-lasting) goals attained by discipline, effort, and patience. Why is that a problem? Because instantaneous gratification is always short-lived; thus hedonists are constantly hungry for more. This leads to the second problem: Not only are their appetites insatiable, but they also need increasing amounts of gratification just to maintain their customary levels of dissatisfaction. Initially Kevin wanted one drink, one fix, and one girl; soon he wanted two of each; eventually, three or more. Hedonism's appetite is never satisfied, but its cumulative effects on the body, mind, and spirit are truly debilitating and destructive. And that's the third problem: A hedonist's craving for immediate gratification may gradually kill him. This is ironic but true. So as Kevin got rid of his bad habits and the philosophy of life that had sustained them, he also confronted a void: the gap between his past existence as a rock star and his future existence as something else, whose precise identity was currently unknown to him. This is Nietzsche's abyss again, and the temporary despair it brings is actually a passport to spiritual growth and enduring satisfaction. Note that this is the opposite of hedonism's temporary gratification, which was Kevin's passport to spiritual decay and enduring dissatisfaction. So Kevin could see the merits of this viewpoint, even though he still felt despair. Existentialism became a more wholesome substitute for his hedonism, and helped Kevin get through the period of withdrawal and transition. Kevin described
his recovery process as akin to climbing an uncharted mountain. Sometimes
the route was easy, at other times arduous, at the worst times impassible.
Then he had to retrace his steps and find a better way. But he had a
philosophical counselor as a climbing companion, and she helped him
discover something else as well. In effect, Kevin was undergoing a spiritual
journey, from one kind of life to another. Drastic changes like this
are not deaths, rather rebirths. They represent the progress of the
human spirit as it discards older and more destructive habits of living
and thinking and replaces them with newer and more constructive ones.
Spirit plays a major part in organized religions - as it should. But it is also possible (and sometimes desirable) to grow spiritually without belonging to a particular religious group. That is the preferred method for some, for if religion becomes too dogmatic, which is a risk inherent in all doctrinal teaching, followers may lose their capacity to exercise doubt, and may find their spiritual growth actually stifled. You can be religiously observant without being spiritual, and following rituals as mere rote behavior may even impoverish your spirit. On the other hand, spiritual practice enriches life, whether or not you are religious. Each of the world's
great religions has an esoteric (or inner and often guarded) set of
teachings that involve practices beyond communal rules, rituals, liturgy,
and prayer, and that are intended for spiritual growth. Such teachings
are often labeled "mysticism." The teachers themselves - be
they Taoist sages, Hindu Brahmanas, Jewish cabalists, Christian gnostics,
Moslem Sufis, Buddhist bodhisattvas, or eclectic gurus - are committed
to the individual's spiritual awakening as opposed to the group's conformist
worship. The spiritual path always develops one's inner capacity to
explore and exalt the mysteries of the universe, in the name of love
and beneficence. The spiritual path never leads to destroying oneself
and others in violent, futile, and harmful conflagrations of hatred
and suicidal ill will. Dis-ease is one of the basic ingredients in every
esoteric stew, which when properly cooked renders it into ease. Dis-ease
is a friend, not an enemy, for it opens our minds, hearts, and souls
to experiences of spiritual life, obliging us to refine our animalistic
aspects and humanize our mechanistic ones. I will very briefly summarize
some mystical traditions for you. I will also suggest some further readings
you can pursue if you are interested. Reading great books can change
your life for the better: This is "bibliotherapy."
