Wisdom Notes on Spirituality

Conflict within Idealism

Overview

The links in the table on the left take you to sub-headings on this page.

In this article I give an overview of the pilgrim’s progress.
Then in the following two articles I go into a more detailed analysis.

When a seeker experiences conflicts through living his ideals, he may realise that some of these conflicts originate in his subconscious mind, and some in his relationship to his own higher self, and some in his relationship to God. Therefore conflict can be experienced at three levels of confusion, corresponding to the levels of consciousness represented by the ego, higher self, and God. Each level has its own crisis that the seeker has to navigate. Each level orientates around a particular view of ethics and morality.[¹]

I outline the psychological and existential conflicts of the pilgrim’s progress.
Psychological influences relate to the person’s past, and existential influences relate to his present. No doubt there are short-comings to my viewpoint, since I analyse predominantly my own experience. But all viewpoints need a framework. A seeker may think that he understands his experience, independently of any framework. But if there is no framework then there is no way of detecting errors in the seeker's beliefs. Once he puts that experience within a suitable framework then he will enlarge his understanding by reducing confusion and self-deception.

First Stage of Conflict

A human life is full of uncertainty. Usually, however, the support of family and friends is sufficient to carry on normal activities despite difficulties. Eventually, though, there comes a time when this support network becomes inadequate and the person has to face uncertainty alone. The uncertainty creates high states of anxiety. This is too much to accept for long. The person begins his search for a source of certainty. Eventually he meets either a teacher, or a religious leader, or turns to a holy book. In a moment of wonder he acquires faith in the teacher, leader, or in the book. Now at last he can rest in peace. He has his certainty. The teacher, leader, or book provides all the answers to all his questions and doubts. (see article on Faith).

The person has acquired faith.
What does faith do?  It re-orientates his system of beliefs. He acquires a new ideology, one that appears more relevant than his previous one (which may have been just a rationalisation of materialist desires). And how does faith annul his feelings of uncertainty?  By giving him access to a source of power. He either attunes to the power of the teacher, or, via the holy book, he attunes more to the power of his higher self. Power is the real basis of the magic that faith accomplishes. It is the buzz of power that faith induces that gives the person the ability to dispel his doubts, fears, and powerlessness. In essence, the problem created by the pervasiveness of uncertainty is that of the feeling of powerlessness at the core of one’s life.

So in the first stage of conflict, the person faces the problems of power and powerlessness. He resolves these problems by acquiring faith. If, subsequently, he finds that he has to renounce that faith, then he returns to the problem of powerlessness. The reward for acquiring faith is the attainment of certainty. 

The hidden flaw at this level is that certainty is maintained by denying validity to much of reality: the person cannot usually accept what is outside of his ideology. Confusion is buried, but at the cost of narrowing one’s mind. The person believes that his new-found spirituality will solve all problems.

Eventually the person realises that faith solves very few problems. It merely skims some issues off the top of his pile of problems, leaving many important issues incapable of being resolved. The person has to seek for a deeper meaning to his life.

He enters the second stage of conflict.

Second Stage of Conflict

He may find an enlightened teacher, or one who claims to be so. He may experience transient episodes of divine love. If he does not seek such a teacher, then love may come to him in its own way.

Now he faces the problems of love and hate.
The primary difficulty here is one of over-developed sensitivity. Over a period of many incarnations the person has gravitated to the company of other developed seekers, and so has a moralistic background. So when he incarnates on Earth he prefers like-minded parents. Unfortunately, moralistic parents do not provide the emotional support needed to give a happy childhood to a sensitive child. Moralistic parents find it very difficult to give love to a sensitive child. The child interprets this lack of support as a form of rejection. The combination of excessive sensitivity with the feeling of rejection creates trauma in the young child. When he grows up and travels the spiritual path, then at some time he will experience the dark night of the soul. The intensity of the dark night in the adult will be equivalent to the intensity of rejection in the child.

If, as a child, the person creates negative beliefs about people and relationships, then those beliefs will produce his future spiritual challenges. He has to face them and resolve them in a better way than he did as a child. Since he usually lacks psychological knowledge, he will not know his spiritual challenges will include resolving the traumas of childhood, and so he will only see them as incomprehensible challenges from God. 

As the child grows up, it seeks happiness by exploring love and hate. The intensity of subconscious feelings of rejection leads to a compensating intensity of exploration of love and hate. Love seems to lead only to happiness, and hate to unhappiness. Divine love appears very entrancing ; it seems to solve all problems (as faith first seemed to do). The person grasps at it without hesitation. His subconscious feelings of rejection seem to be annulled. But he has yet to learn the limitations of love.

The hidden flaw at this level is that love creates the delusion of glamour: the spiritual life appears to be glamorous and enchanting. Such a life can be lived intensely !

When the seeker does not have a teacher, then he finds that love is a fire that consumes him. He becomes driven by love, belatedly discovering that love creates its own special problems. When love is channelled into the love of truth and the love of God, then few problems may arise. But when it is channelled into the love of humanity then the confusion within the subconscious mind becomes accentuated: the love of humanity stimulates the love of sexuality.

When the seeker lives his life within society and not in solitude, the love of truth brings into his awareness all the confusions caused by his inadequate skills in social relationships – this inadequacy is, in part, caused by his fear of rejection. Since he lives within society, he finds that he has to explore the meaning of sexuality. He tries to keep sexuality at the level of romantic love, but his perpetual anxiety defeats this objective. Sexuality becomes an obsession during the time that he is exploring its meaning. Finally he emerges from sexual confusion when he realises the basis of his obsession. The obsession with sexuality revolves around the self-pity mode of jealousy, and not the love mode [²]; but the drive to explore sexuality comes from love, the love of humanity.

Love creates the glamour of emotional experience, and so prepares the way for the pursuit of power, wealth, sex, etc. Love creates the passion for existence. But when life turns sour, the intensity of love brings only an intensity of sorrow.

If the seeker follows the old traditions and lives his spiritual life as a hermit or recluse, he avoids the wisdom that love can develop in him. Hence he will always be narrow-minded. Whereas if he lives within society, then eventually love can teach him to become broad-minded.

Eventually the seeker finds that love does not solve his remaining problems. The intensity of life that love engenders has finally paled. Love is fine in its proper sphere, but it will not take him to freedom. Neither power nor happiness beguiles him any longer. Even if he occasionally longs for them, he cannot turn back. Returning to the desires of the past is not an option. He continues to seek meaning in life that is beyond power, happiness and love.

Now he seeks freedom, but all his efforts result in continuous failure. He enters the final stage of conflict.

The ideas in this article are explored in more detail in the next article on Conflict within Idealism - the Three Stages.

The number in brackets at the end of the reference takes you back to the paragraph that featured it. 

[¹]. The previous article, Orientations, began the description of these three levels. [1]

[²]. My descriptions of emotions are on the Home page, beginning with Emotion 1. [2]

The articles in this section are :

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