Thoughts on the Tao Te Ching 38

Poem 38

The Master doesn't try to be powerful;

thus he is truly powerful.

The ordinary man keeps reaching for power;

thus he never has enough.

The Master does nothing,

yet he leaves nothing undone.

The ordinary man is always doing things,

yet many more are left to be done.

The kind man does something,

yet something remains undone.

The just man does something,

and leaves many things to be done.

The moral man does something,

and when no one responds

he rolls up his sleeves and uses force.

When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.

When goodness is lost, there is morality.

When morality is lost, there is ritual.

Ritual is the husk of true faith,

the beginning of chaos.

Therefore the Master concerns himself

with the depths and not the surface,

with the fruit and not the flower.

He has no will of his own.

He dwells in reality,

and lets all illusions go.

Commentary

It is sad but true that a certain number of people like to exercise their power over others.  Of course, you can substitute the word "control" for "power."  I have never ceased to be perturbed and amused in turn by these "power-hungry" or "control-obsessed" people. Why does this or that person want to exert their power or control over others?  They must feel very much undermined by others, that is, their own sense of self-confidence must be very low.  They are saying to themselves, in a sense, something like the following: "I will have to exert my power here or I shall be totally undermined.  I am someone, you know!" That is the way, I believe, that they see themselves.  

The school where I teach, founded 1888: Place of Learning & Wisdom

I remember the clinical psychologist and conference speaker Dr.Tony Humphreys saying that "all control is self-control."  In like manner we can say that "all power is power-over-self."  True power, I believe, is actually self-knowledge or at least an openness to learning to grow in self-knowledge.  These two paragraphs, then, are an explication of the first stanza above which I'll repeat for emphasis here:

 The Master doesn't try to be powerful;

thus he is truly powerful.

The ordinary man keeps reaching for power;

thus he never has enough.

The author of the blog waiting on the ferry for Reggio at Messina, Sicilia

One thing no commentator can tire of repeating is that when one reads literary and spiritual texts one is in the realm of image, simile and metaphor.  Therefore, it is at a significant cost to the truth to indulge in literalism and simplistic or surface or superficial interpretation. When a seeker of the truth encounters literalism, in other words, any fundamentalist reading of a text s/he is not a little shaken by the seeming refusal to let go of the easy and superficial interpretation that assaults and insults our native intelligence and our natural and honest scepticism.  Truth is never simple.  There are no easy saccharine answers to help us swallow the pill of the harsh realities of life.  Truth is often a deeper and darker mystery which we are always striving to reach and often striving to be open to its outreach into us, too.

View of Badolato Beach

So, what is our author poet getting at above?  What lies below a literal or literalist reading of the words?  The idea that lies below the surface in the depths of meaning is something like what I attempted to describe in the last paragraph, to which I will add the following comments.  Often, the wise person observes and meditates and contemplates on what s/he observes.  Then, and only them, do they react and do things.  In other words, the wise person does not over-react; does not take things personally; does not try to give what to them appears to be the obvious, though superficial answer or reaction to this or that situation; rather they wait and then respond to the given situation with a wise equanimity. In this, they are seen to be calm and still, almost unperturbed as if they had done nothing. However, really and truly, they have done a lot by not rushing into action with the simple and superficial solution that all too often gets further and further negative reactions and over-reactions down the line.  That is what I believe the poet has in mind when he says of the Master or Mistress that he or she "does nothing." Hence, we can now intuit the meaning of the paradox that in doing nothing the Master leaves nothing undone.

Wild flowers, Calabria, Italia

Once again, our Taoist poet proceeds with similar and parallel paradoxes which we now understand cannot simply be taken at a literal, literalist or superficial level.  The reader or meditator or contemplator has to dig much deeper for the unvarnished truth.  I will leave it to the reader here to interpret the series of paradoxes with which the author continues to confront us in this poem.  I wholeheartedly agree that ritual can be nothing but a husk of faith if it has no implications for the way we behave and act in our day-to-day world. However, as a part-time counsellor and psychotherapist I value the important role of ritual in community life in terms of its helping us cope with birth, marriage and death and other big transitions we have to make in our little brittle lives.  However, on the level of paradox, beyond the literal and literalist level, I intuit the deeper truth at which out Taoist poet points me.