The greatest encapsulation of Hindu spiritual philosophy, and inducement to its practice, namely the Bhagavad Gita, begins with the utter despondency of the student Arjuna, who is also a mighty warrior. Yet Arjuna's martial prowess is like a straw in the wind compared with the cosmic spiritual forces he must now begin to understand, as patiently and methodically revealed by Krishna. Arjuna's dis-ease makes him question the meaning of life and death, which unlocks a gate to the spiritual practices of the Forest Sages. His despondency was the key to his salvation. Your despondency might be the key to yours, too. To find out, read the Bhagavad Gita. Many practices of Jewish mysticism (cabala) are premised squarely on something even worse than despondency: namely, disaster. Forces beyond our control may at any instant wreak havoc on our lives, dealing death and destruction in their wake. Look at the Book of Job. Look at September 11, 2001. It follows that every moment in which disaster does not occur is actually a precious gift, which should be celebrated by maximizing one's love of life itself. This celebration, the heart of cabala, is a spiritual practice. As Rabbi David Cooper says, we are swimming in "an unrealized sea of miracles." Your mission is one of realization. You fulfill it spiritually. If you like to accomplish missions, why not investigate the cabala? You can start with Cooper's God Is a Verb. Christian mysticism evolved both within the Roman church and outside it - the latter thanks to the church's ancient ban on gnosticism. Interestingly, religious orders within the church are currently importing other traditions to reinspire their own faith, exemplified by Roshi Robert Kennedy, SJ, and his gift of Zen Buddhism to Roman Catholic monastic and lay communities. The gnostics, however, emulated esoteric teachings of other religions from the outset. They see this world as imperfect at best, and a hell at worst. Their way beyond dis-ease lies in the evolution of human consciousness: a progression from materialism and enslavement of the senses to ethical awareness, to the spiritual liberation of gnosis. The gnostic scholar G. Quispel writes: "The world-spirit in exile must go through the Inferno of matter and the Purgatory of morals to arrive at the spiritual Paradise." If you feel like a spirit in exile, why not study some gnostic texts? An early and anonymous pre-gnostic wrote one of my favorite works of Christian mysticism: The Cloud of Unknowing. Islamic mysticism, or Sufism, is congruent with Taoist, Hindu, Jewish, and Christian spiritual ideals and practices. The most recently evolved of major mystical traditions, Sufism incorporates elements from all its predecessors. Like the Taoists, Sufis value emptiness. Like the Hindu Forest Sages, Sufis dwell apart from the herd. Like the cabalists, Sufis exultantly celebrate life. Like the gnostics, Sufis reject official dogmas and seek higher truths. And like all of them, Sufis acknowledge the transformative potential of dis-ease. Here, for example, is Rumi's advice on the matter: "These pains that you feel are messengers. Listen to them. Turn them to sweetness." How? By making sweet music with them. Dis-ease can sometimes feel like emptiness. But, as all mystics know, emptiness is supremely useful and beautiful: "We are lutes, no more, no less. If the sound-box is stuffed full of anything, no music." Only by emptying yourself of the mundane can you be filled with the divine, and become its instrument. To find out more, read Rumi and other Sufis.
Buddhist traditions
are originally both nonmystical and nondenominational in their origins,
which is why they attract seekers from every religion. The generic goal
of Buddhism is the attainment of an awareness unfettered by cravings,
attachments, desires and other intoxicants of consciousness. Some Buddhists
believe there is a soul that gets reincarnated; others believe in no
soul at all. Either way, their practices are spiritual because they
tap dormant human resources, elevate awareness of the true causes of
suffering, and awaken compassion toward other sentient beings. All that
is required is an exercise of one's humanity in its simplest yet most
powerful and benevolent manifestation: sitting still for a while. That
is enough to reveal the human spirit. "Buddha-nature," the
noblest and most egoless essence of one's humanity, is neither an emotion
nor an idea, neither a soul nor a non-soul. Its realization, for lack
of a better word, is spiritual. And just as with the mystical schools
reviewed above, dis-ease facilitates one's introduction to Buddhist
theory and practice. Suffering can be a guide to a better destination.
George Gurdjieff and Peter Ouspensky explored our spiritual dimension in a similar vein, and wrote eloquently about their discoveries. They mapped out a dimension of consciousness removed from emotional and intellectual dis-ease, in which one bathes in a radiance of ease. But again we encounter the same theme: Spiritual progress always requires external pressures, as does the transformation of coal into diamond. If you gravitate toward integrative, eclectic, or individualistic approaches to spiritual quests, then follow the paths of Blavatsky, Gurdjieff, and Ouspensky. Their writings are also guides. Remember, I am telling
you all this for an important reason. To reiterate: Most clients who
come to philosophers, or any other kind of counselor, are caught up
or bogged down in the particulars of their situations. This is only
natural. But if you and your counselor focus on your particulars alone,
your net may only tighten, or your bog may only deepen. If you think
you are in some kind of spiritual crisis, then the best overall help
comes not only from examining your own circumstances, but also from
investigating the journeys of others who found themselves in similar
or parallel situations to yours. Gurdjieff, for one, had a remarkable
life, and wrote about it in a very accessible way. He may not be exactly
your cup of tea, but if you survey the "mystical" literature
you will eventually find someone whose situation resembles your own,
and whose path you might like to ponder for a while. The world is full
of guides, and nowadays full of guide books too. This wasn't so a century
ago, as we'll see in the case of R. M. Bucke.
