True Spiritual Path

One of the things I’ve been fascinated with lately has been the way life changes suddenly, old ways no longer apply, new skills have to be learned.  Take for example this golf tournament I played in over the weekend.  The old method of playing competitively was to use the full force of my ego, reducing my playing partner to protozoa in my mind and dominating him from start to finish until he was left in a quivering mass upon the 18^th green.  But as I get older this modus opperendi seems horribly outdated.  Not only that, it doesn’t work anymore.   The ego is no longer suitable for a number of reasons:  it’s self-destructive, produces emotional debts that have to be surreptitiously paid, and most definitely goes the opposite direction of the spiritual path.

But in order to make this switch from ego to spirit, a major shift has to happen.  Carl Jung talks about this shift when he describes the stages of life. He uses the metaphor of life being like the rising and setting of the sun.  If birth is rising and death is setting, then just before noon, we begin dealing with our unconscious issues, and by afternoon we really have to find a new way of living.

Here’s how Jung describes it: “Thoroughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life; worse still, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and ideals will serve us as hitherto.  But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the programme of life’s morning – for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.”

Jung summarizes the “stages of life” as follows.  The first stage we are young and are a “problem for others.”  The second stage is a “going out, a time to embrace, fill up the beaker of life and empty it to the lees, keep nothing back, so that all that wants to catch fire would be consumed.”  The third stage, the second half of life has more to do with “expansion of life, usefulness, efficiency, the cutting of a figure in social life.”  Then finally in the fourth stage “unworried by our state of consciousness we again become a problem for others.”

But it is this transition from second to third stage that fascinates me.  “Ageing people should know that their lives are not mounting and unfolding, but that an inexorable inner process forces the contraction of life.  For a young person it is almost a sin – and certainly a danger – to be too much occupied with himself; but for the ageing person it is a duty and a necessity to give serious attention to himself.

So what does this have to do with the spiritual path, you may ask?  Well, if you listen to Jung, Joseph Campbell or Bill Wilson, they all seem to link “God’s will” with taking care of ourselves.  But taking care of ourselves gets pretty murky and vague doesn’t it.  No one told me growing up that I’ve got 20 years to fill up the “beaker of life,” only to move into a different phase of some painful letting go followed by learning a new way to manage my insides.

And sometimes it’s scary.  For me, rising above fear was one my ego’s strong suits.  It could usher me into superhuman roles at times.  Without it, I’m forced to come up with new motivations like staying loyal to myself, rather than being the victor.  Consequently, I just feel like I’ve somehow got one hand tied behind my back.  I can’t use all the forces available to me anymore.  I don’t know if I’m half-baked or if someday this will all feel integrated.

I’d like to hear your comments.  As you get older, and make the transition from the morning to afternoon of life, what do you lose, what do you gain, does it feel integrated or like you’re working to overcome something and live in another space?

Son Volt’s great song about moving from stage 2-3.

Out Of The Picture

(Click on the song and a player will magically appear)