The Meaning of Happiness

8. THE LOVE OF LIFE

Man’s life begins when he awakens to his freedom, and the earlier in life he discovers it, the better for him. Religion in this sense is not the goal of life; it is the entrance to it, and in freedom of the spirit man has the most glorious instrument of creation that he could desire. For he has discovered God not only in thoughts about God but also in thought itself, and knows himself to be thinking God even when his attention is absorbed in worldly affairs. To those affairs he brings a new power, zest, and spontaneity, for he can give himself to them unreservedly in the knowledge that spirituality is by no means confined to thinking about “spiritual” things. Thus he can devote himself to thoughts of people and things, of business, music, art, and literature, of science, medicine, and engineering, of eating and drinking, of walking, breathing, and talking, of swimming, running, and playing, of looking at the stars and of washing his hands; he has the freedom of God because he is free to think of everything and anything. For if it is true that the innumerable objects of the universe are the thoughts of God, this is what God Himself is doing. Now if his realization of freedom is genuine, it will have two important results—one of which will follow in its own time, and another which, coming immediately, will safeguard him against the abuses of freedom.

The Fulfillment of Personality

Those who realize their freedom early in life will probably not experience the first result until after the age of forty or some years, always provided that they do not allow the instrument of freedom to become rusty; it has to be cleaned and sharpened like any other tool. But there will ultimately come a time when this freedom will effect a change in their psychological structure which will be noticeable in their dreams and fantasies. For just as constant playing of the piano alters the structure of the hands, constant freedom alters the structure of the psyche. This change comes about gradually, whereas freedom itself is usually realized suddenly; but the psyche must then adapt its “organs” by slow growth to the use of its newly found instrument. When the psyche is fully adapted to its freedom we have the condition which Jung describes as “individuation”—a consequence and not a cause of spiritual freedom. The main features of this condition have already been described (see ch. 4, pp. 95–99), but certain aspects of it must be clarified. We spoke of freedom as the feeling of a center in one’s being, an unchanging point of balance which can enter into all circumstances without loss of stability. At first this center is “ideal” in the Platonic sense, and may be compared to the idea of a tune in the composer’s mind before it has been played on an instrument or set down on paper. But because it is ideal, it is nonetheless real; it is not an ideal in the sense of a mere wish for the future. When the composer thinks, “One day I shall compose a most glorious symphony,” he may be said to have an ideal. But when every note of it is heard in his mind and only remains to be given the vehicle of mechanical sound, it is then in the ideal state. To the composer, however, that symphony is very real and its beauty may possibly have a profound effect on his life. So also the ideal center of freedom may have a profound effect on one’s life, even before the faculties of the psyche are adapted to give it the fullest possible expression.

In fact, however, I would set no limits to the possibilities of expressing spiritual freedom, and a hundred lives would not be long enough to exhaust them. But just as music demands four voices for the full expression of melody and harmony, so the human being demands four fully grown faculties to express the complete possibilities of freedom—and even so they are still expressing only possibilities. Jung classifies the four faculties or functions of man as intuition, sensation, intellect, and feeling, and it is almost impossible that anyone should be awakened to all of them before the middle of life.¹ These four form a cross with intuition opposite sensation and intellect opposite feeling, and as a rule we grow up and reach the middle of life with only two unopposed faculties developed. Thus, to return to the analogy of music, we can express freedom only with the treble and alto voices; we may feel the center of the cross, but not be aware of all its arms. These two voices or faculties may express the freedom perfectly well within their limits, but the composer will want to express his feeling more completely. Therefore in time we are able to add the more mature voice of tenor and ultimately reach the fully mature voice of bass. It is as if the four petals of a flower had opened one at a time: when all are open, it remains for the flower to grow. So, when the composer has expressed all four voices in solo instruments, he will begin to add to them so that string quartet becomes chamber orchestra and ultimately full-size symphony orchestra. Or we may take the musical analogy in another way and liken the four faculties to the four orchestral divisions—strings, woodwind, brass, and percussion.