NEW ENGLAND TRANSCENDENTALISM There are no greater guides to modern spiritual life than the New England transcendentalists. They created a remarkable philosophical community in and around Concord, Massachusetts, around the same time the theosophists were emerging in Europe. A nucleus of exceptionally open-minded, reflective, intuitive, and benevolent philosophical beings, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, began a movement in American idealistic philosophy whose potential has not yet been fully realized, though their individual and collective influence continues to be felt. The common threads of their work include an egalitarian love of humanity, an assertion of the basic rights and dignity of human beings, a reverence for nature, a celebration of life, a profound gratitude for the gifts of life, a belief in the purpose of being alive, and a childlike sense of enchantment with the world. Shortly before Thoreau died, his aunt Louisa asked him if he had made his peace with God. He answered, "I did not know we had ever quarreled, Aunt." The best guides
to life's complexities are the simplest. The spiritual life conducts
the music of the soul as it is truly meant to be heard. Being grounded
purely in the intellect or solely in the emotions, or focused on materialism
or hedonism, or blinded by dogmatic prejudices, stifles or distorts
the soul's music and makes it sound harsh, jarring, and discordant.
But by appreciating the finer aspects of nature and by living in accord
with them, we also learn to appreciate the finer aspects of our humanity,
and learn to live in accord with them as well.
Ben mentioned that a few of his colleagues were having some moderate success by really "digging and scratching," as he called it. He admitted that he could do that himself but didn't really want to: "Damn it, I worked too hard to get where I am to go back down to that level." Ben was suffering at the hands of "hope," which is sometimes a temptation from Pandora's box - left there to trick us into believing in a future we cannot always control. Ben was passively hoping things would get better, instead of mustering his spiritual fortitude in the face of difficult challenge. In Wandering in Eden, Michael Adams wrote: "Bent by the years so that he knows he must soon die, he bends further to plant acorns and apple seeds." When we cannot resist or alter a given situation, we need to discover what can be done not merely to acquiesce in it, but to transform ourselves to make the best of it. So perhaps Ben was
facing a golden opportunity to affirm himself in the face of this negation,
as philosopher Paul Tillich would phrase it. Ben may never have a better
chance to experience the depth and capacity of his spirit. He was being
asked to transcend his circumstances; that is, to negate his apathy
and preserve his determination to succeed.
In essence, Ben
had become a New England transcendentalist. He was reinventing himself
by mobilizing his inner resources, in the spirit of Thoreau. And he
was helping himself by helping others through public educational service,
in the spirit of Emerson.
