The inner world of each human being is vast, deep, and more often than not unavailable to our rational mind. We come in contact with it through our dreams, moods, fears and anxieties, as well as our experiences of joy and love of others. Our positive emotions are also often aspects of our unconscious as well. For instance, when I am in a good mood, or a bad one, I will often not understand where these moods come from. I have as I age learned to be at peace with the reality that my conscious everyday awareness is really a small bit of ‘light’ riding over a vast ocean, seemingly bottomless.
So my conscious self is in a boat riding on an inner ocean with sudden squalls arising and seeking to throw me overboard….would I drown if such a thing happened? Would I go crazy etc. The inner world can be something many people want to run from (I know I do), but we really can’t, since the unconscious and its contents are mine…..so where can I run to. The more I seek to run from it the more it has influence in an often self destructive way.
One safe way to deal with this reality is through art. Books are one way. Fictional literature allows us to go inward but actually not know it. We get into the minds and emotional life of the characters and react in our own unique way. Fear, anger, anxiety, as well as our deepest longings can be safely experienced from reading. There can be a lot of learning about the human experience from reading fictional stories. Paintings can also evoke deep inner reactions that can touch us deeply. Not only in our deepest longings, but our deepest fears as well; it can be laid out before us. When we are in touch with the deep unconscious through art we have strong reactions, both positive and fearful.
Philosophy is also a great help for many people. Reading Martin Buber for instances when he talks about relationships, the ‘I and Thou”, it touches me in a place very deep and evokes emotional states that can be overwhelming. Science as well, pictures from the Hubble Telescope is one instance where art and science are one and easily accessible to people of all educational backgrounds.
Scripture is also a powerful way to deepen ones relationship with the inner world of the unconscious. For it is in the reading of Scripture (of all traditions) that we go deeper than the personal unconscious, to a conscious connection with Infinite Consciousness. Prayer as well is the royal road to the unconscious, for in prayer we learn to not only be honest and open with the Infinite, we also learn to listen to our inner images as ways of finding out what needs healing, and yes what needs forgiving.
Faith can help us to not be afraid of our own inner life, for deeper than our inner ocean, there is the infinite ocean of God’s love for each of us. Our inner leviathans cannot keep us from this relationship when we learn to trust in that reality. If not, well then we are just small bits of consciousness at the mercy of a dark ocean filled with our inner monsters. All we can do is to hold on for dear life….or not. It is not a pretty picture, but human life is often not pretty, messy and teaches us that we have less control and freedom than we would like to think. Yet our inner journey towards God helps us to grow in freedom which also allows us to relate to our outer world in a more loving manner….in the end the inner and outer world are one. One mirrors the other. Life does talk to us, do we listen?
We are not alone in our own inner raging sea, though it can often seem like that. For like Peter we are called to get out of the boat in faith and to walk across the raging wind driven waters of our unconscious. We are called to trust, to grow in our ability to embrace all that we see in love and to not repress or pretend that there is not a great deal in us that needs to be seen, loved, healed and given over to that which keeps us all in existence from moment to moment. Each moment is an act of creation on God’s part, it is not something that happened billions of years ago, but happens in each instant, keeping all intact by the loving Mind of God. “For in Him we live and move and have our being”.
Br. Mark Dohle, OCSO
Holy Spirit Monastery
