‘There is one thing in this world which must never be forgotten. If you were to forget everything else, but did not forget that, then there would be no cause to worry; whereas if you performed and remembered and did not forget every single thing, but forget that one thing, then you would have done nothing whatsoever. It is just as if a king had sent you to the country to carry out a specified task. You go and perform a hundred other tasks; but if you have not performed that particular task on account of which you had gone to the country, it is as though you have performed nothing at all. So man has come in this world for a particular task, and that is his purpose; if he does not perform it, then he will have done nothing.’
Rumi
Humanity did not come here for nothing. When our early cave-dwelling ancestors first made their handprints upon the rock walls they were making a statement, an expression, of their presence. They were signalling to the world around them that ‘I am here – I exist. We are human.’ It was a statement also of intent. This show of presence was a declaration that ‘they’ knew they were here – in this world, in this reality. And it marked the beginning of a long journey to come home.
It is said in the wisdom traditions that human beings are ordinarily cut off from Objective Reality, which is the true origin of everything. As Plato would say, the human being is separated from the true realm of Forms. Due to this disconnection our human perceptions are limited and are only capable of receiving upon a much-restricted wavelength. We perceive as if through a thin slit and we are unable to grasp the bigger picture. The result of this is that we perceive secondary effects and consider them to be primary. It is like seeing the leaves of a tree sway in the wind and thinking that the leaves are themselves the cause of their movement. We are unable to see beyond – to perceive the wind that blows. We are conditioned to see the caused and not to perceive there is a causer.
There is a phrase that says – ‘The colour of the water seems to be the colour of the glass into which it has been poured.’
It is also said that there are three kinds of men and women. The first are totally animal, and they live an ordinary life. In this category are included most people – the regular thinkers and philosophers, emotional religionists, the everyday person, and all those who do not really know that they exist. The second kind of people are those who, even in ordinary life, have acquired permanency. They live on two planes, that of ordinary existence and another one. The third category are those who exist on three planes and have no limit in time. The object of human existence on earth is to develop within the permanency of the second and third conditions.
Humankind has had the possibility for conscious development for many thousands of years. Largely this potential has been woefully underused.
In the tradition of the Kabbalah there is the concept of tikkun, which refers to the idea that everyone is placed here on Earth to fulfil a particular mission. As an ancient Hasidic aphorism states, it is ‘a task that belongs to no other.’ Many traditions speak of being in exile from our origins – the Source of All (SoA). We are constantly encouraged to strive for a return to remembrance and closeness to our original Source. The early Kabbalistic text Bahir notes that ‘People want to see the King, but do not know where to find his house. First, they [must] ask, “Where is the King’s house?” Only then can they ask, “Where is the King?”’1
Similarly, the Gnostic tradition speaks of the precious jewel:
In a remote realm of perfection, there was a just monarch who had a wife and a wonderful son and daughter. They all lived together in happiness.
One day the father called his children before him and said:
‘The time has come, as it does for all. You are to go down, an infinite distance, to another land. You shall seek and find and bring back a precious Jewel.’
The travellers were conducted in disguise to a strange land, whose inhabitants almost all lived a dark existence. Such was the effect of this place that the two lost touch with each other, wandering as if asleep.
From time to time they saw phantoms, similitudes of their country and of the Jewel, but such was their condition that these things only increased the depth of their reveries, which they now began to take as reality.
When news of his children’s plight reached the king, he sent word by a trusted servant, a wise man:
‘Remember your mission, awaken from your dream, and remain together.’
With this message they roused themselves, and with the help of their rescuing guide they dared the monstrous perils which surrounded the Jewel, and by its magic aid returned to their realm of light, there to remain in increased happiness for evermore.2
A known dervish phrase says that: life is a gift that consists of three days and two are gone. The reader should keep in mind that all who come into this existence will also have to leave it. No one stays forever. There are those who came before us, and those who will come after. Life is a transitory thing. And with every breath our stay here decreases.
It says in the Zohar that ‘Man, whilst in this world, considers not and reflects not what he is standing on, and each day as it passes, he regards as though it has vanished into nothingness.’3 We seek after self-renewal, yet we recognize it not. Each person yearns for something deep, yet this is often ignored or misread into different needs and desires.
