Inspiring the transition from self-sacrificer to self-transcender in fiction, Part 4
Relinquishments, purifications, harmonizations, and the key of complete self-offering
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As described in Part 3 of this series, the transition from the pattern of the self-sacrificer to that of the self-transcender happens through any number of smaller steps, each of which helps make one a better channel through which God’s grace can flow into the world and to others. When self-transcenders say, as noted in Everyone is seeking God, but most don’t know it, that “The purpose of life is God-realization (to know God in the fullest extent),” it means seeking make one’s lens (to use the analogy from Parts 2 and 3) unobstructed, free from distorting impurities, and exactly positioned to transmit God’s grace perfectly.
Fiction, as we’ve been saying in all these posts on transitions between the patterns, can inspire readers to take such steps in real life. Stories can visualize what those steps might look like in practice, either with a heroic protagonist who faces and overcomes challenges when taking such steps and experiences the flow of joy that naturally follows, or a tragic protagonist who chooses to do the opposite and therefore suffers the absence of joy. Either way, such stories can awaken in readers a sense of “perhaps I can do this myself” (see Transition points in seeking God).
Again, as mentioned in Part 3, it’s enough for a story to just work with one or maybe two of these steps, because every such effort is meaningful. As an author, work with those steps that you find most inspiring.
It almost goes without saying that authors who hope to inspire others in this transition are also at least interested in making the transition for themselves, if not already engaged in the process. Otherwise, one’s efforts to “inspire” are insincere if not hypocritical and will certainly come across that way. For this reason, I think it’s important, before and during writing, to pray to be a channel through which God’s grace can touch others and to pray that that grace will touch the God in others as well.
And sincerity is what matters, not perfection. As explained in The privilege of writing inner experience, writing fiction of this nature helps to inspire authors as much as readers. You can, in effect, visualize through story whatever transformation you seek in yourself—and then share the discoveries you make along the way. The Mystic Key, for example, is exactly that.
Let’s now do a kind of survey of different steps, using the categories noted in Part 3. The goal here is to offer ideas rather than to be comprehensive, as the latter treatment could fill several volumes and I wanted a little space for a couple literary examples.
Relinquishments
Relinquishments are letting go of those desires and attitudes that arise from one’s lower, sense-bound nature (ego) and express themselves through actions that block the flow of grace. Oftentimes, these are expressed merely as prohibitions like “Thou shalt not….” But I think it’s more helpful to express (and depict) them in terms of actions and practices like Patanjali does in the Yoga Sutras, and include aspects that go beyond the obvious meanings:1
Non-lying, which includes being honest with oneself and being willing to see reality as it is.2
Non-stealing and non-covetedness, which includes not only physical possessions but also intangibles such as credit or praise that belongs to another.
Non-violence, which includes not only killing but wishing suffering and harm upon others (physical, mental, or emotional), as well as killing others’ enthusiasms, interests, or inspirations.
Non-attachment, including to possessions, people, and places, and especially to the results of one’s actions (outcomes) as explored in Part 3. For the self-transcender, how things are done is as important, if not more so, than what is done. If you’re “fighting” for peace, for example, what does it mean if you achieve that peace through violent means?
On deeper levels, relinquishments involve things that may be socially acceptable yet still block the flow of grace. For example:
Letting go of harmful feelings and emotions, including worry, bitterness, anger, and jealousy, to name a few, and instead cultivating feelings like trust, acceptance, generosity, and forgiveness. Peace Pilgrim said, “You have complete control over whether you will be psychologically hurt or not, and anytime you want to, you can stop hurting yourself.” You can, in short, choose to be happy regardless of circumstances.3
Letting go of opinions and an egoic sense of “how things ought to be.” Change begins within, not by forcing others to change through laws and regulations. And instead of asking, “What do I want to happen?” ask, “What’s trying to happen here?” For how can the right thing happen if you’re constantly imposing your own desires on matters? How can God work through you if you think you know better than he does?
Letting go of judgment, which is the rejection of anything that doesn’t fit one’s idea of purpose and meaning and instead accepting that all things have purpose in the bigger picture.
Letting go of isolation and self-importance. This is a challenge for self-sacrificers who seek “impact,” like many people who were raised with the idea that they must somehow “save the world.” Letting go means relinquishing the thought, “It’s all up to me” or “I alone can fix it” and focusing on problems being solved rather than who is solving them. On a deeper level, too, letting go of self-importance means seeing God as the doer rather than oneself.
Letting go of self-will means shifting from an attitude of commanding to listening and responding, and shifting from domination and self-righteousness to partnership, cooperation, and harmonization. This can also mean relinquishing saviorism by allowing others to learn from a task that you could do easily. If you have a child who is struggling with simple arithmetic, do you snatch their worksheet and say, “Here, let me do that!” Not at all, because the point isn’t completing the worksheet: it’s the child’s development that comes through the effort.