PLAYING WITH SPIRIT If you're still skeptical of or exasperated by all this abstract discussion of "spirit," let's take a more concrete approach. A venerable Chinese master taught that to practice any art effectively, you must understand it at three different levels: the technical (or physical), the ideational (or mental), and finally the integral (spiritual). Even though they overlap, these levels of understanding are usually consecutive; that is, you must first make substantial progress at one level to start making headway at the next. Let's take music as an example. To make music on your instrument, you first need to learn some techniques: how to hold the instrument, then how to play notes and scales on it, and so forth. These techniques are necessary, but hardly sufficient, to make music. Once you have acquired some basic techniques, you can go to the second step, which is to learn some of the many ideas behind the techniques. You hold your instrument (and your body) in a certain way so as to able to breathe properly, and thus to execute techniques on the instrument itself (and eventually, to release music from your soul). Basic ideas behind the scale include development of attack, tone, coordination, and other playing tools. Compositional ideas include the expression of a melody, a harmony, a cadence. Dynamic ideas behind the scale include possibilities like crescendo or decrescendo, and many subtler nuances. All these ideas are necessary, but still not sufficient, to make music. What lies beyond technique and ideas? The spirit of the musical idiom itself. It doesn't matter whether you play bluegrass, country, folk, blues, rock, soul, gospel, jazz, classical, or any other idiom of music. Each idiom has its particular spirit, which is more than the notes and the ideas. The spirit of the music must be captured and reflected by the musician, or the music won't sound right. It is the player's spirit that allows him or her to integrate the idiom's spirit - to make the piece his own - and the player's talent that allows him or her to reflect that spirit in performance. Audiences possess musical spirit too: They are receivers of the gift, without whom there could be no performance at all. For the would-be musician, this whole process takes, on average, fifteen years of practice: five years to start mastering the techniques, then five more years to start mastering the ideas, then five more years to start integrating the spirit of the idiom. This is also true
of other arts, and sports. A tennis coach realized this same truth in
the context of his chosen sport. He said that it takes fifteen years
to build a player: five years to learn the strokes (technical level),
five years to learn how to use the strokes in the game (ideational level),
and five years to learn how to win (integral level). You need to feel
the spirit of the game so that you can make it your own: that is, find
your way to construct a point under pressure, or your way to break your
opponent's serve, or your way to serve out the match itself. Once in
a while, you will strike a ball as cleanly, and place it as perfectly,
as any tennis legend - without thinking about it consciously. Then you
have captured the spirit of the game. But when a zone seems entirely out of reach, you struggle. Technique breaks down, execution fails, plays don't work, players become dispirited - they've literally lost the spirit of the game. In his delightful classic Zen in the Art of Archery, Eugen Herrigel describes a zone as follows: "This state,
in which nothing definite is thought, planned, striven for, desired
or expected, which aims in no particular direction and yet knows itself
capable alike of the possible and the impossible, so unswerving is its
power - this state, which is at bottom purposeless and ego-less, was
called by the Master truly spiritual." Some assert that
the zone is empty, and the only way to inhabit it is to leave your self
behind. This is the teaching of Zen, as well as some other schools of
Buddhism, epitomized by the legendary master Basho: Instead, he did something unthinkable. He stayed where he was, with the imperfect instrument, and nodded to the conductor to restart the piece. Jack Reimer, a reporter for the Houston Chronicle who was in the audience, later wrote: "And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before. Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Yitzhak Perlman refused to know that . . . When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had done." Then Perlman said something profoundly philosophical to the audience, and as unforgettable as his performance: "You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left." And even if you are like the majority of us, who are not world-class musicians or athletes, Perlman's moral still applies. To what? To our very lives. Living well is an art form too, and requires all the mastery of music or sports - and then some. This is the great lesson that Jack Reimer and many others took away from that recital. In Reimer's words: "So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then, when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left." Yes! And this is
the function of your spirit: to make that music, even with no strings
Then, too, materialists believe that consciousness - as well as thought, memory, and understanding - is just an electrochemical state of the brain. Given consciousness, we can consciously assert that thought is just elaborate biology. But no one has explained the biological basis of being conscious, or thinking thoughts. Materialists also believe that spirit is a figment of the imagination (the brain again), and that spiritualism arises from a forlorn hope that there is more to the world, life, and consciousness than mere matter in motion. Yet other experts know that these materialistic views are beliefs, not explanations. How does something come from nothing? How do living organisms arise from dead matter? How is consciousness produced from brains? How are experiences of pure light, divine music, perfect love, boundless grace, and cosmic consciousness dismissed as wishful thinking, hallucinations, or figments of the imagination? It is equally possible that materialistic denials of the special significance of existence, life, mind, and spirit are themselves wishful thinking, hallucinations, or figments of the imagination. If you believe only
in the birth and death of the body, and in the waxing and waning of
the mind, then you're missing the opportunity of a lifetime: the fulfillment
of your spiritual quest. To those who persistently deny the spirit,
I offer Shakespeare's reminder that many things surpass our understanding
- but we should embrace them nonetheless.
