Chapter Five
Balancing the Outer and the Inner
Someone says, "I can't help feeding my family.
I have to work so hard to earn a living."
He can do without God, but not without food;
he can do without Religion,
but not without idols.
Where is one who'll say,
"If I eat bread without awareness of God,
I will choke."
Rumi, Mathnawi II: 3071-79
At one point in my journey, my teacher's teacher, an eighty-year-old man, had been in a serious car accident that had brought him near to death. For months the master's condition was uncertain, causing all those who loved him to become acutely aware of what his living flesh-and-blood friendship meant to them. Eventually he would recover and live many more years. But when he was well enough to barely walk, he phoned my teacher to tell him that he would have a special lesson if he could come to his apartment on a certain night. Since this was the first opportunity for the two of them to be together in months, my teacher was full of expectation.
They took a walk that evening, so slow and deliberate that it emphasized the attention required for each painful step. They walked as far as one of the most elegant drinking establishments of that great city. My teacher's teacher opened the door of that tavern and they entered. It was as if they were perfectly invisible, while the patrons, the most fashionable men and women, continued in their loud, intoxicated conversations. "See?" he simply said.
In our ordinary state of being, both the outer demands of life and the inner processes of thinking and feeling alternatively monopolize our attention to such an extent that we cannot sustain true consciousness. By consciousness I mean not just perception or awareness, which corresponds to the sensitive energy described earlier, but a field of awareness which includes both the contents of an experience and the one who experiences.
Spiritual work involves maintaining some balance between the demands of outer life and a conscious presence. We wish to enter freely into the life of the world and still know presence, the dimension of consciousness and freedom. We can live through the essence, which is the light behind the personality, rather than through the limited, superficial personality, which is identified with each passing thought and feeling.
The personality is our superficial identity, our learned behavior and attitudes; it is tied to the conditions of outer life, to disapproval and approval, like and dislike, praise and blame. We are working so that this essence, which can truly say "I am here, God," may come forward in the midst of life.
The personality, which is absorbed in the external world and forgetful of the possibility of an inner life, is governed by that external world. All its inner events are tied to outer events and things. The personality exists first of all in relation to other people and things and wants to have its way with them. It feels its own existence through what it achieves and what it possesses. Conversely, each disappointment, each rejection, and each failure is experienced as a challenge and threat to its own existence.
Are we consumed by the experiences of life? Or do we consciously experience life with mindfulness and trust? Is our inner life dependent on outer conditions, or is it becoming free of them?
The transformation with which inner work is concerned allows the "I" to exist more independently as a pure presence or witness. The slavery to like and dislike is diminished to the extent that our feeling of "I" is grounded in pure Being and not in things. The need to achieve our own specialness, for instance, or to receive attention from others, is experienced as less important as a stable inner presence develops. This inner presence is satisfying in itself; it enables nonattachment, equanimity, and greater objectivity.
Presence guides us to a healthy sense of self-restraint and self-sacrifice, enabling us to play with our attachments, to confront our own prison. We may learn to slip out of the stranglehold of egoism, which is based in desire and in the thoughts generated by desire. In being present to the play of desire we can diminish the ego's power over our inner being.
Eventually we reach a certain invulnerability in relation to outer things, so that we do not depend on them, but live from this presence instead. To look only outward is to miss the point, to stray from the straight path. It is to go begging for outer satisfactions, while we ignore the hidden treasure inside us.
We are knee deep in a river, searching for water. We are part of an invisible river, but we are so distracted by outer things and what we imagine they could mean to us that we lose contact with the Source of our own Being. When we are caught in desire, in form, in externals, we are pulled out of ourselves into a fantasy world, a desire world. We lose touch with the invisible river, the waters of life, through our identification with unconscious inner processes and with outer demands.
There is an energy of attention that we at first have in only limited amounts. The loss of this energy has been described by the great thirteenth-century Sufi poet and saint Jelaluddin Rumi:
You have scattered your awareness in all directions,
and your vanities are not worth a bit of cabbage.
The root of every thorn
draws the water of your attention toward itself.
How will the water of your attention reach the fruit?
Cut through the evil roots, cut them away,
Direct the Bounty of God to spirit and to insight,
not to the knotted and broken world outside.
[Mathnawi V, 1084-86]
There is an energy of attention that must be conserved. Can we see ourselves throwing it away? Can we see ourselves wasting it on outer desire and satisfactions, intoxicated with the random demands of the ego, responding to all the needs of outer approval and validation? Our dependence on outer satisfactions and requirements leads us to envy, resentment, pride, guilt, and anger. Isn't this the contemporary idolatry?
