Quest Magazine

Printed in the  Summer 2021  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Hoeller, Stephan A., "Members Forum: The Drama of Spiritual Struggle " Quest 108:3, pg 12

Stephan A. Hoeller

Among the philosophical dramatic works of the world, a singular position belongs to the late nineteenth-century Hungarian play The Tragedy of Man by Imre Madach. Not very well known outside of Hungary, it is nevertheless regarded as part of the broad European tradition represented by the works of such great figures as Goethe, Milton, Byron, and Ibsen. Whether it may be regarded as a preexistentialist work, a document of the tragic sense of life, or an esoteric allegory built on the theory of reincarnation, its quintessential message is undoubtedly the need for psychospiritual struggle in human consciousness.

The Tragedy of Man consists of fifteen scenes, beginning and ending with scenes in the Garden of Paradise. Between these two points we are led through the entire history of humanity as envisioned by Adam and Eve in their embodiments (reincarnations) in various historical periods. In each epoch, the first human pair experiences a struggle involving suffering and the longing for a better future, which, however, upon coming to pass, reveals itself as yet another time of struggle and disappointment. In the final scene, we find Adam standing on a precipice, ready to take a suicidal plunge into the Abyss in order to prevent this future struggle, but Eve prevents him from doing so by disclosing that she is pregnant. The promptings to despair communicated to Adam by Lucifer thus fall on deaf ears. The sorrowful history of humanity will now take place. The grand philosophical message of the play is proclaimed at the play’s end by the voice of the Creator: “I have told thee, Man, to struggle and to hope mightily!”

The philosopher-playwright was not alone in his view of the existential reality and the utility of the struggle. Another great Hungarian poet, Mihaly Vorosmarty, wrote: “What is our task in the world? To struggle and give nourishment to our soul’s desires.”

Many of us reach a point in our lives where we struggle with becoming the spiritual beings we know we can be. We intend to improve our spiritual character, but we find influences impinging on us that are opposed to such improvement. Many of us, unable to endure the suffering of this struggle, settle for minimal progress and thus leave our earthly embodiment frustrated and disappointed.

Throughout history, many systems of psychospiritual development have been proclaimed. Most of them pertain to the great religions: the Law of Judaism, the imitatio Christi in Christianity, the yoga systems in Hinduism. Theosophy, conforming to nineteenth-century thinking, adapted Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to the ideal of spiritual progress. For some of us, the idea of evolution (even when thus spiritualized) has largely lost its appeal, but it would probably be an extreme position to say that the theory of spiritual evolution is without merit.

Perhaps it may be useful to consider that a slow, almost imperceptible, development of consciousness may be underlying the turbulent and sorrowful course of history. The late Boris de Zirkoff, a relative and interpreter of H.P. Blavatsky, adapting certain Theosophical theories, advocated self-directed evolution. This process requires contact with an authentic, wise Self, which may become both the activating agent and the goal of such development. Recalling Shakespeare’s words, “To thine own self be true,” we may be able to move closer to the ontological Self, the central archetype of our being.

To remain true to what Theosophical terminology calls the Higher Self takes us to a battlefield of struggle. Perhaps never has this struggle been more dramatically manifested to us than with the recent pandemic, which has flooded us with loneliness, isolation, anxiety, depression, and despair. Only a mighty hope nourished by the higher power of being, the deific reality of the true Self, will bring victory in this great struggle. The Hungarian dramatist may have been right: we need to struggle while hoping mightily.

Stephan A. Hoeller was born and raised in Hungary and was educated for the monastic priesthood in his earlier years. A member of the Theosophical Society since 1952, he has lectured in the U.S. as well as in Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. He served as a professor of religion at the College of Oriental Studies for a number of years and is the author of four books published by Quest Books: The Fool’s Pilgrimage: Kabbalistic Meditations on the Tarot;  Jung and the Lost Gospels: Insights into the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library; The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead; and Gnosticism: New Light on the Ancient Tradition of Inner Knowing. He has been associated with the Besant Lodge of the TSA in Hollywood for many years and has been a bishop of the Gnostic Church (Ecclesia Gnostica) since 1967.