SPIRIT OF AN
AGE In any case, and for reasons no one can truly fathom, it sometimes happens that a constellation of great talents is assembled during a given period, to memorialize its spirit and to inspire future generations. This happens not only with music, but with painting, sculpture, film, dance, architecture, literature, philosophy, mathematics, science - and even politics. When greatness of the human spirit is concentrated in this way, we call it a renaissance: a rebirth of spiritual power, manifested in art. If you can contribute
something to the spirit of your age, or perpetuate it by appreciating
the contributions of others, then you will have understood something
very special about the transcendent power of assembled great spirits.
Either way, you will have experienced something beyond space and time.
You will have caught a glimpse of immortality. "growth." Arranging matter so as to evoke spiritual harmony is what creative people constantly strive to accomplish, whether they are orchestrating symphonies, designing buildings, planting gardens, or redecorating homes. This idea has lately become popularized through the Chinese art of Feng Shui, but it has been known throughout the East for a very long time. The Japanese, for instance, have celebrated it through flower arrangement, the tea ceremony, and the Zen garden. The Tibetans use the word "drala," which literally means "beyond the enemy," but which really signifies the ordinary magic constantly accessible in everyday life. Accessible, that is, to those who know how to invoke it by arranging matter so as to harmonize spirit. "The enemy" in this case is any arrangement of matter that represents aggressive spiritual discord, which in turn drives away drala. Forests are full of drala, whereas landfills are not. If you attract drala, you will derive profound delight from the simplest things, as children do. If you repel drala, you will derive profound misery from endless complications, as far too many adults do. If you want to attract drala, then keep a clean and orderly house. When you have drala as a houseguest, good things will happen. If you want to repel drala, keep a filthy and squalid house. When drala moves out, bad things will happen. Don't believe me or the Tibetans? Think this is a fairy tale to induce children to tidy their rooms and make their beds? (Of course it works for that as well.) Then conduct the experiment and find out for yourself. This is independent of the kind of home you inhabit - whether it's a mansion in Beverly Hills, a walk-up in the Bronx, a trailer in an RV park, a cabin in the woods, a tent in the desert, or Mersenne's cell in Paris. What matters is the orderliness and harmoniousness of your environment. This idea also appears in Judeo-Christian cultures, where most people have at least heard the homily "Cleanliness is next to Godliness." If entire neighborhoods are maintained like garbage dumps, with no regard for cleanliness and order, drala departs and social behaviors become unsavory and disorderly. New York City, famous for excesses of every kind, cleaned up its worst subway crime and street crime rates in decades by repairing broken windows, eradicating graffiti, and removing garbage without delay. New York City didn't expel its criminals; it attracted drala instead. I'll wager City Hall didn't know it had unwittingly applied a precept of Tibetan criminology. A philosophical practitioner might have suggested it to them, of course, and a lot sooner. If you want to learn
more about ordinary magic and drala, read Chogyam Trungpa's Shambhala.
This late, great Tibetan teacher explains these things with clarity
and in depth.
Vitalism takes its
name from what Henri Bergson called the "elan vital" (vital
spirit) - the life force that inhabits certain arrangements of matter,
making living and nonliving beings fundamentally different. To vitalists,
it's clear that to be alive means to incorporate a vital spirit with
the body; to die means to disincorporate the vital spirit from the body.
This spiritual view appealed to many scientists and other observers
of life who were not, a century ago, automatically materialists. I am
telling you this because the last three cases in this chapter touch
on the idea of vital spirit - and why you shouldn't lose yours.
The public eye is constantly fixed on those who have most conspicuously realized the American Dream: for the most part, celebrities of the entertainment world - film, stage, and sport. Have you ever wondered why some of the most beloved stars sometimes lead quite tragic lives, and often die well before their time? I believe that in such cases, fame has a way of eroding the spirit. When people's names become very much larger than life, their own vital force can become correspondingly weakened and dissipated, so that their very existence becomes hollow and precarious. Believe it or not,
photography abets this process like nothing else. Think of how many
so-called "primitive" (that is, nontechnological) peoples
refuse to allow themselves to be photographed, because they believe
that a process that captures their images would also steal their souls.