Whoever makes all cares into a single care, the care for simply being present, will be relieved of all care by that Presence, which is the creative power. We can take a step back from the world of attraction, comparison, and dependence on externals, remember this vitality within us, and connect with it. Perhaps then we can be liberated from our compulsions, and can learn to act through Spirit, rather than through our limited egos.
If remembering Presence becomes our single care, then we will waste less of our inner energy.
Balancing Self and Selflessness
Another aspect of balance is between self and selflessness, between a strong presence and freedom from self. A common and shallow misunderstanding of the spiritual process consists in wanting to move directly from being an ego-driven individual to having "self-less." But discovering our own presence is the beginning of being free of the compulsive and demanding ego.
The essence of the spiritual process is sustaining presence. Presence is our very Soul. It is a space to be filled by the qualities of Spirit--qualities such as love, generosity, patience, courage, humility, and wisdom, which are inclusive, encompassing, and transcendent. The ego is a crowded space filled with conflicting desires and thoughts.
Sometimes we want to begin spiritual work but are too filled. Every word, movement, and thought invokes some artificial "I," some conditioning or superficial role. When we come into Presence, we enter speechlessness, silence. We put our weapons down. The intellect is given rest; thoughts subside. Then the feelings, too, can become still and empty.
Our work is to cross a threshold into emptiness and stillness. It is like entering an empty room that proves to hold a great presence. The apparent emptiness of simple presence is richer than the crowded experience of ordinary personality. We can either be empty with Spirit or full of ourselves.
The barriers before us include our thoughts and emotions, our psychic and worldly busyness, and our house of idols, occupying us to no end. Our habits and conditioning keep us intoxicated and dull. If we accept the barriers, we fail to cross over the threshold. To cross the threshold from habits and conditioning to emptiness, which is the receptive quality of the soul, we must become still and patient. We must give up certain impulses and let go again and again. This is the way in which we come into our Self. We leave behind our compulsive egos, embodying the "I Am" and "selflessness" at the same time.
The "I Am" is not the mechanical self--the role-playing, superficial personality--that feels its existence through its ordinary reactions and resistances. With the right kind of attention and observation we can see the relationship between our various thoughts and sentiments and how each of them invokes some imaginary "I." We can learn to feel our own existence through presence and intention. A positive sense of "I-ness" emerges through recollection. It is the first thing we can trust: our own presence, the sacred "I Am."
The apparent conflict between a strong sense of our own presence and selflessness can be resolved if we realize that presence helps us to be more selfless. Selflessness is the soul's own willingness to make sacrifices in the material world, as well as in the artificial world of personality. The "I AM" is selfless in that it holds no special idea of itself, does not justify itself, and is not envious, resentful, or proud. Because it already feels secure in the infinitely merciful Spirit, it can accept the annihilation of what is false in the ego personality. If we are in submission to Self, we are capable of letting go of the demands of the ego. If we are not secure in the emptiness of Self, we will cling to events and things, to lies and fears. Free of the coercions of the ego, we can become our authentic selves.
Workbook on "Balancing the Outer and the Inner"
This chapter contrasts the normal, everyday experience of human life with the possibility of another way of being human, free from the "tyranny of the urgent" and slavery to our small, conditioned selves. As citizens of a democracy or as members of a society that has been liberated from menial tasks by our advanced technology, we may think we are free. The fact is, however, we are still enslaved and perhaps, in some ways, more than we have ever been. It could be that our illusions of freedom must be challenged now more than ever before. Essential freedom entails liberty not from externals alone, but from ourselves.
In the western world we are taught to value the personality above all else, and we instruct people how to maximize their "personal potential," their power, or their public persona, so as to be more successful in business and in meeting the demands of the modern world. As Kabir terms it, we can live "grounded in pure Being, and not in things" (25). This means living from a Source deeper than the surface level of the personality or ego, and drawing from the great treasury of the Divine Presence available to us. There is the richness and beauty in a life lived from a higher Source (and not simply from one's personality or ego), united to the Presence of the One.
Despite what we may think or what the propaganda of our age tells us, living in this "selfless" way does not make us a victim. Instead, it provides a certain kind of "invulnerability in relation to outer things" (25). This is a kind of detachment; learning to live freely, in a non-attached way. People often think that this means a person must seek to escape from the world, but that is incorrect. As Kabir points out, it means living in the world, but not escaping from it.
Questions for Reflection
1. The spiritual life is described as a balanced life. The inside of our being and the outside of our lives are in balance. Often, however, we feel unbalanced and "out-of-center." Describe what your life looks like and feels like when it is balanced and when it is not.
2. Either you "are" or you "have" a personality. Using the insights of this chapter, which is it, would you say? Describe your personality in words, and then, as best you can, describe how it got to be that way.