Printed in the  Summer 2021 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Prescott, Sue, "Filling the Hole in the Soul " Quest 108:3, pg 20-24

By Sue Prescott

For the length of my career, I have done family, marital, and individual therapy with children and adults. When I began my work, there was a popular interest in self-healing and the idea of mind over matter for creating good physical and mental health. Many techniques and principles were taught for this purpose. As I pursued my own interest in spirituality, I noticed a remarkable similarity between the practices for leading a spiritual life and what people could do to alleviate depression, anxiety, or the feeling that life had no meaning—basically the “hole in the soul.”

What do I mean when I refer to “the hole in the soul”? It is reminiscent of feeling depressed, blue, or having no reason to live, or it may mean that a person has anxiety, with feelings of fear, worry, or dread. Both anxiety and depression can be normal reactions to events that happen in life; in these cases, they are referred to as situational. A person adjusting to a breakup of a relationship may experience situational depression, while a family member laid off from work may go through situational anxiety. These conditions may lessen or go away once things change and the stress is over.

The hole in the soul goes deeper. It is a feeling of emptiness or a blankness, where life seems to have no meaning or purpose. To ease it, a person may try to find an all-consuming love but may be disappointed in romantic relationships. Or the hope may be projected into the future: they think they would be happy if they had a new car or a bigger house. Some may try to assuage their unhappiness through food, alcohol, or other distractions, such as bingeing on movies or computer gaming.

It is useful to define what I mean by the word soul here. Philosophers have written much about the nature of the soul, but I will present what Theosophy teaches. By this view, the soul is the personal self (table 1).

Table 1. The levels of consciousness according to Theosophical theory

The feeling that something is missing in the soul causes a person to yearn for peace and contentment, but it eludes them and they don’t know why. Spiritual teachers say that the cause is that the personal, everyday self is cut off from the spiritual, Higher Self.

Black Elk, the nineteenth-century medicine man of the Oglala Lakota people, said that the long-sought peace comes only when one is aligned with the Great Spirit. (In Theosophical terms, the Great Spirit is the same as the atman in a human being.) In his book Black Elk Speaks, he refers to this as the “first peace,” adding that this must be achieved before peace can come between people or nations.

The first peace, which is most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their oneness with the universe and all its powers—when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit and that this center is really everywhere. It is within each one of us. This is real peace. 

Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr, discussing the Aboriginal mysticism of Australia, writes of the peace of the spiritual Self that is felt from being in nature. One Aboriginal language calls it dadirri:

The greatest gift is dadirri. It is an inner, deep listening and quiet awareness. Dadirri recognizes the deep spring that is inside us. We call on it and it calls to us. When I experience dadirri, I am made whole again. I can sit on the river bank or walk through the trees. Even if someone close to me has passed away, I can find my peace in this silence. There is no need for words. (quoted in Stockton, 104)

The Dalai Lama XIV speaks of attaining this peace when he says, “Everybody wants a happy life and a peaceful mind, but we have to produce peace of mind through our own practice” (Dalai Lama, 2020, 197).

When people begin therapy, peace of mind is one of their goals. A type of therapeutic intervention that works well with the mind in its search for peace is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).

CBT focuses on the interplay of the mind, the emotions, and the body. It is evidence-based, meaning that evidence shows it is effective. The mind has the most influence on your feelings and behavior, so it is where you concentrate your efforts for change. This is depicted in the CBT triangle in diagram 1, with thoughts placed at the top. The CBT triangle corresponds with the personal self in table 1.

Diagram 1. The triad of interaction according to cognitive behavioral therapy

CBT includes useful techniques for teaching people to change their patterns of thinking or behavior. It is used along with talking therapy, whereby clients process what they are going through. The strategies parallel the teachings of many spiritual leaders.

One technique is thought stopping. This is particularly useful for resentment, which can make a person feel down and depressed. Using the technique, every time you think of something you don’t want to recall, such as a hurtful thing that was done to you, you are to stop yourself and firmly say, “I will not think this way!” State it with power. Then consciously substitute another thought that opposes the unwanted one, such as, “I can heal from this.” It is important to include this second technique, called thought substitution, so your mind can specifically focus on replacing the old, unwanted thought with a new, beneficial one.

