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Sometimes a life of spiritual aspiration is a lonely life. There are times when we need to find and adjust things in our personalities to accommodate the spirit within, in the face of adversity without. Seeking outside help is of no avail. The spirit within is our only true resource. During these lonely times, there is a danger of personalization. One is apt to think, “Why me?” or Why is the world against me?” When we find ourselves taking trials personally, it is helpful to call to mind the life of Jesus. Though being the most perfect of humans, and vessel to the Christ, he was not without critics, and even enemies. With his perfectly impersonal stance, he was able to carry out his work, sometimes even by means of his opposition. Moreover, on a grander scale, if Christ bears the cross of the earth, who am I to complain?
The more one aspires to the higher life, the more likely one is to have adversaries to help one advance. Even Max Heindel has his detractors. To some, he was uncredentialed, and unsophisticated, a spiritual bounder. These aspersions were put forth, despite the breadth, depth and perspective of his work. This writer has yet to meet a serious reader of The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception who has not had to resort to a dictionary. These charges are leveled, despite his biblical scholarship, and his thorough knowledge of physiology. Some have even accused him of plagiarism, an intellectual thief of low character. “By their fruits you shall know them.” A base individual is incapable of expressing the staunch and lofty things expressed by Max Heindel—it is impossible.
Though misguided, or blinded by prejudice, distractors might well be clever. They can find invidious means to promote their views. Sometimes it is a backhanded compliment, or even a snide comment, meant to denigrate. For example, one such statement about Max Heindel is, that he liked, and recommended, Pollyanna—a sure way to belittle him to the world.
Pollyanna is a children’s book written by Eleanor Porter. Pollyanna is an orphan adopted by her cold, spinster, aunt Polly, who adopts her as a matter of social duty, rather than love. Before becoming orphaned, she learns the “glad game” from her father. In the “glad game” one finds something to be glad about in any situation, no matter how terrible it might be. In the story Pollyanna helps others in her aunt’s small town to change the dismal circum263 stances of their lives by playing the “glad game.” Eventually, even aunt Polly thaws. Then, Pollyanna is struck and crippled by an auto. Her serious situation makes it difficult for her to play the “glad game” until others, whom she has helped, encourage her. With effort, she regains her infallible optimism, and even learns to walk again.
There have been many sequels by several writers. Over decades, a Pollyanna has come to mean someone with a childish, unrealistically, positive attitude. It is now used as a demeaning slur by cynics who consider themselves urbane and sophisticated.
Pollyanna optimism is an attitude, a healthy attitude. Optimism is ruled by Jupiter, the great opener and expander. Optimism and positivity are effective as openers. This writer believes, for example, that science would be more fruitful with more optimism, instead of the negative skepticism that many scientists now hold. To claim something is true before it is proven true, is clearly wrong, but to think something is not true until proven true, tends to close one’s mind to possibilities. To believe something might be true opens one’s mind to finding a rigorous proof of it, if such a proof exists.
It is questionable whether attitudes, such as optimism, are innate or acquired. Some, such as many astrologers, would say innate; others, like many psychologists and sociologists, would say acquired. To some extent, both are true in the context of spiritual evolution. Some people seem to be born optimistic, others acquire optimism through life experience, and self-application.
As spiritual aspirants to self-reliance, we are more interested in acquired attitudes. Even a little thought on this subject, discloses how prevalent acquired attitudes are, and how they are often negative.
Our complete environment is more than physical. We live in a milieu which is also social, psychological, and spiritual. Through education and maturation, we adapt to our environment. Pollyanna was educated into optimism by her father. Maturation is more tricky. In maturation we often acquire attitudes, not intended by us, or by those around us. We sometimes have prejudicial attitudes, which we hold as truths, without ever having done the least to verify them. We acquired them from our family, who themselves may have acquired them from their predecessors. Our self-conscious self-awareness is minimal at present. Though many, or most, of our acquired attitudes come from our families, we also acquire them from society. It is possible to adapt successfully to a highly biased culture, without even suspecting one’s biases. We may even defend them. To a spiritual aspirant, this aspect of our current state is unacceptable. We want self-knowledge. We want freedom, complete freedom.
From every pow’r that holds the world in chains
Man frees himself when self-control he gains.