3. In this chapter Kabir writes in some detail about the difference between slavery and freedom. He ties his ideas to the notion of our personalities or egoistic selves, and the larger Self which he describes as our essence. Using his words and your own, define both, and tell why one is usually so enslaved and the other is free. What qualities and conditions do each possess?
4. How dependent are you upon "outer things," outer reinforcements? Would your mate agree with you, or your closest friends?
Daily Practice
1. You have the opportunity this week to watch yourself living from a more superficial part of you or from the "essence" beyond the ego (or the personality). Can you detect the difference? Give examples of what it looks like and feels like when you live from each part and what the reactions and responses of people and life around to each one are like. Be very observant.
2. When you notice that you are acting from the "conditioned" part of yourself that just automatically "reacts that way" see if you can, as Kabir describes it, "slip out of" or "let go of" that normal reaction and get free (25, 27). What happens? What reactions occur both inside and outside of you when you manage it?
3. Kabir introduces us to the practice of "the conservation of energy" (26). He says that we waste a lot of our creative energy on things that don't matter, and so we spend it thoughtlessly. Reread this section and see if you notice the truth of it in your own experience. Practice "conserving energy" in the way he describes it by taking a step back from the world of attraction, comparison, and dependence on externals. Remember the vitality within and connect with it. Our aim is to learn to act from Spirit, rather than our egos. Pick a strategic place and time, with a person or situation where you feel that it might be possible to do this, and see what happens. Write about it in your journal as an experiment.
Contemplative Prayer
1. In this chapter Kabir speaks about consciousness as "a field of awareness that includes both the contents of an experience and the one who experiences" (24). One of the purposes of contemplative prayer is to expand and change the consciousness of the individual who prays. The result is often an expansion that allows awareness beyond our absorption in the affairs of daily life and includes both the contents of experience and ourselves as the one who experiences them. In a time when you can be alone and undisturbed, allow your awareness to expand beyond the narrow focus of your thoughts. First close your eyes and extend your awareness to all the parts in and around your body.
Can you, for example, imagine the space between your fingers, and toes, and around and inside your head, nose, chest, shoulders, arms, hands, abdomen, hips, legs, and feet. Then expand your awareness to include your whole body at once, then the space around your body, then the room in which you sit, and the house or building, then all of the sounds and sensations that come from your immediate surroundings. Allow your consciousness to expand beyond the building to the environment which holds it, the land and places surrounding you, the wider world beyond, the state, the country, the hemisphere, the world, and the space around and beyond it. See if you can be aware at the same time of the emotions and other sensations of your body and feelings; can you be simultaneously aware of it all. Then open your eyes slowly and remain quietly attentive in such an expanded state of awareness.
See also: Open Focus Awareness Meditation, which is suitable for group practice.
2. In this chapter, Kabir uses the illustration of the "water of life." In this exercise, read slowly and thoughtfully the following text. After reading it out loud, sit for a time allowing your mind's eye to see its images in relationship to you. Using the questions as a guide, in your mind and heart think through the truth of this passage as it applies to you.
Jesus took the road through the region of Samaria, and passed by the city of Sychar, near the lands that Jacob had given to his son Joseph, where there was a spring called the Well of Jacob. Wearied from his journey, Jesus rested at noon beside the well, and a woman came out from the city to draw water, and so Jesus asked her, "May I have a drink?"
The Samaritan woman replied, "How is it that you, a Jew, asks water from a Samaritan woman?"
Jesus answered her, "If only you recognized the Divine gift, and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have requested him instead to give you flowing water."
She asked, "How is that, Sir? You have no vessel and the well is deep. From where do you get your 'flowing water?' Are you greater, in fact than our father Jacob who gave us this well and who himself drank from it along with his children and livestock?"
Jesus answered her, "Everyone who drinks from this well will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water I provide, will not thirst throughout this age, for the water which I give will well up within like a fountain and flow into the Age eternal.
The woman replied, "Sir, give me this water to drink so that I never become thirsty nor need come again to draw from this well.
A. Take a position in this story. Are you the woman at the well, a bystander listening to the story, or someone else? As you listen to the words in the narrative, what strikes you the most, that is closest to home in your own experience and understanding?
B. Are you thirsting for this water? In what way?
C. How will God give it to you?
D. Where will this water be once you begin to drink?
Definitions
1. DETACHMENT: A term for the inner loosening of addictive and often overwhelming dependence upon those tendencies which control and dominate the ego. Egoistic attachment to many influences, things, desires, and tendencies so distorts the inner world of a human being that there is often little freedom left. Freedom then can only be gained by a severing of (or a stepping back from) those ties, called detachment. Normally detachment is gained through spiritual practice.
2. PERSONALITY: Learned habits of thought, feeling, and behavior; a surface structure. It is a social construct made up out of a lifetime of interaction. Personality can either obscure or magnify essence.