In the Dhammapada, the Buddha teaches you to watch your thoughts and change them if needed: “The watched mind brings happiness. The disciplined mind brings happiness.” The same point is emphasized by Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking, who wrote, “Change your thoughts and you change your world” (Peale, 18).

The Polynesian and Hawaiian traditions have a principle that speaks to the power of thinking. It is called makia and means, “Energy flows where your attention goes.” Whenever you think of something, energy will flow into the thought and make it more likely to come up again. If you allow yourself to think negatively, it will cause discouragement and create more stress in your life. It can upset your body’s hormone balance and lessen the effectiveness of your immune system.

The Buddha teaches the same idea in the Dhammapada when he says, “Whatever an enemy may do to an enemy, far worse is the harm from one’s own wrongly directed mind.” You need to choose the way you direct your mind as well as how you feel and behave.

Frequent thinking in a certain way sets up a vibratory habit or pattern in the mental body. This is referred to as a neural “groove” in current informal terminology. If your thoughts are positive, you will feel good, which reinforces the neural groove in your brain, so similar thoughts come up again. If you habitually think of things that are negative, those thoughts will repeat, and your mood will be brought down.

H.P. Blavatsky speaks to this idea as well: “Ordinary intellectual activity moves on well beaten paths in the brain and does not compel sudden adjustments and destructions in its substance. But a new kind of mental effort calls for something very different—the carving out of new ‘brain paths’” (quoted in Bowen, 4).

Mahatma Koot Hoomi, in The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, said, “A person can only think in his worn grooves, and unless he has the courage to fill up these and make new ones for himself, he must perforce travel on the old lines” (in Chin, 470).

Changing your habitual thoughts and making new neural grooves is understood by science and medicine as synaptic pruning or neural pruning. This happens all the time when certain cells or neurons in the brain are reduced or eliminated to allow greater efficiency in thinking and response to stimuli. When you work to change negative thinking patterns, neural pruning takes place. Then you can focus on happier thoughts, which make you feel better. Therapy involves more than just changing one’s thoughts, but if you don’t change your thinking, the potential for feeling your best is reduced.

The Dalai Lama teaches the same thing: “By mobilizing your thoughts and practicing new ways of thinking, you can reshape your nerve cells and change the way your brains work.”

Another type of therapy that relates well to this process and which includes spiritual components is dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), developed by Marsha Linehan, PhD, in the 1990s. It combines the use of mindfulness—or watching your thoughts—with CBT to produce change. Dialectical means from opposing sides: seemingly opposing points of view can come together to help the client, such as mindfulness combined with specific techniques to change one’s behavior. Another example of a dialectic is putting yourself in another’s shoes to understand their point of view as well as your own.

Marsha Linehan coined the term “wise mind,” which refers to your intuition or buddhi-manas. This is a helpful concept for finding insights into your feelings or behavior.

One DBT tool using a dialectic is opposite action: consciously deciding to change your negative behavior to its opposite positive. An example is being nice to someone you resent by paying them a compliment. If you do this, you need to be sincere, although you can usually find something positive in anyone. This process changes the relationship between you, and most importantly, it changes you. This idea is supported by Hippocrates, the Greek physician of the fifth century BCE who is considered the father of Western medicine: he said, “Opposites are cures for opposites.”

DBT’s emphasis on mindfulness comes from Buddhist practice, whereby one is mindful of one’s thoughts and feelings in order to cultivate peace and well-being. If a negative thought comes up, DBT says you are to analyze it to see if you need to do some problem solving or if the thought just needs to be discarded. This way you can prevent the emotions associated with the negative thought from distressing you.

The mindfulness of DBT is similar to the spiritual practice of witnessing, whereby you simply watch your thoughts, your feelings, and how you are behaving. You widen your awareness to take in all that is going on within you as well as around you.

A beautiful quote from the Upanishads perfectly describes the witness: “Two birds, united always and known by the same name, closely cling to the same tree. One of them eats the sweet and sour fruits of life; the other looks on without eating” (Mandukya Upanishad, 3.1.1). The latter is the witness.