In conclusion, there is no better way of finishing this post than with repeating the final stanza of the above poem which lifts me to the heights of my spirit and brings me down to the depths of my soul as I type these few words:

  Therefore the Master concerns himself

with the depths and not the surface,

with the fruit and not the flower.

He has no will of his own.

He dwells in reality,

and lets all illusions go.

Journal of a Soul 32

Beyond Debate IV

Self as Spiritual: Holding the Door Open to Mystery

One could argue that popular psychology and the Self Help Movement in general have hijacked the word “spiritual” from its more traditional home within organised religions. In this more general and widely accepted sense, then, we could define spirituality as being about a connection to something greater than ourselves. People might come to a spa to deepen their relationship with (i) themselves, (ii) others, (iii) with nature or the universe or (iv) with a spiritual power, personalised as God, or even as a neutral depersonalised, but greater energy source. In this sense, then, they are open to a mystery greater than their material selves. Cottingham (2010, p. 204: in Cottingham, J. (2010) The meaning of Life in Edmunds, D. &Warburton, N. (eds.) (2010) Philosophy Bites. Oxford: Oxford University Press) emphasises that it is “the need for some hope” despite all the vicissitudes and contingencies of life which I have adumbrated in previous posts here that the good in life is still worth pursuing and that somehow it will win out is “what leads us towards the idea of spirituality.” 

One could argue that the American psychologist William James’ classic The Varieties of Religious Experiences (1902) and the German theologian and scholar Rudolf Otto’s equally classic work The Idea of the Holy (1917) gave support not alone to the experiential reality of spirituality but to its intellectual credibility. However, in more orthodox theistic circles, spirituality is defined as that phenomenon that “describes the inner movement of the human spirit towards the transcendent or the divine.” [1]

Self as Soul: Holding the Door Open to Religion

That organised religion of one form or another is a sociological phenomenon is beyond doubt. That the divine exists, or that any religion offers verifiable truths, is, however, open to question. However, the contrary proposition that the divine does not exist, or that no religion offers verifiable truths, is equally questionable. Believers have argued for centuries that while one can offer logical reasons for one’s prior belief, one simply cannot contend that such belief is ever a logical deduction from premises; rather it is a question of a response from the whole person to the divine invitation to believe. [2]

While the question of faith, in either its defence or rejection, is beyond my purposes in this blog we are here holding the door open to religion as offering a sociological, theological, reasonable, meaningful and even therapeutic (healing) answer to the mystery we are confronted with in living. In the Canadian philosopher Taylor’s terms, religion is here offering us a framework or a horizon within which to live our lives. To close this door would be cavalier to say the least, as it would shut out a significant part of human experience. Hence, the question that concerns us immediately here is that of the self and its possible endurance after physical death in the religious reality known as the “soul.” According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (2010), the soul is “…the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being, that which confers individuality and humanity; often considered to be synonymous with the mind or the self. In theology, the soul is further defined as that part of the individual which partakes of divinity and often is considered to survive the death of the body.” [3] That millions upon millions of believers are seriously deluded in many different religions is a possibility, but the sincerity of their beliefs is always beyond question. That serious scholars and deeply committed believers attest to their sincere belief in well argued books is also beyond doubt. On the other hand, that there are unbelievers who question their interpretation of these experiences is also beyond question. As there is no hard and fast proof on either side, it is, therefore, reasonable to leave this door firmly ajar. 

A Note on Peak Experiences: Where Ordinary Consciousness is a Door to Extraordinary Consciousness

It is my contention, as it is that of many scholars in the fields of psychology, psychotherapy, spirituality and, indeed, mystical theology and of practitioners of meditation in all its forms that ordinary consciousness can be a door to extraordinary consciousness. Here is where religious experience can be viewed as a deepening of ordinary experience.  Let me elaborate here on what I mean. May (2009: Man's Search For Himself. New York: W.W. Norton & Co) outlines four stages in the development of self-awareness, viz., (i) The stage of innocence – that is, of the child or infant, before the dawning of any consciousness, (ii) The stage of rebellion – the terrible twos and/or threes, and later that of adolescence, (iii) The stage of ordinary consciousness of self. This is relatively stable and healthy state of personality and (iv) The stage of extraordinary consciousness which, with practice, could be experienced by more of us more often. May reminds us that this type of awareness is also called "ecstasy". One might call this fourth stage that state Joyce alluded to as being an “epiphany” or what Abraham Maslow (1999, p. 92) in Toward a Psychology of Being calls “peak experiences.”

