|
Scripture~Ephesians 4.15-16 (ESV)
St. Paul writes, countering the varied false teachings that could lead us astray from Truth:
15Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Comments
St. Paul speaks, in the above passage, of growing up spiritually. Several other Pauline passages speak of the same process.
Jean Houston, in A Passion for the Possible, speaks of four realms through which we potentially can grow up to maturity.
1) Sensory, or physical
This is the most popular and most accessible. The sensory appeals to natural appetites of the body.
2) Psychological
This is the domain of personal history and emotions. Most counseling addresses this feeling realm.
3) Mythic and Symbolic
This is the level of story and universal patterns~mythic here does not mean legend or a fictitious tale.
4) Spiritual
This is the Great Mystery that gives birth to us each and all.
We each receive orders from these realms. Realms I have elsewhere termed matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit are roughly analogous to Houston's delineation.
|
|
The realm we have grown into most fully is the dictator of our life, so to speak. If, for example, a person has a growth stabilization in the sensory, fleshly pleasure will dominate thought and action. In the psychological, natural affections and mood states dominate. In the mythic, or symbolic, inner connection to universal truths and cosmic meaning is the focus.
Obviously, the contemplative lives in nurturing the spiritual. She daily seeks living union with the Great Mystery.
This is one of the challenges of the truly spiritual life~few persons, and few religious persons, live a spiritual life. Most persons are dominated by fleshly instincts and natural emotions, and these may or may not be good or edifying in themselves.
Fewer persons live mainly from the mythic, or symbolic. These persons are open to and instructed by universal Truth. They are sensitive to similarities among cultures and religions. They are not just interested in the truth of "our" group; they want to find unifying themes in thought and practice that transcend the colors of tradition, time, and place. They aspire to embody a universal compassion. But, this stage can be misrepresented as a radical pluralism: such is not a true symbolic orientation.
The spiritual has the fewest persons. Few persons are willing to endure the aloneness, being-different, being misunderstood, being ostracized, practice of ardent discipline (acesis), and inner devoutness to be a person living from the spiritual.
At spiritual the lower realms are not lost. Death to those realms, which are painful deaths, leads to a transformation of them~a resurrection of each one. The Spiritual spiritualizes sensation, emotion, and symbolic, putting them in union with and at the service of the Great Mystery. The agent of the spiritual, the One Who spiritualizes, is the Holy Spirit, the Inner Christ.
Continued... |