The quote continues: “The individual self, deluded by forgetfulness of his identity with the Divine Self, bewildered by his ego, grieves and is sad. But when he recognizes the worshipful Lord as his own True Self, and beholds His glory, he grieves no more.” The last part is similar to the Australian practice of dadirri or calling on the Native American Great Spirit to help you find solace through your inner, spiritual Self.

Looking at the CBT triangle, you must also work on the feelings tied up in the problems you have. One of the most problematic is anger, which can be very harmful to you, both physically and mentally. These next few quotes illustrate this.

An African proverb says, “When you burn with the fire of anger, smoke gets in your eyes.” The “smoke” clouds your vision so you get consumed by what you are experiencing and can’t see the effect you are having on yourself and others.

You also cut yourself off from your spiritual Self. This is expressed in the Yoruba religion of Africa by the saying, “When water boils over the side of the pot, it smothers the flame.” This is the flame of atman in your spiritual Self.

A wise teaching from Basavanna, an Indian philosopher of the twelfth century, emphasizes the negative effect of anger: “Why do you get angry at someone who is angry at you? What are you going to gain by it? How can the fire in your house burn your neighbor’s house without engulfing your own?” Anger consumes both you and the person you are directing it to.

A similar idea is taught in the Jewish scriptures: “Who takes vengeance or bears a grudge acts like one who, having cut one hand while handling a knife, avenges himself by stabbing the other hand” (Talmud, Nedarim 9, 4).

These quotes allude to the unity of all life in saying that when you hurt another, you are also hurting yourself. This is the unity at the level of the spiritual Self.

The principle of thought stopping was demonstrated by Nelson Mandela, the first president of South Africa after apartheid ended in the early 1990s. Mandela had been imprisoned for twenty-seven years. When he was set free, he said, “As I walked out the door toward my freedom, I knew that if I did not leave all the anger, hatred, and bitterness behind, I would still be in prison.”

Because this process can be difficult, breathing exercises are useful for relaxing the body and reducing the flow of adrenalin that is produced by anger. These exercises are also promoted by spiritual leaders who emphasize meditation. Research on Buddhist monks while meditating show that their brains modulate the functioning of the amygdala, calming the fight, flight, or freeze response.

In your daily life, anger serves a purpose: it tells you that something is wrong. Dora Kunz, the late Theosophical writer and teacher, wisely taught that you should only feel anger for a fraction of a second. This means you experience the signal that something is amiss, but not so that you vent your anger on anyone. Then you use the wise mind to help you decide whether and how you want to react.

As you work to improve your emotional functioning and offset your response of irritation or anger at others, it is useful to develop your ability to forgive. This was demonstrated by Fred Luskin, PhD, of the Stanford Forgiveness Project, who says that forgiveness is a life skill that needed to be learned. He has found that forgiveness causes people to have happier and healthier lives, with increased vitality and optimism. They were less angry, experienced less hurt, had less stress, and were more self-confident. Additionally, if people just thought about forgiving the offender, their hearts and nervous systems improved.

Very often people resist forgiveness because they believe it is equivalent to saying that it is OK to be treated poorly or to be hurt. The mind objects to this and holds on to grievances as a shield of protection. However, this is only an illusion: in this condition, you remain even more vulnerable, because you’re on the lookout for another slight. This hypersensitivity prevents you from forgiving and ultimately healing.

Mindfulness and witnessing not only help you forgive but also prevent you from judging others. This keeps you aware of your own shortcomings so they aren’t pushed into what is called the Shadow, which consists of qualities within you that you don’t like or don’t want to admit you have. Judging others allows you to avoid facing your own Shadow qualities and gives you a false sense of your own purity.

This quote from Confucius illustrates the nature of the Shadow: “When you see a man of worth, think of how you may emulate him. When you see a man who is unworthy, examine your own character.” The qualities you judge in others are probably in yourself and could be improved.

The witness helps you see yourself fully and realize that the potentialities of all negatives are within you. This is a process called assimilation by Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist who wrote extensively about the Shadow. He said, “I would rather be whole than good.” Then you can recognize aspects of yourself that you want to change and transform them using such DBT techniques as thought substitution and opposite action.

Lastly, techniques to deal with depression and anxiety include doing things for others, which not only helps them but also helps you. Through the selflessness of altruism, your personal problems take a back seat to what you are doing for another, and you feel better by expressing the unity of the spiritual Self.