Peak experiences are often described as transcendent moments of pure joy and elation. These are moments that stand out from everyday events. The memory of such events is lasting and people often liken them to a spiritual experience. We all remember Abraham Maslow's famous Hierarchy of Needs pyramid from college.  As the reader will be aware, self-actualization is located at the very top of that pyramid and it represents the need within us all to fulfill our individual potential. According to Maslow, peak experiences play an important role in our goal of self-actualisation.  However, it is important to stress that self-actualization is actually considered quite rare, which means that peak experiences can be quite elusive. Not all people, then, reach the peak of Maslow's pyramid. In one study, researchers found that only about two-percent of individuals surveyed had ever had a peak experience. However, this obviously does not rule out the possibility, and, indeed, the increasing likelihood of actually reaching such a stage if we consciously set ourselves the task of so doing. However, Maslow did not wish to restrict Peak Experiences solely to self-actualized individuals because he believed that all people are capable of having these moments, but he also firmly believed in line with the evidence that self-actualized people were likely to experience them more often.

(Note: The above post is a re-worked version of an abandoned section of a recent piece of academic work for an M. A. in human development.)

[1] Quinlan, T. (1994, p. 6), unpublished thesis, Milltown Institute, Dublin.
[2] John Henry Cardinal Newman states: “For myself, it was not logic, then that carried me on... It is the concrete being who reasons ... the whole man moves; paper logic is but a record of it.” Quoted Quinlan (1994, p. 10)
[3] http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/555149/soul Accessed 06/09/2013.

Journal of a Soul 13

Let's get Some Perspective on Things

There is a word I particularly love and that is "perspective."  It is one much loved by philosophers among others.  A phrase I especially love, too, and perhaps, that is because I use it quite often myself, is "It all depends."  Or again, an answer  I always liked from one of my erstwhile lecturers from the mid nineteen seventies to a thorny question:  "Well, the answer is yes and no; yes in so far as ... and no in so far as..."  One could cynically say that this erudite professor was hedging his bets.  On the other hand, one might also say that he was being particularly careful with the use of language.  And, dear reader, care with language is not often the concern of many communicating with us (and hopefully with one another) in today's media.  Oftentimes most of us can be talking at cross purposes as we are not really talking about the same thing at all.

These thoughts come to my mind as I have recently flown home from Italy.  The Italian perspective on life is different to the Irish perspective.  They are, in general, a happier people than we, and that is the result, I believe, mainly of climate.  After all, the strong presence of the sun not alone illumines the landscape, but it also uplifts the soul.  There are so many more colours in Italy under the influence of the sun.  Here in Ireland our colour range is diminished greatly by the weather - when the rain or mists descend, we are reduced to almost a monochrome world.  It is no wonder that we Irish suffer from depression of all kinds as our moods often mirror this sad lack of light on our landscape.

A Place to Meditate - Under a tree in Sant' Andrea

Again, flying high above the earth gives more perspective.  What are huge objects on the ground become mere objects of toy proportions even when a little above the surface of the earth.  In other words a different perspective is immediately forced upon the attention of the alert air traveller.

A younger colleague of mine, Christy Oonan, now sadly passed away, RIP, had an appreciation for perspective. Once when in New York he told the tour group of students he was leading to "look up!" On another occasion, I remember standing with him in a funeral home beside the coffin of his late brother Liam and his saying to me, "there's no time, Tim, to waste in this life.  It's too short.  We must really learn to live it!"  And that Christy did in the last four years of his long and painful illness.  He was travelling places right up until the last.

Or again, the comments of a learned philosopher acquaintance of mine on the tragic demise of his brother-in-law:  "This death has really put things in perspective for me!" And that from a brilliant philosopher who has a wider perspective on things than many of us simpler folk.