Each person carries within them the potential for visionary inspiration. This is often blocked, discouraged, or ignored through our social conditioning. A person may feel a little silly these days in admitting that they long for an invisible, immaterial, and intransient thing. We often substitute with false words, surrendering to the consensus attitudes prevalent in our cultures. Our religious buildings and institutions are in disarray and decay – both outwardly and inwardly. The ‘temple of union’ is in need of being reinforced to its original state – within the heart of humankind. The revered connection between each person and the Source-of-All lies within each self. We are each the meeting point of union between the material and the Source. In this world – in this reality – we are given responsibility to connect the transcendent with the everyday. This is what is meant by the term ‘soul-making.’
Today, the search for truth for many people has become a cliché, a result of ennui, or a commercial industry. Rarely do we find it stripped down to its essential bare bones. The human being is largely self-blinded. We have not learnt how to read or speak our own inner language. The French writer Voltaire wrote that – We can only learn by living it.
In this life, we live but once. We give effort to learn and gain expertise about things in the outer world, yet rarely do we aim to master ourselves. Our knowledge of the physical world is great whilst that of the inner world of the human being is lacking. The fundamental nature of the human being has not changed over the many millennia of our human history. What has changed is our social milieu and our means and ways of expression. How we understand has changed – not what there is to understand. The plain fact is that we have forgotten who we truly are. We live our lives as ‘personalities.’ These personalities are created through social systems and become our masks. Finally, they become who we think we are. We spend a lifetime living within our masks. The human being walks through the roads of life as if through foreign lands. We are losing our centre of being – losing contact with our core essential groundedness. Fundamentally, at core, the human is a developmental being.
Few people ever stop to question the issue of selfhood – who really am I? What does it truly mean to have an ‘I’? Surely, we cannot be body and mind alone. Are we to believe that our existence is the result of accidental evolution, and our minds are the accidental result from random neuronal pathways? Are we really this blind? Rabbi Israel Salanter said that: ‘Man lives with himself for seventy years, but does not get to know himself.’ In our essential selves there exist unknown and unimaginable capacities. And yet we so often behave like a drunken person who has no idea about their drunkenness. They are drunk. They cannot perceive what lays beyond their inebriated state. The average ‘drunken’ person thinks in set patterns and cannot easily adjust themselves to a different cognitive reality.
A person largely lies hidden beneath their tongue. We present ourselves through our words. We should treat our words as if they were our children. They are born from us and go forth from us. They are the little ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’ that we send into the world; too often we send them out blackened. We do not realize that our words are tied to us if by a golden thread. When we release our words, we are releasing those things that dwell within us. At all times we are weaving the golden thread; it is unfortunate that far too often this thread is cast like a net of iron. There is a line of communication with the heart-self, and it is through this we are compelled to learn how to speak. We are first bound to acquire a new way of looking at things. The necessary training is to develop new senses of perception that are timeless. The task that lies ahead is to develop advanced human cognition. This can be said to also be a part of the soul-making process, and it occurs in everyday life.
Soul-making, as well as taking care of one’s soul, are not specifically introverted or monastic pursuits. They do not require steadfast introspection or withdrawal from the world. In some moments perhaps, yet not as part of their continual pursuit. The Romantic Poet John Keats said – ‘Call the world if you please, “the vale of Soul-making.” Then you will find out the use of the world.’ The use of the world is to help us develop our capacities for re-connection with Source.
We have developed our faith, our reason, our mental pursuits; we have established industry and created marvellous technologies – yet we have failed to work on ourselves. We have largely ignored to develop our cognitive capacities. The connection with Source is an inoculation against the ills of the world, against the negative impacts and influences. It is like an inner medicine against the worldly disease. What can be called as ‘soul-making,’ or perceptive cognition, needs to be re-imagined and reintegrated into our lives. This is not about going back to animism or alchemy. The necessary stimulus can be found here, in the everyday world around us. It is also a part of the world, our extended reality. The alchemist Sendivogius said – ‘The greater part of the soul lies outside the body.’