Seeing freedom from acquired attitudes, is edifying; even in the most grotesque circumstances. This writer knows a child, now 26, who has never spoken a word in her life. Her only utterances are a giggle, and, rarely, weeping. A horrendous infancy, including severe battery and rape, has left her multiply handicapped, including being unable to speak. She can barely walk. Despite this constant deprivation and suffering, she exercises her giggle frequently. She has not acquired the attitude that, in deprivation and suffering, one must be unhappy. In her own way she is a Pollyanna, and she brings joy to others. If she can do it, we can do it.
Coming to self-knowledge and building character is a slow, difficult process. To be successful, we need to be able to step outside of our personality to know ourselves, “as we are known.” When we are successful, and we see our attitudes for what they are. Then we find the unregenerate attitudes intolerable, and we can no longer live with them. Retrospection is invaluable to accomplishing this. Some aspirants do more. They take a personal inventory, relative to a list of desirable and undesirable attitudes—a list of astrological keywords serves this purpose excellently.
It is beyond the scope of this essay to describe even a minor inventory. One attitude will have to be sufficient to get the idea of attitude analysis and improvement.
One of the most widespread, detrimental attitudes we face is loneliness. At this time in our evolution, loneliness is almost unavoidable. Sometimes, even some spiritual aspirants are lonely. If not dealt with correctly, loneliness is detrimental to spiritual development.
Being alone is not loneliness. One can have a happy, solitary life without loneliness. Loneliness is an attitude about being alone. The attitude of loneliness is not innate. It is acquired, but its acquisition is not mainly from education, or absorbing it from others. It is a consequence of, or a response to, our fallen state in evolution, in small and large.
In an evolutionary sense, loneliness is born from comparative cognition. To be lonely implies there was a time when one wasn’t lonely. For most, in small, that was when we were young and in the intimacy of the nuclear family. Removal from many other circumstances of intimate togetherness, can have the same effect. Even a loss of antipathies, can lead to loneliness.
Loneliness is not a matter of numbers. One can be lonely in a throng of people. Loss of intimacy is more of a factor, than the presence, or absence, of others. It is fallacious to think that loneliness can be cured by having more people in one’s life. It is also fallacious to think that intimacy, by itself, is a cure for loneliness, because mere intimacy does not penetrate to the lonely self, at the core of one’s being. Perhaps seeing an evolutionary, historical perspective from Christian Mysticism, will help to understand the genesis of loneliness in large, and its purpose in general.
St. Paul tells us in the first chapter of Romans that, at one time, we could see the power and glory of God, to the very Godhead, itself. We did so with a form of inner, spiritual vision. We still possessed that vision, at the time spoken of in the Garden of Eden story of the book of Genesis. With it, we knew the soul nature of anyone we encountered, much as animals do now. We were one, unified, humanity without loneliness. This was before “their eyes were opened.” However, it was our evolutionary destiny to become outward, as well as inward. We were also to become individualized, within the human whole. To these ends no pains were spared. The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception tells us of extremely painful methods used to bring us to awareness of the external world, and our separate physical bodies in it. Almost anything that awakened external and individual consciousness was “good”, even things we would now consider horrendous. One of the most important experiences of the external world, and our personal existence, was carnal knowledge. In the extreme sensitivity of personal intimacy, we knew someone personally outside of ourselves. However, because we took control of the procreative activity before we knew how to use it in harmony with the cosmos, we introduced discord into the cosmos. We did this in disobedience. In this disharmoniousness, we veered off from the intended course of evolution. We chose excessive, outward experience, over a balance of experience and understanding. Since we are divine, creative beings, our selfish attitude drove us deeper into matter than was intended in the divine plan. It even hardened matter more than intended! This excessive outwardness closed our inner vision, concomitantly with our descent into materialism. Concurrently, our internal sensitivity to the inner cosmos degraded. Eventually, we reached our current state, wherein we are encased in the flesh, blind to the spirit, and alone with ourselves.
At present we have a, mostly unconscious, longing for the spiritual union, we once had. In a similar way we are lonely for the fellowship, we once had with everything in the creation. We are lonely because we vaguely remember a glorious time when we weren’t lonely.