Why doesn’t Tom Bombadil destroy the Ring?
An excellent literary example of relinquishing self-will and saviorism is Tom Bombadil in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Bombadil proves himself completely immune to the Ring of Power:
Tom put the Ring round the end of his little finger and held it up to the candlelight. For a moment the hobbits noticed nothing strange about this. Then they gasped. There was no sign of Tom disappearing! Tom laughed again, and then he spun the Ring in the air – and it vanished with a flash. Frodo gave a cry – and Tom leaned forward and handed it back to him with a smile.
Frodo looked at it closely, and rather suspiciously (like one who has lent a trinket to a juggler). It was the same Ring, or looked the same and weighed the same: for that Ring had always seemed to Frodo to weigh strangely heavy in the hand. (Kindle Edition 132)
Why, then, does Tom allow many others to suffer and die when he could apparently just waltz into Mordor and destroy the Ring himself? Tolkien answers that through Elrond:
‘If I understand aright all that I have heard,’ [Elrond] said, ‘I think that this task is appointed for you, Frodo; and that if you do not find a way, no one will. This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and counsels of the Great. (Kindle Edition 270)
Had Bombadil done the deed, the Shire-folk would not have the opportunity to become who they’re mean to be. Nor would the other races in Middle Earth—Men, Elves, and Dwarves—have developed the inner strength and fortitude to resist Sauron’s satanic consciousness. Without that strength, evil would have found new channels through which to reassert itself, and the whole story would be repeated all over again—likely with even greater suffering. By not solving the problem himself, he prevents that greater suffering. (See also, Characters who don’t know how the story will end.)
Tom Bombadil represents being in perfect attunement with “the big picture,” and understanding this, he plays the role that he’s meant to play—namely in aiding Frodo. He also gives Merry and Pippin daggers from the barrow-mounds that enable them to fulfill their heroic roles as well—Merry in defeating the Witch King of Angmar (The Return of the King, Chapter 6) and Pippin in defeating a great troll-chief before the Black Gates of Mordor and thus saving the life of his Beregond (Chapter 10).
Purifications
In the field of optics, the inner characteristics of a lens, from core to surface, determine the degree to which the lens transmits light without distortion or aberrations. Higher quality lenses obviously produce higher quality images. In our analogy, then, steps of inner purification serve the same purpose where the flow of God’s grace is concerned.
We can relate purifications to “observances” rather than rules, restrictions, or commandments, meaning that a failure to keep an observance doesn’t constitute a mortal sin. Neglecting to take a shower for a day isn’t anywhere on the same level as committing murder.
Nevertheless, the more spiritually sensitive a person becomes, the more he or she understands that those little observances make a difference. To return to the lens analogy, when there are so many obstructions that little of God’s grace is even reaching the lens at all, or when the lens is badly positioned, then various imperfections in the lens hardly matter. But when, through relinquishments and harmonizations, that grace is coming through more strongly, the impurities within the lens really show themselves.
Self-transcenders who seek to perfect their lenses, then, naturally pay more attention to such considerations, often going against accepted standards of worldly behavior (sensual pleasures, self-aggrandizement, and outwardly noble works). Their reference point is God/Satchidananda. If something interferes with the flow of grace, it must be dealt with regardless of what the world thinks or accepts.
Here are some areas of purifications to consider:
Purification of the body by proper diet, rest, exercise, posture, movement, etc., which implies avoiding over-indulgence (in food and sex), abuse of the body (over-exertion, stimulants, drugs, alcohol, etc.), overwork and sleep-deprivation, etc.
Purification of thoughts and feelings, including our mental and emotional diet (what we take in through media), the thoughts and feelings we express outwardly, and any thoughts and emotions that we cling to internally, including self-talk. Love is the greatest medicine that the world needs, not anger and recrimination.
Purification of desire, meaning offering all other desires into the singular desire to be in attunement with God and God’s will. Make inner peace and joy your highest priority.
Purification of motive, which means being honest with yourself when you revert, however temporarily, to the motives of the self-comforter and self-server, especially, but also that of the self-sacrificer who thinks “it’s the world that needs to change.”