We do not, however, achieve this fourfold development simply by seeking out the four individual parts. The petals of a flower grow from the center and the raison d’être of the orchestra is the symphony, and of the four voices, the tune. Spiritual freedom, therefore, gives us the consciousness of a center upon which and out of which these four faculties can grow, though the center is not fully a center until all four are equally developed. The center of a semicircle is only ideally the center of a circle. Therefore in youth we may achieve that center of freedom, but the psyche which hinges upon it will be somewhat lopsided and immature. With astonishing persistence the symbols of this fourfold development occur in religion and mythology the world over. In Christianity it is the Cross; in Buddhism the swastika, the fourfold mandala, and the crossed dorje round a circle; in early Chinese philosophy the four hsiang or emblems of the I Ching; in playing cards the four suits—the list might be elaborated indefinitely.²

In later life this fourfold development may be consciously evolved, though many fail to realize it because they are unaware of their freedom and so have no creative center. They merely succumb to the spells of the unconscious, forgetting the reality of freedom in its psychological symbols. For the symbols of individuation which appear in dreams and fantasies grow as vehicles for freedom and follow the actual “pattern” of freedom. They may grow even if freedom is unrealized—just as some people have brains but no minds—but it is usual that in such cases the dream pictures show the four faculties with an empty or undeveloped center. But Jung describes the center as a “virtual point between the ego and the unconscious” because, as we have seen, freedom arises from total acceptance. That acceptance is not just the one-sided act of the ego “letting go” to life or the unconscious and so denying completely its egoistic nature. This is a false dualism. Total acceptance includes both the ego and the unconscious, pays due regard to the demands of both and unites them without destroying their functional difference. Therefore in the process of individuation the psyche may be said to grow a new “organ” which Jung calls the self as distinct from the ego on the one hand, and the unconscious on the other. This self, as the vehicle of freedom, appears as a rule only in the ripeness of years when freedom has become a habit and has shaped the human organism to suit its ends, just as perpetually running water carves out a permanent course in the rock. This is the fulfillment of personality.

The Opposites as an Expression of Love

But in some ways even more important is the immediate result of a genuine realization of freedom. This is that response of the individual to God known as worship or adoration, having its foundation in love. In the understanding of our freedom we learn that however low we may sink, we can never separate ourselves from the power of life and the love of God. For in learning to accept all possible states of our own souls, we learn that God accepts all possible types of human being, animal, and devil. The physical symbol of this love is the sun, though, like all physical symbols, it is incomplete. Although the physical universe visits us with both joy and pain, life and death, in the spiritual realm all these opposites are reconciled. Not only are they mutually necessary to one another, but, taken together, life and death constitute a more glorious life than life alone—a truth which can only be proved in acceptance. For if we can learn to love both life and death, we find that life and death are in turn an expression of love. If we can learn to love, to accord freedom to both the heights and the depths of our own nature, we shall instantly realize that this love is not something that we have produced alone but is in the very nature of the universe, and that our heights and depths are unintelligible without it. Just as love is the meaning of man and woman and has its symbol in the child, so only love can explain all other opposites under the sun. And this meaning, this love which is the raison d’être of opposites exists long before our acceptance of the opposites reveals it, for acceptance is only a way of seeing that which already exists. Without these many opposites there could no more be a universe than there could be melody without the sounding and silencing of notes, and only those who do not accept them can complain that the universe was unfortunately arranged. Unaccepted, the universe has no meaning; it is senseless fate and chaos, but acceptance is a way of discovering meaning, not of manufacturing it.

Thus there are heights and depths in man just as there is day and night in the external world, and both are seen as manifestations of the love of God when man himself learns to love them, for the love of God and acceptance by man are two aspects of one and the same reality. In the words of Eckhart, “As God can only be seen by His own light, so He can only be loved by His own love.”³ Love, however, is not to be confused with liking; we may love the opposites, but because of our human nature we cannot always like them. Only the pervert actually likes suffering, but the love of suffering is known in giving freedom to your dislike of it; for without dislike on our part, suffering is no longer suffering.⁴

The Grateful Renunciation

The revelation through acceptance that in love we are free as to both our heights and our depths, calls out from us a response of love and wonder for life and for God, if we can see life as the outer aspect of God. We remember the words of St. Augustine, “Love, and do as you will,” for in love, as in acceptance, man denies no aspect of his nature. He realizes that life or God has given him freedom to be everything and anything that is in him, whether good or evil. But, as Eckhart says, “there is no inner freedom which does not manifest itself in works of love.”⁵ For the free man is so filled with gratitude to life for the freedom to be all of himself that he joyfully renounces it. This is where true freedom guards itself against abuse. Gratitude makes it possible to sacrifice the freedom to be immoral in the realization that immorality and sin are petty and tedious. In a universe where freedom of the spirit offers such gigantic possibilities, sin is a simple waste of time. To use a commonplace analogy, it is like gorging oneself with saccharine when one might be eating a skillfully prepared banquet. For in the last analysis sin is bad taste; it is sensationalism as distinct from sensibility.

