It is a hard truth for human pride to swallow, but here in the level of illusion where we spend the great majority of our lives, there is really no soul at all. There are only the broken and scattered remnants, dispersed like the Tablets that were shattered by Moses in the story of the golden calf. The inner spiritual work that is symbolically called “Returning to the Promised Land” (among many other names in many traditions) begins with putting the soul back together again. This is the great work of art, the great construction, which the Pyramids and the Temple and the Cathedrals can only point toward.
In “Eden”, the “fall into illusion” begins when the inner relationship of the three parts of our soul inverts and the pieces disconnect: (1) the Mind (“Adam”), which ought to be in charge, becomes passive and acquiesces to whatever the body wants; (2) the Body’s physical appetites (the “Serpent”) become active and take over as substitute ruler; (3) and the Heart (“Eve”), which ought to be focusing on the counsel of our Mind, listens instead to the serpent and fawns over the desires of the body. This is the real ‘sin of Eden’.
But why does this inversion happen?
Our souls inevitably turn upside-down, and the body becomes the ruling active force in our lives, when we are taken in by the overwhelmingly hypnotic spell of the material world around us, and our response is to disperse all our thoughts, interests, and energies, outward into that world. This means that the central focus of our lives, the soul’s ‘center of gravity’, shatters — and all the pieces end up being external to ourselves: in other people, events, and material objects.
Once the focus of all our attention is thus outside of us, and all our emotional and intellectual energies are constantly swept away by our fascination with external things, we stop experiencing our own inner Being, our own Presence, here in the midst of our own life. In other words, we forget ourselves, we lose ourselves, and external phenomena take control of our consciousness. While we are in this state, everything ‘just happens’ to us — we cannot really ‘do’ anything, since we are not really present. It is in just this way that we become completely passive, and the body and material world drag us by the nose through a life that we no longer own. Our participation in life is then as passive and unconscious as stone, and we are completely at the mercy of fashion and whim.
This is what it means in the Bible to be “asleep” – we are asleep to ourselves. While sleeping, we dream about ourselves and our idols. Sometimes our dreams are quite pleasant. Sometimes they are terrifying. In the end, of course, this difference scarcely matters.
(1) So now we have to start becoming awake to ourselves. In other words, when I experience something (an impression, a feeling, a physical sensation, a thought), I have to learn to be consciously aware that I am doing the experiencing, rather than passively letting it ‘just happen’ to me. We have to take a stop, and actively remember our presence in the world, by learning to divide our attention between the outer experience of the world and an inner conscious experience of the self, simultaneously: to remember to say “I Am” in the midst of the flow of life. This act of Self-Remembrance gradually creates an internal focal point of stability in a world of endless chaotic change, and it slowly but steadily begins to draw our center of gravity back inside.
(2) We also need to examine ourselves thoroughly, as Socrates taught, to get to know the three parts of our soul, to see just what it is that they are doing, to see for ourselves how our emotions fawn over the demands of the body while the mind acquiesces.
Although changing what we are into what we ought to be is the only truly meaningful thing to do while on this Earth, we have to realize the paradox that, as we are, this is not something that we can ‘do’: that is, all direct efforts to change ourselves, at this level of consciousness where we are not really even present, are doomed to fail. Any attempt to forcefully suppress a bad habit, for instance, will only cause another one, and very likely a worse one, to arise in its place to fill the void. Our bad habits and negative qualities exist for good reasons: they protect us from something, or they compensate us for something we lack, or they are simply the obligatory reaction to something that has happened. In any case, they are necessary and important and cannot be dismissed or ignored. This is why forgiveness and self-forgiveness are always integral to spiritual growth.
So we cannot ‘change’ ourselves. Only the Grace of God has that power. But one thing that we can ‘do’ at this level, is to begin to examine ourselves, to follow Socrates’ injunction to “Know Thyself” (he did not say “change thyself”). This kind of self-observation requires us to cultivate an internal, non-judgmental, sincere ‘Witness’ – a place within our consciousness that separates off and begins to awaken, to look, and to pay attention, without muddying the waters with feelings of self-condemnation, and without any illusions that we can change ourselves simply because we want to. Seeing ourselves and forgiving ourselves is all that we can ‘do’.
And it is all that we should try to do, for it is the only thing that works! Our dark, negative qualities cannot stand the glaring light of consciousness: they begin to shrivel up and disappear.
When we finally bring these observations into the light of consciousness, Grace begins to heal and change our inner psyche: that is, our negativity begins to fade, and the three divergent parts of our soul begin to realign, as soon as we awaken and turn on the lights. They might even see each other, and meet each other, for the first time.
These instructions to Remember what is most real and most sacred within one’s own soul, and to Observe one’s inner self with thoroughness and sincerity, were given by Moses in his Teachings when he told the Israelites to “take the utmost care, and watch yourselves scrupulously, so that you do not forget the things that you saw with your own eyes and so that they do not fade from your mind as long as you live.”
(3) A third effort which we can make, that will help to bring about the soul’s proper harmonious realignment, is to train the body to be passive through relaxation. A relaxed body is a receptive body, much more awake and alive than a body overrun by unconscious tensions. If the body surrenders its egotistical power and learns how to be quiet, relaxed, open, and vulnerable (rather than blustering, loud, and pushy), then the Mind can reassert its appropriate authority, and the sacred forces and energies of the world can enter us, rather than only being dispersed by the body out of us.
Dr. Andrew Cort, D.C., J.D., is a Teacher, an Attorney, and a Doctor of Chiropractic. His books include “Return to Meaning: The American Psyche in Search of its Soul” (this article is an excerpt), “From Joshua to Jesus”, and “The Song of Songs: A Lover’s Poetic Dialogue”. To browse and order books, and to find out about Talks and Seminars, visit http://www.andrewcort.com. Dr. Cort lives in the Berkshire Mountains in western Massachusetts.
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