Open Focus Awareness Meditation
For Group Practice
This exercise is designed to be used with a mentor or leader in a group setting. People are instructed to lie on their backs on the floor in a semi-dark room where the meditation is given. Instruction should be given ahead that this will be a guided meditation allowing them to expand their focus of awareness in such a way that they do not lose contact with themselves, but expand that contact to include more than simply an awareness of the ego. If anyone has trouble with the meditation, they are simply to stop following the instructions and to lie quietly with their own thoughts until the meditation is complete. After the meditation is concluded have each person share their experience.
Can you imagine the space between your eyes?
Can you experience the volume of your whole head?
Is it possible for you to imagine the distance between your ears?
Is it possible to imagine the space between the tip of your nose and the back of your head?
Can you imagine the distance between your eyes and the back of your neck?
Are you able to imagine the space inside your nose?
Is it possible for you to imagine the space inside your throat as you inhale and exhale naturally?
Can you imagine the space inside your whole respiratory system as you inhale and exhale naturally?
Are you able to imagine that any emotions and bodily feelings can be experienced simultaneously with this question?
Can you imagine the space inside your mouth and throat?
Are you able to imagine the volume of your whole neck?
Is it possible for you to imagine the distance between your shoulders?
Is it possible for you to imagine the volume of your upper arm?
Can you experience the space inside your elbows?
Are you able to imagine the volume of your lower arm?
Can you imagine the volume of your wrists, hands, and fingers?
Can you feel the region occupied by your hands and fingers?
Can you imagine the space between your thumb and first finger?
Are you able to imagine the space between your first finger and middle finger, your middle finger and fourth finger, your fourth finger and little finger?
Can you feel the region between all your fingers simultaneously?
Are you able to imagine that all your thumbs and fingers are filled with space?
Is it possible for you to imagine that the region between the tips of your fingers and your wrists is filled with space?
Can you imagine the region between your shoulders is filled with space?
Are you able to imagine the space inside your throat is coextensive with the space between your shoulders and in your shoulders and arms, hands and fingers?
Can you imagine the distance between your eyes and your stomach?
Is it possible for you to imagine that your lower abdomen is filled with space?
Can you imagine that the region between your hips is filled with space?
Are you able to imagine that the region of your hips is filled with space?
Are you able to imagine the volume of your lower back and hips?
Is it possible for you to feel the volume of your upper legs?
Can you imagine the distance between your hips and your knees?
Are you able to imagine the volume of your knees and calves?
Is it possible for you to imagine your ankles and feet filled with space?
Can you imagine the volume of your feet and your toes?
Are you able to imagine toes filled with space?
Can you imagine your body from the stomach down filled with space, including your abdomen, hips, legs, knees, feet and toes?
Is it possible for you to imagine the space between your legs?
Is it possible for you to feel the volume of your legs, feet and toes and between and around your lower body?
Is it possible for you to imagine feeling your whole body simultaneously?
At the same time can you imagine the space around, between, behind and in front of your whole body?
At the same time that you are imagining the space inside your whole body and the space all around it, between your fingers and toes, behind your neck and back, above your head and beneath your chair, can you imagine the space inside your body and outside being coextensive?
Are you able to imagine that the boundaries between the space inside and the space outside your body and around it are becoming one continuous and unified space?
Is it possible for you to experience this space including you and also the distance between you and your neighbor?
Are you able to imagine at the same time that this unified space which includes you and your neighbor is filled with sounds and vibrations?
At the same time that you imagine this unified space can you imagine yourself simultaneously letting yourself attend equally to all the sounds that are available to you; the sound of my voice, the sounds issuing from you and the other participants in this session, and any other sound you might be able to hear?
Are you able to imagine that at the same time you are attending to the space and the sounds you can also simultaneously attend to any emotions, tensions, feelings or pains that might also be present?
Can you imagine that at the same time that you are aware of the space, the sounds and the emotions and other bodily feelings, you can also be simultaneously aware of this whole room, the walls, floors and ceiling?
Is it possible for you to experience the space and volume of this whole building, and the building as part of the volume and space of _______________[the city or area where you are]?
Is it possible for you to imagine the whole region of ____________ [your area] and __________ [a nearby area]?
Can you expand your imagination out to include the distance between _________ [your city or area] and the city of ___________ [a city that is not too distant]?
Can you imagine the whole __________ [state or province where you are]?
Is it possible for you to experience the space connected with that realization?
Can you imagine the space of the entire ___________ [country where you are]?
Is it possible for you to imagine the planet earth?
Can you imagine the distance between the earth and the sun?
Can you experience the entirety of the solar system?
Can you expand that to include the whole universe?
When you open your eyes in a few moments you will be aware simultaneously not only of yourself, but of the space and volume that surrounds you and which includes you.
You may open your eyes.