In many ways, the purifications and relinquishments are both expressions of renunciation, and indeed many self-transcenders are renunciates to some degree, whether formally or not. Renunciation works best when it’s more than mere suppression, when it’s a natural and harmonious release of worldly ways because one’s interests, motives, desires, thoughts, feelings, and physical habits are all being drawn into an upward current of devotion. One’s actions ceased to be motivated by duty to rules or morals or fear of punishment—all of which imply that one would automatically revert to a lower level without those rules. They’re motivated instead by the desire to stay attuned to the flow of grace. With that devotion, moral behavior is inherent to the degree that rules are largely unnecessary.4
Harmonizations
To observe a star through a telescope, you obviously need to point the telescope at the star—it can’t be pointed in any old direction. Furthermore, if you want to keep the star under observation, you need to gradually shift the telescope’s position to account for the earth’s rotation. The steps of harmonization are like this ongoing, attentive positioning: keeping the star of God/Satchidananda always in the forefront of one’s thoughts and priorities. Such is devotion.
That positioning, however, can be neither hurried nor agitated. Calmness, in other words, is also an essential harmonization—not just a passive peacefulness or being “chill,” but an active, even intense in-the-moment awareness of the energy that you’re focusing through your lens into whatever you’re doing, whether mundane or extraordinary. And in that focused energy there is joy.
Hurriedness and restlessness arise when we think that something in the future (recreation, entertainment, play, or an outcome) is going to bring us joy as opposed to whatever we’re doing right now (usually “work,” chores, etc.). Therefore, we have to hurry up and put this present behind us to get to that supposedly better future. But when we get there, we can’t actually enjoy that moment either, because we’re habituated to looking ahead to the next thing.
Other factors also help harmonization in similar ways, countering hurry and agitation:
Simplicity in lifestyle as well as heart and mind, which means finding a point of “enough” wherein needs are satisfied but you don’t overburden yourself with non-necessities and attendant complexities.
Non-reactivity, meaning living at your center more than your periphery, not letting random news and events or emotional excitement perturb the positioning of your lens. Self-transcenders think, “The things that happen to us don’t matter, but what we become through them is what matters.”
Harmony with natural law, which is often what’s expressed in the world’s wisdom traditions—that’s why we use the term, “wisdom.” Such harmonization is very much the opposite of today’s “radical individualism” that proclaims that every person’s “lived experience” as a truth. Yes, that experience is “true” in the being real, but it by no means implies that there are not greater, broader, or more expansive truths that override the personal.5
Openness to God’s intuitive guidance, with implies a regular practice of withdrawal from outer concerns to listen to the whispers of your own higher self. Be mindful that such guidance never asks us to break divine or natural law (such as committing crimes). That guidance can also be surprising and often humbling—too many people get caught up in thinking that “God’s will” must entail some grand purpose or great work. It might, but all God really wants for everyone is that lasting fulfillment we’ve been talking about, and that can be found in the simplest acts (as again expressed in The Mystic Key).
Peace Pilgrim said:
“You begin to do your part in the Life Pattern by doing all of the good things you feel motivated toward, even though they are just little good things at first. You give these priority in your life over all the superficial things that customarily clutter human lives.” (Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words, 11)
Intuition is cultivated through inner stillness, meditation, prayer, and the discipline to not presume on that intuition more than one step beyond what you’ve proven through experience. That’s why it’s best to start with little things rather than assuming that your intuition is correct on larger questions of career, relationships, and other long-term or life-changing decisions. (A tragic arc would easily arise from such presumption.) Starting small also helps develop a mode of listening to what others are saying or reflect back to you, especially with people you trust—in a very real way, your receptivity allows God to speak through them.
Self-transcendence is self-forgetfulness
To close this post and this series, I want to loop back to an idea expressed in Part 1, that “The final sacrifice is the sense of self itself.”
In this I’m reminded of a story about the 8th-century Sufi mystic, Rabi’a (aka Rabia Basri or Rābiʼa al-ʼAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya). As she lay on her deathbed with a body wracked by pain and illness, three disciples, their eyes full of pity at her suffering, attempted to console her.
“He is no true lover of God, after all,” said one, “who is not willing to suffer for God’s sake.”
“This smacks of egoism to me,” replied the saint.
Another of the disciples attempted a correction: “He is no true lover of God who is not happy to suffer for God’s sake.”
“More than this is needed,” she replied.
“Then you tell us, Mother,” said the third. “What should be the right attitude for a lover of God?”
“He is no true lover of God,” she said, “who does not forget his suffering in the contemplation of the Supreme Beloved.”
This forgetfulness of suffering through devotion is what I sought to express in A matter of the heart (especially part 2). I’ve also previously shared a scene from Franz Werfel’s The Song of Bernadette (see Mystical character arcs in fiction part 2 and part 3) that illustrates Bernadette’s self-forgetfulness as compared with the self-involvement of her antagonist, Sister Marie Thérèse Vauzous.