The late great Victorian theologian, writer and scholar, John Henry Newman used be fond of saying that to gain perspective we must climb a hill or a mountain so that we can see the overall terrain.  The metaphor is a good one, is it not?  (As humour is another way of gaining perspective, I do believe the words he used were somewhat like"we must mount upon an eminence!"  Now, coupling "mounting" with "eminences" (Victorian speak for heights) is funny, given the sexual connotation of the first word today and the fact that he ended up an "eminence" or cardinal in the Holy Roman Church. I'm not so sure if Newman had a great sense of humour, and certainly he wouldn't appreciate this joke!)

Out of Perspective

When people have problems, it is because they have got things out of perspective.  They, as often as not, are using a magnifying glass rather than a telescope.  I owe this metaphor to Professor Michael Paul Gallagher S.J., now teaching in the Gregorian University, Rome, but then teaching in U.C.D. here in Ireland.  Now this is not to reduce the significance of the problem for the person or client involved.  It is, rather, to give them the chance of gaining another optic on the situation.

Offering perspective to people is never something that should be done early or in the immediate wake of a specific crisis.  It most likely should or will come anyway with the passing of time.  However, therein "lies the rub" as Shakespeare puts it, as often inappropriate timing or prolonged delay can result in failure to deal with the problem or in achieving some important healing for the suffering person.

However, all of us must be taught to avail of the skill of being able to broaden the perspective, zoom out on the problem we are in, get a sort of a bird's eye view, even if it is only from a low-hanging branch of a tree.  Perspective training and practice should be done on a daily basis when we are not enduring huge problems.  In that way, when crises do come, as indeed assuredly they will, we will be so much better equipped to deal with them

As I was flying over the mountains of England and Wales this morning I noticed a lot of snow on the higher peaks and much frost on the lower lying fields.  The sun was just after coming up, somewhere around 6 A.M. and one could sense that the frost on the lower lying plains, roads, lanes and houses would shortly melt away.  All in all, I had the feeling of getting an eagle's eye view if I might strain the previously overworked metaphorical bird. We are such small creatures on such a marvellously wonderful spaceship called Earth, or on a marvellously wonderful organism called Gaia - depending on your preferred metaphor or indeed, perspective.

Perhaps, I'll finish this post with quoting in full one of my all time favourite poems by the Elizabethan poet and conspirator Chidiock Tichborne who paid with his life for conspiring to hatch a plot to assassinate Elizabeth I.  He went to the gallows at the young age of 24.  His words give great perspective on the transience of our little lives.  Meditate on this words, dear friends, and I guarantee you'll gain not a little perspective:

Elegy

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,

My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,

My crop of corn is but a field of tares,

And all my good is but vain hope of gain;

The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,

And now I live, and now my life is done.

My tale was heard and yet it was not told,

My fruit is fallen, and yet my leaves are green,

My youth is spent and yet I am not old,

I saw the world and yet I was not seen;

My thread is cut and yet it is not spun,

And now I live, and now my life is done.

I sought my death and found it in my womb,

I looked for life and saw it was a shade,

I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb,

And now I die, and now I was but made;

My glass is full, and now my glass is run,

And now I live, and now my life is done.

Journal of a Soul 6

Cross on old ruined Church, Badolato Marina

The early Christians spoke of their being “in via,” or on the way to Heaven or the Kingdom of God.  In this last sentence, it is the beautiful and succinct Latin phrase “in via” that I want to highlight.  All cultures and all religions, which by definition are cultural phenomena, speak of the metaphor of travelling, or journeying or making a pilgrimage.  I have always liked those rather reflective and quirky Westerns starring Clint Eastwood, because they captured the lonely soul on his/her way or journey.  However, the Pilgrim in question is more often than not a very misguided soul, and yet the example stands in the sense of our travelling through the wilderness of life. In fact, in some of those Westerns the term “Pilgrim” is used quite frequently. 

In American literature and films, one gets the sense of the early Pioneers striking out into the unknown deserts, mountains and prairies in search of a “Promised Land” so to speak.  I have always felt that the case of the Native American Indian was never given fair treatment in 99% of those Westerns.  Indeed, in actuality, it appears to this rather ignorant writer on the far side of the great Atlantic Ocean that the poor Native American Indians got treated harshly, all too harshly by the so called enlightened early Pilgrims.  However, as I say, that is an uneducated view from afar.