It is often assumed that something transcendental must be far off or complicated. This is ignorance, or a lazy excuse. Such things are only ‘far off’ in a direction people don’t comprehend or wish to look. It is an assumption to think that reality makes itself visible to us in ordinary life. We would do well to consider that genuine ‘Reality’ is actually invisible in our lives until we make it visible. The ancient wisdom traditions sought to make the Truth visible within the semi-visible reality of everyday life. In the ordinary perception of reality, the Truth is nowhere visible yet everywhere present. It works undisclosed in spite of ourselves. Truth works to transform life, as well as it is a human function to convert Truth into life. Such Truth is not occult theatrics – it is extraordinary and beyond normal comprehension. And no gold in the world can ever buy it.
In this respect, the world and Nature is our monastery; and life can also be our teacher. The Path of soul-making is about seeking for fishes of gold within the material rivers of sand. If we can walk through life with our hearts awake (perceptive cognition), then our lives will change. Time is needed for a tree to bear fruit. Likewise, the human being requires time, effort, and correct intention to bear its own precious fruit. The human tree requires the longest time of any fruit tree. For this, patience and perseverance are required. Sources of nourishment must be continually sought.
It is said that the human being always moves from one state of nourishment to the next. As an embryo, our nourishment was once blood. Then as young babies it changed to milk. At some point we were weaned onto solid food. For most people, solid food shall remain their continual source of nourishment. Yet there will be some people who will shift from solid food to a different kind of nourishment – a less physical and visible one. It is these people who seek for soul-making. Life is a state of being weaned from one type of nourishment to another. We may also be weaned from the visible to the non-visible. It is well to remember that the human being belongs to a royal lineage even though it may appear that they are dressed in rags.
The path of the perennial psychology is not for everyone. Not everyone will feel drawn to this endeavour. Yet whoever puts themselves right within will put their whole life right. The essential is the beginning. And everything begins and ends at the beginning. These are the places where the wise streams flow.
I wish to arrive at the beginning with a story. It is the story of ‘The Forbidden Room:’
‘Once upon a time there was a young man who decided to go in search of work. He walked down the street, and as he was passing a magnificent palace an old man came out and asked if by any chance he was looking for work. The young man accepted the offer and soon went to work in the palace where he found that it was inhabited by ten old men.
As time went by, the old men died until there was only one left alive. He said to the young man: “You will shortly inherit this whole palace, as there is no other heir. I would just warn you of one thing; and that is never to open this door here – not under any circumstances. As for the rest, you may do as you like.”
For a time, the young man heeded the advice. Eventually, however, he began to reason that if the palace belonged to him then surely there could be no good cause for him not to look where he liked. Also, that there was surely nothing so horrible he could not contemplate it.
So the young man opened the door, and there he saw a long corridor. He walked down it and when he came to the end he looked around and found that the corridor had disappeared. He found himself on a desolate seashore; and as he was wondering what to do he heard the sound of beating wings and looked up to see a giant bird swooping down on him. The bird picked him up in its talons and carried him off across the sea to a far-off land. There it set him down on the turret of a castle.
The castle belonged to a King whose daughter fell in love with the new arrival. Soon they were married, and the young man settled down to a prosperous life. One day the King’s daughter said to him: “Half of all that I have is yours. However, there is one condition, and that is that under no circumstances must you ever open this door here, as the consequences will be extremely serious.” For a time the young man heeded this advice, until one day he thought to himself that since he shared everything with his wife, what possible reason could she have for hiding something from him? So when next alone he opened the door, and went down the corridor he found beyond. And when he got to the end he found himself in exactly the same place and situation as he had been in before the old man had asked him to work in the palace. He had no recollection of the events which had befallen him, and the only thing which remained was an everlasting sense of loss.’
References
1Hoffman, Edward. 1996. The Heavenly Ladder: Kabbalistic Techniques for Inner Growth. Sturminster Newton: Prism Press, p20
2 Shah, I. 1971. Thinkers of the East. London: Jonathan Cape, p123
3 Hoffman, Edward. 1996. The Heavenly Ladder: Kabbalistic Techniques for Inner Growth. Sturminster Newton: Prism Press, p23