The Dalai Lama wrote in The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, “Adversity, illness, and death are real and inevitable. To heal your own suffering, turn away from your self-regard to wipe the tears from the eyes of another. This is the true secret to joy.” Then the soul is filled and happy, just as the Persian poet Jalaladdin Rumi said: “When you do things from your soul, you feel a river of joy moving inside you.”

Sources

Bowen, Robert. Madame Blavatsky on How to Study Theosophy, 1960: https://fohatproductions.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Bowen-Notes-HPB-on-How-to-Study.pdf

Chin, Vicente Hao, Jr., ed. The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett in Chronological Sequence. Quezon City, Philippines: Theosophical Publishing House, 1998.

The Dalai Lama XIV. The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living. New York: Riverhead Books, 2020.

The Dalai Lama XIV and Desmond Tutu. The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World. New York: Avery, 2016.

Mandela, Nelson. Long Walk to Freedom. New York: Back Bay Books, 1994.

Neihardt, John G., ed. Black Elk Speaks. New York: William Morrow, 1961.

Peale, Norman Vincent. The Power of Positive Thinking. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1952.

Stockton, Eugene. The Aboriginal Gift: Spirituality for a Nation. Alexandria, Australia: Millennium Books, 1995.

Sue Prescott, MSW, is a therapist, life-long Theosophist, and frequent lecturer at the Seattle Lodge and surrounding area. She is author of Realizing the Self Within, an overview of the concepts of spirituality that can be applied to relationships and self-improvement.

Printed in the  Summer 2021  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Smoley, Richard, "From the Editor's Desk" Quest 108:3, pg 2

Spiritual struggle takes many forms: the Dark Night of the Soul, the confrontation with the Shadow, wrestling with angels and devils, the battle on the field of Kurukshetra, and so forth.

Most people on a spiritual path have faced such confrontations. Nevertheless, I believe, you can realize that in many of these cases, you are merely making problems for yourself. Indeed the more grandiose forms of struggle often consist of elaborate means of avoiding this truth.

Life often seems to constitute a string of problems. One is solved, only to be rapidly replaced by another. This list is never-ending and self-perpetuating. Many of the practical problems of life are unavoidable. But what about the ones we create for ourselves?

Grievances are perhaps the most common form of self-created problems. Holding grievances is useless and harmful—like drinking poison and expecting it to kill someone else, according to a Buddhist proverb. Yet it is frequently the hardest habit to break. Why?

Because of the unconscious belief that holding grievances is somehow of benefit. Usually this is an attempt at defense: some level of the mind believes that grievances are armor; without them we would be at the mercy of a cruel world.

Of course this is ridiculous. In fact our grievances are our greatest points of vulnerability. (Look at this history of this nation for the past five years if you have any doubts about this matter.) To overcome them, the first step, I would say, is insight: you have to recognize the damage that you are suffering from your grievances. You cannot merely pretend that you understand this fact or indulge in empty moralizing about forgiveness.

The second step is to see when you are holding grievances (in the moment, of course). This can be difficult. If you are quitting smoking, you can easily know when you have a cigarette in your hand and when you don’t. With internal matters, it is not so simple. It requires a rigorous inner attention and honesty.

Such honesty is, I would say, even more important than forgiveness. It is no good to tell yourself you have let go of a grievance when you have done nothing of the kind. Better to face the truth: you are still holding on to your grudge, even if you realize that it is doing you no good.

For many people, grievances against others are the easiest to release, especially if they have to do with the past or with people with whom you have no more contact. If the issue is a serious one—involving, say, abuse by family members—it may require psychotherapy to fully resolve.

It is somewhat harder to release grievances against oneself. Most of us tend somewhat toward self-punishment; moreover, at some level we mistakenly believe that holding these past failures over our heads will save us from future ones. There is a word for holding grievances against oneself: regret. But a Uighur proverb says that a man with regrets is not a real man. There is a huge gulf between learning from the mistakes of the past and punishing yourself for them.