Anyway, my point here is that the Spirituality of these Native Indians is very attractive and grounded in the cycles of the Seasons.  Theirs is a rich and pure spirituality with a wisdom all its own.  Again, over the years I have only got the vaguest glimpses of it in this or that rare film or in this or that rare novel.  Then, those of us in any way au fait with the Ecological or Green Movements in any of their incarnations will be very aware of the great speech of Chief Seattle which is quoted very frequently in such literature.



Lizard at the top of ruined church, Badolato

We are very much creatures of the earth, bound to the cycles of its movements about the great and sustaining Star called simply Sun.  As I type these few reflective words in the South of Italy the Sun is high, very warm and burning of the skin at some 32 degrees Centigrade.  There are no signs of the little lizards which come out along my back patio in some numbers in the calm of the less hot evenings.  As I sit and rejoice in this retreat time in the South far away from the colder Northern climes of Ireland, I am reminded here also of the closeness of humankind to the Seasons.  These are very much a peasant people here in the Mezzogiorno, a people who work slowly and surely to the patterns set down as paradigms by Nature.  These are a people in harmony with the world, just like the American Indian or like the Irish peasant, of whose origins I am proud to be.

It is so hard to have a spiritual sense in a large city.  Or as I remember reading somewhere once: it is hard to put down roots in a concrete jungle.  A lot of our cities, especially in the poorer quarters where human beings are forced to live shoulder to shoulder, eyeball to eyeball, one on top of another with very little “elbow room” as the great John Henry Cardinal Newman put it.  He was describing his freedom to research and his freedom to think for himself actually, but his words are lovely and indeed apt for our purposes here, are they not?  What little elbow room all those children have to be themselves in the modern concrete jungles of our cities.  This writer, as you have long since discovered, is a romantic and indeed a peasant – or countryman – at heart.  The words of a local woman, who is the landlady of small agriturismo lodgings, come to mind here.  Proudly she told me in her native language – “Sono Contadina” – “”I am a peasant.”  To her, I replied simply, “Anch’io, sono contadino nella sangue” – “I, too, am a peasant in the blood.”

To bring these few words to a conclusion, I will mention here a wonderful Irish novel that I am reading.  It is called That They May Face The Rising Sun, and it is written by one of the greatest twentieth century Irish novelists, the late great John McGahern.  This is a novel written in the simplest and easiest of styles with a flow that only closeness to nature could have begotten.  McGahern is of all too obvious obvious peasant roots.  He writes like an angel, inspired by the movements of the earth around our great Sun Star.  He writes with a consummate ease that can plumb the depths and scale the heights of the human heart and soul.  As any observer and lover of nature will know: everything in its province has its time and its season.  Just as surely as the sun goes down it will rise again tomorrow.  Just as surely as an old cow dies another calf will delight the on-looking eyes of a farmer’s child.  Just as surely as the storms and rains come the calm of the cloudless skies will return.  Those of us close to nature will realise that we, too, are part of that very same cycle.  We humans come and go.  No sooner has one poor soul ceased breathing on this earth of ours than another soul will be born into the bounty of the earth.

The sad thing is that it takes us a lifetime to learn the simplicities of life, the simplicities which our forefathers acquired ever so easily because they were so close to nature.  We have lost a lot in gaining such advancement in technology.  Not that I am decrying technology here as I use the Internet a lot and find it comforting and useful, and even sometimes distracting and even rewarding.  I am no Luddite.  My point is simple – we moderns have become so alienated from our true nature as part of the cycles of the Seasons.  We moderns have become alienated from our real Selves, what it means to be truly human in this wonderful, if at times painful, world.

Journal of a Soul 5

Clump of wood, Isca Marina Beach, June 2012

As I write a monastic silence prevails, and how I love periods of silence.  There is nothing to be heard around me and my little apartment except the twittering of the birds and the occasional noise as a neighbour moves.  The Carthusian Monks or Trappists speak of the Magnum Silencium – the Great Silence.  Whatever about a great silence, a small one - Parvum Silencium - is enough for me.  At this moment in time I am the recipient of a small silence which reigns in my Heart.  For these occasional small silences my Soul lives.  Enter into the sanctuary of your own Soul, a deep voice within tells me.  And yes, this peace of mind is what monks and nuns of old and of new mean when they say they meet their God in the great and small silences of their lives.