Westerners tend to scoff at such superstition, but in fact we've all
seen it happen, at least in a metaphorical way. I will illustrate this
in three cases of very famous people. Of course I don't mean you should
avoid all snapshots. Some can even reinforce spirit, like wedding photographs
that capture the bonding of two souls. Marilyn's Case
---Marilyn Monroe was probably the greatest
pin-up girl and screen idol of all time. Millions of her posters hung
on admiring men's lockers, walls, and heaven knows where else. Yet as
the adulation of the masses grew, her loneliness increased. Worshipped
as a goddess by millions, she was utterly alone and despondent the night
she committed suicide. With all her fame and fortune, why couldn't she
get through the night by herself? Why did she experience such fatal
dis-ease? I believe this is neither a psychiatric, nor a psychological,
nor even a philosophical issue. I believe it is spiritual. Marilyn Monroe
had lost her soul to adulation. In her case, every pin-up photograph
siphoned a bit of her vital force. One or two, or even hundreds, would
have made no difference. But multiplied millions of times over, these
little siphons eventually drained her completely. Having no soul force
left to sustain her, she was empty inside. Yet she desired communion
with those who "owned" her soul, which is natural but in her
case was impossible. If you have one soul mate (or one at a time!) you
can commune with that person. But if your soul has been parceled out
to millions of worshippers worldwide, you become powerless to commune
with any of them. Her dis-ease was extreme, and she succumbed to it. Elvis's Case
---I need not tell Elvis Presley's story,
for it is parallel to Marilyn's. Except that Elvis's audience may have
been even larger than hers, and his dis-ease was possibly even greater.
He had hundreds of millions of fans and at his peak was probably the
most recognized - and photographed - person on the planet. And probably
the unhappiest. Emptied of soul force, he tried to fill his void with
drugs. That void was so great that he took enough drugs to kill himself. Diana's Case
---As a third example, look at Princess
Diana of Great Britain. She was royalty and a huge celebrity - and if
the Brits don't mind me saying so, a sex symbol too. She bore an even
bigger burden than Marilyn. She was also intensely miserable in her
private life (take note, you young women who yearn for Cinderella's
glass slippers). The night she died in that horrific car crash in Paris,
the paparazzi were chasing her as usual, at least one of them on a motorcycle,
like some camera-carrying motorized hound from hell. This unfortunate
young woman was almost literally worshipped to death. I realize that there are many other possible explanations for these three untimely deaths. Some conspiracy theorists believe that Marilyn was murdered by the CIA because of her alleged affair with JFK and the state secrets he divulged. (Who would refuse to tell her anything?) Other people believe that Elvis was abducted by aliens - after all, he is still being sighted in shopping malls whenever they let him visit earth. Yet other people may believe that Princess Diana is alive and well and hiding in Argentina with her lover. My belief is that they lost their soul force through their inability to handle celebrity of such great magnitude. Now for some good news: Fame of this magnitude does not necessarily drain one's soul force irreplaceably. Strong spiritual leaders endure it because, unlike celebrities, they actually commune personally and regularly with throngs of their vast flocks. In so doing, they offer love, strength, encouragement, compassion, and hope to their masses, through real contact with them. And thus they recover as many measures of such fortifying qualities themselves. In other words, they replenish and restore their souls. And
contact with great souls will help you restore your own spiritual vitality,
if you are open to receiving such gifts. Everyone who teaches you something
is great in some way, and everyone from whom you can learn something
is great in some way too. Moreover, as Lao-tzu says, even bad men are
good men's instructors. We can - and we must - learn from evil too (principally,
learn not to do it ourselves, and educate others to refrain from it
as well). Learning in the presence of greatness makes you improve no
matter what the subject - arts, sciences, sports, anything. Through
this kind of exposure, your soul becomes more aware of its own greatness.
Then you can help to restore the spiritual vitality of others.
©by Lou Marinoff, Therapy for the Sane; How Philosophy Can Change Your Life [Bloomsbury, NY & London], 2003, Chapter 10.
Copyright ©
by Lou Marinoff, Ph.D., 2003. To purchase a copy
of Therapy for the Sane click here
click here or here.
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