The third type of grievance may be the most insidious one: holding grudges about the state of the world. G.I. Gurdjieff noted the tendency of modern humans “vainly-to-become-sincerely-indignant” (to use his idiosyncratic punctuation). Its cause? The absence of the “instinctive-sensing-of-reality-in-its-own right.”

There is a blurry line here. It is between genuine compassion for the suffering of others and the belief (yet again hidden from consciousness) that one has to feel indignation as a moral responsibility. Much of this belief is nothing more than the ego trying to convince itself that it is a good person.

How can you tell the difference between these two impulses? Genuine compassion manifests itself in some form, even if only as an ephemeral and unnoticed gesture of kindness. “Vainly-to-become-sincerely-indignant” is the stuff of Facebook posts and Twitter rants.

Releasing grievances can be a long and arduous process, requiring the “searching and fearless moral inventory” of the Twelve-step program, although it need not be. What will make the difference is the strength of the insight. If you truly realize that your grudges are pointless and harmful, many of them will vanish overnight.  But if parts of your character hesitate and doubt this truth, the process will be longer and more painful.

I have said as much about this issue as I can on the single page of a magazine. I wrote about it in a short book, published several years ago, called The Deal: A Guide to Radical and Complete Forgiveness, which sets out a simple process for releasing grievances. I would urge you to read and work with this book if you feel this issue has had any hold on your life.

By the way, I did not dream up The Deal because I thought it would be nice to write a book about forgiveness. It was a process that I had to go through myself beforehand; only afterward did it occur to me to turn it into a book.

Of all of the spiritual work I have done and the struggles I have gone through, I would say that this process of releasing grievances has been among the most important and has by far given me the greatest benefits.

Richard Smoley

Printed in the  Summer 2021  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Trull, David, "Questions That Cause Unnecessary Talking " Quest 108:3, pg 16-19

By David Trull

One day I was sitting on a lakeshore discussing spiritual progress with a friend. We touched on the salvific nature of suffering and the capacity of the human spirit to transform suffering into transcendence. We spoke about the beauty of the world and humanity’s role as the intended audience for divine art.

It was a fairly new form of discussion for me, one that revolved around the letting go of superfluous elements of life, living in a manner that would provide uninterrupted happiness. This is accomplished through understanding life as the progression through spiritual levels. Typically, I am given to debating metaphysical questions in an either/or fashion. I am open and wide-ranging about the experiential data that I admit into my consideration, but I am wired with an inborn desire to boil it down to “the answer.” Despite my curiosity and awe at the universe, I do yearn to finally nail it all down. The idea, however, of a deep letting go has been beckoning for some time, and has sometimes pushed me further into the spiritual realm than the philosophical.

Earlier in the day, my friend had purchased a large inflatable raft in which our group had enjoyed floating around the lake, soaking up rays. It was now sitting idle in the shallows. A group of kids arrived during our conversation and began playing in these shallows. After a time, my friend took notice of them and reflexively offered the use of our raft. Their eyes lit up, and they eagerly took her up on the offer. They laughed and chased each other on and off it for over an hour.

It was a simple act of kindness, but its coincidence with our spiritual discussion drew me towards an interesting reflection: neither of us knew the ultimate answers to the metaphysical questions we were discussing—far from it—yet that act of kindness was so simple, and the ensuing joy tangible. My friend had moved from the unsolvable problems to an easy act of benevolence; the rewards of the latter act were much more palpable than those of the prior. It made we wonder about the relation of metaphysical questions and true happiness. I had always considered them inextricably intertwined—but are they?

This reminded me of the concept of avyakata, which a Buddhist friend had mentioned to me not long before. Translated as “the unanswerable questions” or even more aptly, I think, as “the questions that cause unnecessary talking,” these were lines of inquiry which the Buddha refused to take up. He declined to answer them because he felt that they spawned unwise reflections.

The Buddha sought to alleviate suffering through nonattachment and the doctrine of no-self. He sought to provide medicine to those who are sick with the suffering of this world. His concept of enlightenment is not identical with philosophical enlightenment. Indeed some of the questions he brands unanswerable are the oldest metaphysical inquiries in existence, such as: “Is the world eternal?” “Is the universe finite?” “Does the soul exist after death?” and “Are body and soul identical?”