Just above, I have said that I am the recipient of the gift of silence.  And gift –“donum” as they call it in Latin – is one of the most powerful words we can use spiritually.  We experience life as a “given” or as a “gift,” as something we have no real control over – either in its coming or in its going, in its growing or in its passing away.  And, it is only when you reflect on your life in the silence of your own Heart or Soul that you know this, or learn in absolute humility to accept the bounty of life over which you have no absolute control, though we often like to fool ourselves with our technologies of all types that we have some.  However, the wonderful Anglican Divine and Poet, John Donne, had an answer to this egotistical hubris of humankind when he stated in one of his sermons that we should not ever ask for whom the bell tolls, for, verily, it tolls for us.  Our mortality is at once, then, our greatest strength and our greatest weakness which takes most of us almost a lifetime to accept.

Indeed, one does not have to be a monk or a nun, a Christian or a Buddhist to know this.  One can be a believer of any hue or none, indeed, to learn to appreciate the sheer gift and bounty that life is. Moreover, you can either learn this lesson positively or negatively, but learn it you will.  As I sit here now in the silence of my little Calabrian sanctuary I am learning it positively by being open to the gift that all life is to me and for me.  There were times when I encountered the gift negatively, that is, in all those times when I experienced loss, when little or indeed big things were taken away from me – the death of my father, the loss of a job, the disappointment in not getting promotion, the dissolution of a relationship, the slow dissipation of strength as I age, the odd bout of ill-health.  All these very negative things subtract much from life and sometimes they can bring us down into the very pits and dungeons of dread and despair. 

Then, thankfully, there are these moments of small silence as I call them, moments of sheer blessedness when one’s Heart almost sings for joy at the sheer giftedness and bounty of life.  As I say, this is where even an atheist can pray.  Spirituality is a most human thing, and in its sheer depths and heights, in it lengths and breadths, there are those who call it divine.  And, I say, “why not call it such, if you so wish?” because once I felt like that, too.  But for this solitary pilgrim, this word “divine” is a metaphor for the heights and depths of humanity at its best.  Religion, uncoupled from the energising power of spirituality, is a frightful thing indeed.  Uncoupled from spirituality, whose fruits are faith (faithfulness), hope (hopefulness) and of course, love (lovingness), religion descends into what its worst critics like Dawkins, Dennett and Hitchens would have it – a veritable and unique source of evil in the world.  Unhitched from spirituality, religion becomes at best a tawdry and bankrupt, if arcane, system of rules, and at worst a corruption of truth in the pursuit of temporal power in the guise of the divine.

One of the local bars/restaurants in Isca Marina

And therein lies the moral of this short tale.  Seek out the silent places and spaces in your own Heart or Soul.  Drink at the wells of your own depths. Seek your own truth by travelling down into the dark passages of your own being.  Acquaint your Self with the shadowy corners of your own Soul and well as with its brighter pastures.  Climb the frightening cliffs of self-knowledge in the hope of gaining some little Self-acceptance.  But in all of this, dear friends, remember to linger often on your journey, and just sit in Silence and let it take you into its loving and sustaining embrace. Truly, you shall not be disappointed. 

Journal of a Soul 4

Self in Calabria recently

I write these lines from the South of Italy under blue skies. I am almost a different person here – a different Soul, a different Self. People speak about getting away from it all, going on holiday, getting a break from the dull monotony of routine. Here I am in Isca Marina, a little town some 10 kilometres south of the more major town of Soverato. I have just been with my neighbours at the swimming pool in our little compound of apartments called Isca Calabretta. It is around 34 degrees Celsius and I am burnt from the sun. No matter how often I promise myself that I shan’t get burnt, I always end up being so despite whatever precautions I take.

Having been reading a little light philosophy and a rather well written novel I am even more reflective. These posts are just as I have said a journal of a soul; a journal in pursuit of identity; a way of expressing whatever my grasp is on my elusive Self. The Scottish philosopher and empiricist David Hume doubted if there was even such an entity as the “Self.” He was wont to say, and indeed express on paper, that we humans were no more than a bundle of perceptions. And strangely he never seemed to be disturbed by the thought of who it was that was sorting these perceptions into bundles anyway. Maybe he had no need to be disturbed as he had never ever embraced such a question.