Because of his gratitude the free man’s religion is principally a means of saying, “Thank you.” It is no longer a means of discovering salvation, for religion as a quest for personal illumination is necessary but selfish, and until freedom is discovered it is a blind attempt to create for oneself what is simply to be had for the taking—“searching for fire with a lighted lantern.” Thus the religion of freedom consists of using that freedom and giving thanks for it, because it is only a dead faith that does not show itself in works. At the same time freedom is a tremendous responsibility. There is a saying that though God forgives you, nature never forgives, for the free man does not escape in any way from the material consequences of folly. If he abuses his freedom he does not lose it, but he has to pay the material price for abuse—a price which is greater for him than for others. It is as if his thoughts and deeds were informed with a greater power and thus produced more powerful results. All men use the power of God, but those who use it in full consciousness have to be particularly careful how they use it. It is difficult to believe, however, that anything but a radical misunderstanding of freedom could lead to abuse, so great is the gratitude which arises from true understanding.

As a rule this gratitude demands expression in the ritual of worship, for some rituals were originally a dance of joy. As Christ is made to sing in the apocryphal Acts of John:⁶

Grace danceth. I would pipe; dance ye all.

. . . .

The Whole on high hath part in our dancing.

Whoso danceth not, knoweth not what cometh to pass.

At times the free man conducts his ritual of thanksgiving silently within himself; at other times he conducts it in churches and temples with other people, giving it every possible embellishment of music, song, and visual beauty. As a religion Buddhism started without a God, but the principle of “Buddha” had to be raised to the level of God simply to offer a focal point for the gratitude which the experience of freedom or Nirvana inspired. It is therefore significant that Zen, philosophically and practically a destroyer of forms and images, has quite an elaborate temple ritual. Although it insists, perhaps more than any other form of Buddhism, on the inwardness of the Buddha principle, nevertheless the physical images of the Buddhas are treated with the greatest reverence. Iconoclasm may be necessary for bringing about the realization of freedom, but thereafter we find a new feeling for all religious symbols of life, of the universe, and of that “Love which moves the sun and other stars.”

But there are those whom symbols can never satisfy, and moreover the gratitude of freedom is so overflowing that the forms of religion can never absorb it. This gratitude therefore demands expression in “works of love,” which is to say morality. It makes possible for the first time a genuine morality, for the free man is moral because he wants to be, not because he thinks he ought to be moral. Without gratitude morality is a mere discipline which keeps human society in a relatively stable condition until such time as men learn the freedom of love. But as a discipline it cannot teach love, and as a religious exercise it is no more than imitation of the free man’s behavior. Freedom as liberty to be all of oneself is amoral, but the gratitude which comes in response to this liberty is moral. Freedom is like a gem which shines with equal brilliance in all surroundings; it gleams as well in mud as on velvet, but those who appreciate it do not let it lie in the mud and so arrange the conduct of their lives that the gem is given the most exquisite setting that can be made. But just as precious stones have to be dug out of the depths of the earth, so man has to realize his freedom in accepting the earthy depths of his own being.

Realization has done its work when one’s very life becomes an expression of gratitude, and this is the greatest happiness, for the meaning of happiness consists in three elements—freedom, gratitude, and the sense of wonder. These three elements can be present in the most ordinary of lives; the free man is not necessarily a magician, a seer, or a “mystic” absorbed in ineffable states of consciousness. So many people make the mistake of looking in the supersensual realms for the happiness which they cannot find here on earth, searching for an occult “cosmic consciousness” to release them from the tedious experiences of everyday life. It can never be said too often that the Great Illumination is not a fantastic, extraordinary state of consciousness remote from normal experience. It is every conceivable state of consciousness and of unconsciousness as well (though in unconsciousness it cannot be seen), but people are misled by the symbolic forms in which it is expressed. The Great Illumination is the state of consciousness you have at this moment, and it is recognized as such only when you cease to run away from it and give it freedom to reveal itself. And having found freedom in so unexpected a place, you will be filled with gratitude and then with wonder. For in its greatest form wonder is reverence for all the forms of life, from the highest to the lowest; it is an appreciation of the mystery that divinity is revealed in the most commonplace of things. For this reason Dimitrije Mitrinović (a too-little-known philosopher of Yugoslavia) once said that gnosis was to be surprised at everything.