In sermon 1 of The Lesser Malunkyapputta Sutta, the Buddha is called out by one of his followers for failing to offer teachings on these questions. The disciple upbraids the Buddha for neglecting his duty as a spiritual leader. Knowing the answers to these questions, for this student, is essential to spiritual attainment and is the fundamental work of a sage.          

The Buddha replies that these queries would merely distract the disciple from what he is truly seeking. He says, “It is as if . . . a man had been wounded by an arrow thickly smeared with poison, and his friends and companions, his relatives and kinsfolk, were to procure for him a physician or surgeon; and the sick man were to say, ‘I will not have this arrow taken out until I have learnt whether the man who wounded me belonged to the warrior caste, or to the Brahmin caste, or to the agricultural caste, or to the menial caste . . . until I have learnt the name of the man who wounded me, and to what clan he belongs . . . until I have learnt whether the man who wounded me was tall, or short, or of the middle height.’”

The Buddha here paints a picture of the universal individual, mortally wounded and in dire straits. This is each of us. We are thrust into this world without warning and flail about in a world of cyclical suffering. We clutch at objects and relationships which promise stability and a foundation, but they are equally flailing and cannot rescue us. The Buddha continues: “Any one who should say, ‘I will not lead the religious life under the Blessed One until the Blessed One shall explain to me either that the world is eternal, or that the world is not eternal . . . or that the saint neither exists nor does not exist after death’—that person would die . . . before the Tathagata had ever explained this to him.”

This refusal to answer, then, is founded upon the most practical of reasons: these questions do not profit a man who is in immediate danger of perishing. They are not the healing balm he requires. When we truly comprehend our wounded state, these questions become as ridiculous as asking about the caste or the height of the doctor. When we truly grasp our spiritual plight, these questions fade into the absurd.

I recalled another conversation I had with a different friend. He asked me what I thought would happen after death. He assumed that I must have some belief to go on. I responded that I simply did not know and that I failed to see how anyone could know such a thing. We may have our conjectures, but such a question is unanswerable. Perhaps it also causes unnecessary talking?

My friend was startled at my response and expressed incredulity that I could live happily without having some assurances of what lies in wait beyond the grave. I pondered this and concluded that I had for some time been operating under my own personal version of Pascal’s wager: it is better not to worry oneself with what will happen after death, because, regardless of what it may be, one loses nothing by loving others and seeking the truth.

This is not to ignore death: in fact a constant awareness of death’s necessity is fundamental to a good life, I believe. But whether we will find ourselves in the afterlife of one of the monothestic religions, pure nothingness, some state of convergence with a higher and universal consciousness, or a completely ineffable experience, we lose nothing by the pursuit of holiness here in the temporal world.

Which path to follow, then? I have excessive interior nagging articulated along the lines of Homer Simpson’s famous religious crisis: “But Marge, what if we chose the wrong religion? Each week we’re just making God madder and madder!” I did not have the vocabulary to articulate my concern before learning of the avyakata, but that is what I feel towards the identification with one particular man-made religious tradition. Fretting about doctrinal and scriptural differences, spending a lifetime attempting to decide which one holds the keys to heaven—it does not seem a worthwhile pursuit while one is bleeding out spiritually. Stopping the bleeding is the key.

How does one stop this bleeding? Love and the pursuit of truth: making one’s life, as much as possible, a reflection of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Emerging from the self and living for others. Experiencing union with the entire cosmos and its oneness. The spiritual life does not depend on dogma; it depends on the transcendence of the self. Dogma and what the Buddha terms “becoming enmeshed in views, a jungle of views, a wilderness of views; scuffling in views, the agitation (struggle) of views, the fetter of views” is a stumbling block. The “agitation of views” places countless interpositions between oneself and the Truth, when what we seek is a direct unity.

If the avyakata are indeed stumbling blocks, why do we perceive nobility in them? I myself have long considered the pondering of such problems to be that which makes life truly rewarding. Socrates famously remarked: “The unexamined life is not worth living for man.” Are we to discard this observation? It seems that, if we truly must justify the worthiness of these questions, we must consider them in some way related to the alleviation of suffering and to the attainment of enlightenment.