Anyway, as I sit here so far away from my routine of school teaching which is a very intense job these days, I feel that I am on retreat from the world, in a different space where I am meeting myself [my Self] anew, at a different level, at a very much deeper level indeed. I have just returned to the quiet shade and strong security of my apartment where I am typing these few lines.

As I age I marvel at where all the passing years have gone. Am I the little Tim Quinlan that sat fearful and shy as a six year-old boy in a new and strange primary school in Dublin, Ireland in 1964? Am I the little scared boy the old nun Sister Lucy shook because I could not read any Irish? Am I the little boy who was taught so well and nurtured so well educationally by the wonderful old balding teacher Mr Murray? What a wonderfully good teacher that old man was despite being so near retirement! I did so well under his care that he sent me on to a higher class.

Am I the same Self that transferred into the frighteningly huge world of secondary school where there were over 1,000 pupils? Or the same Soul that entered college at 18? Or the same Self who became a teacher, entered Religious Life for three years, did further study, and taught in four different schools, had this or that relationship, strangely mostly with girls called Ann(e), a name that features prominently in my personal history?

You know, philosophers seem to have a problem with how, as it were, that Self endures or perdures over time. Indeed, some seem to think that while I may be the same human being, with the same identity, there really may have been several differing persons. My consciousness, now, say when teaching or lecturing, that I am a knowing and knowledgeable professional in my field of Special Education, able to speak at Plenary Sessions of various conferences, chair debates and lectures, I have attended over the years, is apparently not the same consciousness as that of the scared little six year old boy who was brought to Dublin, a strange and huge city, from a very small midland country town called Roscrea in the County of Tipperary. And yet, I dispute this on a matter-of-fact basis that I can remember being that little boy, just a tiny bit.

That philosophers, and highly intelligent ones at that, can doubt this continuity over time is an interesting fact. As I promised that these musings will not be philosophical or psychological in any academic sense, I shall desist from either arguing for or against this conclusion. Anyway, I’m not overly sure I have understood their arguments one way or another. Thankfully, I will, therefore, neither need to display my knowledge nor my ignorance to the good reader.

And yet this Self that I am wants to put structure on its being, wants to gather together the different strands that go to make it up as it were. This Self is a male, some 54 years old, with greying hair, has lost some 4 teeth in those years, has a somewhat reducing pot-belly (called una pancia down here in Italy), loves Italian food and wine, can speak three languages, two like a native - Gaelic and English – and a third, Italian with a somewhat increasing facility. Add to this rather strange recipe that I suffer from High Blood Pressure, High Cholesterol and Clinical Depression and you get possibly a more rounded picture of the Self that I am. I write poems mostly in Gaelic though I have written some in English. I also have written a book on meditation, a practice which I engage in daily for at least 20 minutes to keep sane. I ascribe my ability to keep afloat to my periods of centring myself (my Self) in meditation. That I have lived without any relapses into depression for the past fourteen years, albeit with the help of medication, I attribute mostly to my writing and my practice of meditation. They keep me together. They somehow set boundaries, as it were, to Hume’s annoying theory of the self as a bundle of perceptions. The poet in me refuses to be called a mere bundle or stack of sense impressions. I am no automaton registering impressions from the world out there on some virtual hard disc within me.

I spent seven long weeks in a psychiatric hospital when I was 40 years of age which was at once both frightening and healing. The journey of the Soul or Self into self-knowledge and especially self-acceptance is a slow and painful one, and probably necessarily so. Wisdom can never come cheaply. And so as I sit and write these lines, I am setting boundaries to my Self; describing it, looking at where it has come from; perusing the stops it has made along the road; marvelling at its continuity over time, despite what those philosophers have said; rejoicing in all those significant others it has met over time which has helped form, shape and mould it; praising its great teachers who were unstinting in their help; being thankful for all those good books which have helped so much in easing the passage onward; thankful always for the presence of good friends and family who have helped it carry its burden.