In both the book and the movie, Vauzous believes she is a self-transcender seeking God above all else—she is a nun, after all, and very devoted to her vocation. But in truth she demonstrates the consciousness of a self-server because she’s primarily motivated by a thirst to prove herself superior to others, especially superior to the lowly imbecile (by her assessment) Bernadette. She has much yet to relinquish and purify.
As I quoted from Chapter 44 in those earlier posts:
No matter what the proof might be, [Vauzous’] inner most soul refused to accept the fact that this common, superficial, and stealthily rebellious creature [Bernadette] should have been chosen from among all the living as the object of divine grace. In the obscurest corner of her being bled, as it were, the frightful question: Why she and why not I? And yet another question even more terrifying: Is my way of a lasting convulsive tension of the will the right way, seeing that one may unconsciously dance one’s path through all difficulties to heaven itself?
Her self-server mindset, highlighted by the emphasis on “I” and “my,” is also demonstrated through her self-inflicted suffering: she is willing to suffer, sure, and even seeks it out, because she believes it’s the key to winning the prize of the Kingdom of Heaven. Yet she is in no way happy about it. Nor is she bearing that suffering in true service to a cause that’s greater than herself, which would at least make her a self-sacrificer. She inflicts suffering upon herself to win a prize.
Bernedette, on the other hand, fulfills Rabi’a’s condition for a true lover of God: she forgets her suffering in her love for the Lady. In Chapter 44 we also learn that she’s never complained of what was a most painful condition:
The nun Vauzous had been illuminated to the point of a correct diagnosis. The tumor on Bernadette’s knee was not due to a passing infection. It was and remained the symptom of a mortal illness. Tuberculosis of the bone is one of the slower as well as one of the most painful of mortal ills. Long intervals accentuate the final hopelessness. In acute periods inflammations of the nerves are among the cruel complications. The passion of the girl of Lourdes was to take not seven days but more than seven years. Seven years are two thousand five hundred and fifty-five days.
Here’s how that realization plays out in the movie version (starting at 2:15:50 and going to about 2:21:15):
In the book, continuing from the passage above, Werfel gives us another line that underscores Bernadette’s self-transcendence once her condition became known to the other nuns:
Bernadette yielded herself to her illness even as she had always been obedient to all that life had brought her, unquestioningly and from her very heart.
The key characteristic that Werfel identifies here is that Bernadette brought no personal agenda to the table, so to speak, and never sought to impose personal opinions about “the way things ought to be.”
Werfel then reminds us of several previous occasions on which Bernadette demonstrated her utter self-forgetfulness in contemplation of the Lady:
Thus had she fulfilled the lady’s bidding and eaten the bitter herbs and devoured the slime of earth and ventured twice on the same day into the den of Peyramale, the lion. Thus had she faced unfalteringly the official questionings and the psychiatric examination and the silly insistence of the curious and the insults and the shallow adoration and the pestering of fools. So, too, she now accepted her illness as something wholly natural, without for a moment formulating the mystery which the nun Vauzous had recognized and which was not hidden from her own heart. One she said to Nathalie [another novice], “This illness was sent me because there really was nothing else to be done with me.”
That statement, “there was really nothing else to be done with me,” especially denotes a lack of personal agenda or desire.
Finally, for Bernadette it wasn’t even a question of “being humble,” for how can there be humility when there’s no “I” to which such a quality could cling?
She had smiled faintly but without a trace of conscious conformity to some pattern of humility … [it had not] humility as its source but an even rarer virtue—an acute and soberly accurate estimate of the self which neither the grace of Heaven nor the plaudits of the world had ever shaken.
Neither pride nor humility, in short, which are both centered in ego-consciousness, can exist where that sense of self has been transcended.
And this, if you’ve been wondering about the directional spirituality diagram we’ve been using (and that appeared earlier in this post), is why the self-transcender level is not accompanied by pairs of opposites like the other behavioral patterns. The duality of opposites—light/dark, good/bad, likes/dislikes—disappears when there remains no ego against which to reference their comparative value.
All is in God. All simply is.
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Patanjali states these yamas (avoidances) in the negative to say that lying, stealing, killing, and so forth are foreign to one’s true nature. By avoiding them, that true nature reveals itself automatically.
An specific example is being able to acknowledge when a politician that you didn’t vote for (and may even despise) does something that’s unarguably good.
We’re speaking here of feelings within oneself, not of “toxic positivity” in relation to others. One can be inwardly positive while yet being sensitive to others’ realities.
In the spiritual community where I live, the only hard rule is a prohibition against alcohol and drugs (in or out of the community) because they dull one’s self-awareness. (Alcohol is excepted for medicinal needs.) All other observances are recommendations.
For an in-depth discussion, I recommend Out of the Labyrinth by J. Donald Walters, which addresses the subject of moral relativism.