The Experience of Mystery

As a rule vast knowledge of the mysteries of the universe increases pride, and to lay bare all mysteries is to be in danger of becoming bored. If you try to discover the secret of beauty by taking a flower to pieces, you will arrive at the somewhat unsatisfactory conclusion of having abolished the flower. For beauty is beauty just because it is a mystery, and when ordinary life is known as a profound mystery then we are somewhere near to wisdom. Here is a new connection between mystery and mysticism, a connection which is sometimes indignantly denied. But are we to cast aside all scientific curiosity and embrace the maxim that where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be wise? Of course, the catch is that every degree of wisdom has its counterpart in folly, and the two are so alike that the wise man is wise simply because he can distinguish between the two. The highest and lowest notes of musical sound are both inaudible, and the ignoramus and the sage are both faced with mystery. The difference between the two is that even if you explained the mystery to the sage, it would still remain mysterious, whereas the fool would simply be disappointed and disillusioned. For the fool would imagine that the explanation, the taking to pieces, the analysis, had spoiled the mystery; the sage would see that it had not even begun to explain it. The fool would think he had thereby become wise; the sage would know that he was still a fool. Therefore if the sage is told, as some “mystics” will tell him, that this everyday world is a mere phantom conjured up by deceptive senses from a formless primordial essence, he is not much impressed. If a doctor explains the transformations undergone by food in his stomach, he does not cease to enjoy his dinner. If a scientist tells him that thunder is not the music of the gods but mere electrical disturbances, the thunder is for him no less wonderful. And if some Philistine tells him that playing a violin is only scraping cats’ entrails with horsehair, he simply marvels that melody can emerge from things so unprepossessing in appearance. For what is especially interesting about explanations is that they do not explain; and what is especially dangerous about them is that if they are taken seriously enough and far enough, they simply explain things away. And even if one does resort to the ultimate madness of explaining all things away, there remains still the impenetrable mystery of who is it that explains and why?

“L’Amor Che Move…”

Thus to the free man there is as much divinity and mystery in a brick as in all the ramifications of occult science, for to him a brick is a magic. There is as much freedom of the spirit in watching sparrows on a city street as in meditating in some mountain solitude under the stars. There is as much expression of that freedom in peeling potatoes as in making a cathedral organ sing out the liquid thunder of a fugue. For the free man has become aware of the mystery that the whole power of the universe is at work in the least of things, the least of thoughts, and the least of deeds. In lifting his finger he uses the same power that hurls the stars through space and causes their fire, that bellows in thunder and whispers in wind, that produces a giant tree from the microscopic germ of a seed, and wears away mountains to thin clouds of dust. In whatever he feels, thinks, or does he cannot cut himself off from that power; he knows that in spite of all mistakes, imaginings, and fears he can never for a moment cease to share in its tremendous freedom. He knows that he expresses it both in living and in dying, in creating and in destroying, in being wise and in being a fool. Even so he is not inflated with the conceit of himself as a spiritual giant who has accepted all life and reconciled all opposites. He knows that because of the love of God life was never in need of being accepted nor the opposites of being reconciled, for in acceptance he has only awakened to see what that love has achieved from the very beginning of time. Worms, fleas, idiots, and drunkards are in fact accepting it as much as he, and even though they do not know it as he knows it, he cannot deny them a particle of the reverence that is given to saints and sages. He sees that if anyone is a fool it is himself for not having discovered his treasure long before. Thus in the moment of illumination he realizes that the universe is a mystery greater than he can ever hope to fathom, for the deepest perplexity of all is that such a creature as himself should be allowed to use the power that moves the stars in the littlest of his deeds. Whereat he will say with Dante,⁷

Ma non eran da ciò le proprie penne,

se non che la mia mente fu percossa

da un fulgore, in che sua voglia venne.

All’alta fantasia qui mancò possa;

ma già volgeva il mio disiro e il velle,

sì come rota ch’egualmente è mossa,

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

[But my own wings were not for such a flight—

except that, smiting through the mind of me,

there came fulfilment in a flash of light.

Here vigor failed the lofty fantasy;

but my volition now, and my desires,

were moved like wheel revolving evenly

By Love that moves the sun and starry fires.]