And, then, dear reader, as I bring a close to these summer thoughts, I praise the Soul which shapes them. And strange, too, dear reader, is it not to speak of the Self in the Third Person, in a more objective and yet so powerful way?

This old Body-Soul or Soul-Body, with its aches and pains, [and indeed I am not looking for sympathy here – just stating the facts of the matter as I would not trade my personal pains for the world as they have bought me whatever wisdom has been my reward] is unmindful now of what fate lies in store for it. All it must do is learn to trust itself [its Self] and deeper trust for “every tatter of its mortal dress” as our greatest national poet W.B. Yeats once put it.

A presto, amici,

Tim

Journal of a Soul 2

Intense was the word that a good friend used to describe me when I was in my early twenties.  He added that he meant absolutely no criticism by that description.  Nor indeed did I take it as such.  And other synonyms for intense are passionate, powerful, profound, forceful, heartfelt and concentrated.  I'd still accept any of those adjectives as descriptive of my way of being in the world.

Having recently read much philosophy from the early Greeks right through to the contemporary Charles Taylor I am still enthused with a passion for wonder, with a desire to embrace life in its fullest measure.  From my readings in philosophy and literature I find a singular lack of intensity and passion in the world in general. That's why we need our religions (in the spiritual manifestation, not in the power manifestation, of those entities, I hasten to add is what I have in mind here), our theatres, our cinemas, our traditions and our literatures, and especially our music.

In the psalms we read that  "Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls; All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me." (Psalm 42:7; New American Standard Bible, 1995)  I remember these words clearly since the time I was a young novice in the Augustinian Order many years ago.  Deep calling onto deep always moved me to the very foundations of my being.  A I sat there in the early mornings in the cool and incense-laden oratory, season in and season out, I remember touching depths within me that I certainly had never plumbed before.  Some past pupils who, with their dad, are expert potholers come to mind.  What is it in the human heart that wishes to push its being deeper and ever deeper.  These past pupils are now doing just that, and doing it physically, literally crawling on their bellies down and further down and further down still into the bowels of the very earth.  As I sat there all those years ago I felt that I was spiritually doing what these lads do physically, except that I was crawling down, down, down into the caverns of the heart, or of the soul, or of the spirit, or indeed of the Self.  And yes, I am using all these words here synonymously even though I am aware that there are differences between their connotations in various areas of study.  But for my personal purposes here they refer to my deep sense of my own being. 

And so, in short I am moved to new depths always.  I rejoice that as I age I am able to go deeper and am able to bear more pressure.  It's rather like diving deeper, as the deeper you get the more the water presses down on you.  And so, again, as I sit here listening to the haunting voice of the great Canadian singer Neil Young singing Old Man and my eyes are filled with tears as he brings me deeper with his words:

Old man look at my life,

I'm a lot like you were.

Old man look at my life,

I'm a lot like you were.

Old man look at my life,

Twenty four

and there's so much more

Live alone in a paradise

That makes me think of two.

Or again listening to the late great and wonderful Irish Folk singer Liam Clancy weaves the same wondrous effect on my soul. Try listening to his rendition of Those Were The Days on YouTube here:

Or again listen to the late great Jacques Brel singing his powerful rendition of Amsterdam which you can view hereunder:

Or again, I dove much deeper still when viewing Des Bishop's tribute to his late father Mike, RIP, in tonight's documentary on RTE 2.  You can view this in three parts on YouTube here:

And so all of these things serve to carry me deeper and deeper into self.  Whatever Self may be it is to be found only by pushing oneself to the limit.  Des Bishop, Jacques Brel and Liam Clancy all push themselves to the limit because the self is a reality of the limits and of the horizons.  Again many other metaphors can come to mind here.  The Self is a reality of the extremes, that's why the human soul is wont to go on pilgrimage.  Look at all those great mountaineers who seek to climb the highest mountains.  Bring to mind all those explorers of yesteryear who sought out the very limits of the world.  Think of those astronauts who seek to explore the wonder of space.  Call to mind the English Captain Robert Falcon Scott and the Norwegian Roald Amundsen, explorers of polar regions both.  Nothing but the pursuit of self, the pursuit of identity could carry them up to and beyond the threshold or portal of death.