Looking at loneliness in terms of evolution makes it seem like something more capable of being overcome, than the sad situations so many face without reference. Loneliness is not something sad that merely happened. It seems like a biblical curse placed on us, a consequence of selfish materialism, in deviating from the divine plan. It is a consequence from a causal action, made when we didn’t really know the consequences of that action. Ignorance. Being a curse, or a deviance from divine law, or an act of ignorance, does not make us any more, or less, responsible for our situation. Viewing this in the light of evolution, provides us with a framework to understand it and work on it.
The Rosicrucian philosophy provides us with an excellent means to do this. In the Rosicrucian philosophy we learn, that we are participating in an orderly, evolutionary, creation, based on divine principles. In our philosophy we can see that we are not only responsible for our actions, great and small, but that we are creative agents, for redeeming the situation. We can do something about our plight. In our cosmology we learn that one of the primary agencies of the evolutionary process is the cycle. In a spiral comprised of almost incomprehensible numbers of cycles, into and out of various states of matter, we experience slightly varying conditions repeatedly, as we unfold corresponding states of consciousness, in the infinite potential of the spirit. We have already reached the nadir of materiality of this creative manifestation. Our conscious attention is focussed preponderately outward toward matter. We even think of our friends as their bodies, not the spirits within. This nadir is a major turning point in the creation. We, and the cosmos, have contracted and turned outward into materiality, as far as we can. It is time to turn the corner from materialism, and refocus our attention inward toward the inner, spiritual worlds. To persist in materialism would be to spin off on a tangent, away from the spiral of creation. Beginning to turn inward, away from materialism, is one of the most important activities of our times. Loneliness is an important factor in progressing, in this inward and upward evolutionary arc. When we realize, in loneliness, the futility of finding meaning exclusively in the outer world, we have taken a major step forward in evolution. When we consciously turn inward, we take an even greater step.
Since inwardness is so important, we need to be clear about it. There is a false inwardness. It is called psychological withdrawal, as found in individuals with sever psychological problems. This kind of withdrawal is an act of extreme egoism. It is an attempt to set up, and escape into, a world of one’s own design, without objective respect to inner or outer reality. True inwardness has a unified, objective, respect to outward reality. One sees the inner aspects of outer reality, and one sees outer things as manifestations of an inner world of creation, It is, in some ways, opposite to the carnal knowledge of the Garden of Eden story. In the intensity of personal intimacy one knows there is someone within the physical person of the other, and that inner being is much, much more than physical sensation. It is our goal to reverently interact, inwardly, with the whole of the creation. Perception is not voided, it becomes a doorway to the inner universe. True inwardness is a positive redirection of attention, to a more complete experience of reality.
Spiritual inwardness is not a denial or nullification of outwardness. It is a repurposing of one’s view of outwardness. It is an outward giving, instead of an outward seeking and taking. Inwardness is more than a direction. It is an approach to the spiritual Divinity within everything. One cannot turn one’s consciousness inward, and give of one’s self, without generating an efflux of divine creativity. The inner life is a life of blessing, not a life of self-satisfaction. Above all, it is creative giving. “From the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”
Transformation out of loneliness does not happen instantly. The evolutionary creation is slow and certain, to ensure perfection. One is not lonely one day, and intimately in touch with anything, or everything, the next. The creation is both sensitive and certain. It has definite ends. Even a vague intuition that there is something spiritually alive withing the manifestations of the outer world, something which can be approached from within, has a surety about it, even at a distance. The story of the Prodigal Son in the Gospel of St Luke is an allegory about our indulgent fall into matter, our comeuppance with materialism, and our return to the Universal Spirit. In the story, when the prodigal decides to return home, to become a servant to his father, his father sees him from “a great way off”, and rushes to receive him. Even a slight urge toward inwardness is felt and responded to from within. The Spirit rushes to greet us more than we bend toward it.
For now, loneliness is a pandemic scourge of contemporary society. What is to be done to relieve it? It cannot be solved from without, but that does not mean external acton should be abandoned. To be effective, our actions must be harmonious with cosmological principles, and the means must be harmonious with the ends. The objective of inwardness is to open to divine, inner reality; so our actions from without, must be harmonious with that objective. This leaves no room for hypocrisy. One cannot hope to successfully address loneliness in another, if one is not actively aspiring inwardly. Only if we are cultivating a rich inner life ourselves, can we effectively help our lonely friends to develop an inner life, to become whole, inwardly and outwardly. Doing this is more a matter of heart than of mind. It is as the fox said to the Little Prince: “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
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