Despite my concern about their spiritual utility, I have certainly found pursuing metaphysical questions to be tremendously valuable. Probing deeper into the nature of reality continually rewards one with the sense that all is connected, if one only peers deeply enough into Being. The microcosm leads to the macrocosm, and vice versa. Attempting to understand the nature of the world led me to pursue spiritual growth in the first place, and to the power to realize the distinction between avyakata and spiritual growth on that lakeshore. I have received so much; surely I must give philosophy her due?

Perhaps we must consider the avyakata in the way the medievals considered philosophy to be subordinated to theology, the “Queen of the Sciences,” as they called it. Philosophy offered the means by which man’s rational nature could articulate the previously ineffable. She was the handmaid of theology. It was precisely the observation that a rational understanding of God and his works could provide some measure of happiness in this life that marked the greatest advance of thinkers like St. Thomas Aquinas.

Even the preeminent theologians ultimately arrived at the same realization as the Buddha: their best efforts at description were null compared to the ultimate reality. Aquinas, after a lifetime of laborious synthesizing, was granted an experience of the beatific vision. He entered into a trancelike state, and when he emerged he commanded that all his works be burned, for “the end of my labors has come. All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me.” When later pressed to return to his work, he replied again: “I can write no more. I have seen things that make my writings like straw.”

We may portray the spiritual realities in symbols, but they are ultimately inexpressible through the mediation of signs and reason. There is such a fullness to the ultimate reality that it cannot exist as an object to be comprehended. It must simply be entered into. Here we find hints of the Eastern concept of the profound letting go and subsequent emptiness, which is the fountain of all forms.

If we cannot turn to philosophy to find the fullness of life, to what can we turn? To me, there appear to be two essential requirements for human happiness: love and work. One must have others to love and care for, for whom one wills good more than for oneself. Work can encompass many pursuits, but it must be meaningful to the worker, must engage one’s strengths, and must ultimately be in the service of those whom one loves (this category may be expanded to a larger and larger group as one matures spiritually). It is the opposite of the “alienated labor” described by Karl Marx.

Why are these two elements fundamental? They each expand the self, driving it to merge with a more supreme whole. Nothing wishes to exist purely as an atom. As Leonardo da Vinci remarked, “Every part is disposed to unite with the whole, that it may thereby escape from its incompleteness.” Through the expansion and convergence of our souls with the All, we achieve spiritual peace. Loving others and laboring upon valuable endeavors benefiting those whom we love brings us out of ourselves while preserving our agency. Our individual efforts remain, but they are part of a larger whole, a deeper context. We remain wholes, and yet serve as parts. It is only when a human is fully absorbed in these two orientations of life that we locate happiness: it is never found apart from conditions, as far as I can tell. It is, however, often found divorced from metaphysical knowledge, as the Buddha warned us. We may learn the nature of our medicine and take it without asking unnecessary questions.

Love and work are a process of expanding and merging, rather than dividing and categorizing. The unknowability of the avyakata points to a different method for happiness: merging with the All. We should remember that these questions are pleasurable, but good only insofar as they lead us to expand and merge—to ascend the spiritual ladder. They are a faithful handmaiden but must, at times, be abandoned in order to walk alone.

That day on the lake, I was shaken out of my pondering by the smiling children dragging our raft onto the shore. They thanked us effusively. I laughed at how true it was that one did not need to comprehend the ultimate nature of the universe to love someone—even someone you have never seen before and will never see again. Neither does one need to pass a thousand hours chasing the origin of species to play pretend with a small child. It is clear where the source of joy lies. Perhaps Jesus was right when he taught that one must become like a little child to enter the kingdom of heaven.

I recalled a song I had heard years ago, “Rexroth’s Daughter” by Greg Brown. In it he asks, “What is real but compassion as we move from birth to death?” I was left to ask the same question.

David Trull has worked as a fireworks salesman, forensic tax researcher, railroad logistician, teacher, songwriter, and musician. He studied philosophy through a Great Books immersion program at Thomas Aquinas College in Ojai, California. A lifelong autodidact, he has advanced his explorations through a self-designed curriculum focused on the intersection of philosophy and theology. Raised in St. Louis, Trull now orbits between Santa Barbara, California, and the San Francisco Bay Area.