"The human body is an inseverable umbilical cord that connects heaven and earth. If you are too grounded, you are depressed. If you spin off of the earth and get lost in space, you are delusional."
For obvious reasons, the introverted, creative type makes a
majority in contemplative circles. They are more comfortable occupying the
space of their inner life. They build entire worlds in their mind's eye. They
have knack for interpreting movies and literature in a mythological way that
relates back to the themes and motifs that shape their inner world. Sitting in
a room and zoning out for hours on end, interrupted only by intermittent
periods of work, is the norm for these people. But this is one sided.
Spirituality is about human growth and development. It is a
fidelity to the expansion of our true Self, as it unfolds into the present
moment. The creative personality is all spirit. Without earthiness creativity just
evaporates. It is never born into this world. It is never given a body.
Therefore, the spiritual path requires that the introvert cultivate discipline.
How do we just sit and be where we are, right smack in the middle of the
boredom without spinning off the earth. Furthermore, how do we take the
creative magma that is arising from the deep, dark subterranean levels of the
body and press it out into "this world"—the world of time and space,
acceptance and rejection, success and failure—as an honest expression of our
inner life?
We have to learn how to stay put, how to stay grounded, so
to speak. The discipline of meditation teaches us this. It teaches us to come
back—back to the breath, back to the body, back to the Self, over and over
again, until you realize that this monotony, this "coming back" is an
intrinsic part of the human life cycle. The creative has to see that life isn’t
just expanding, it is also contracting.
It is the more pragmatic personality that tends to be
overlooked in a contemplative community. Often times, the group dynamics are
defined by the majority, which in this case is a bunch of idealists. So, states
of mind—the highfalutin spiritual experiences—are valued over stages of
development—progress and levels of maturation that require a lot of blue-collar
work, not just on the cushion, but at work and in our relationships. The
extrovert doesn’t see the value of vision. They see no inherent value in
philosophical conversation or introspection. They just want to put one foot in
front of the other and get something done. They want results. They want to get
somewhere. But where are they going?
Unfortunately, the pragmatist needs are often times
neglected in contemplative circles. They may be the minority, but their desire
for spiritual growth is very real. Not only does it begin to appear to them
that contemplative spirituality is all bark and no bite, it begins to become an
object of frustration and confusion. They find themselves stuck in a group
dynamic where the established standard devalues their strengths, exposes their
weaknesses, and leaves them feeling less than. This is unfortunate, because in
reality it is a perfect storm. If a spiritual community co-ops and exploits it's strengths, it will create one great big group ego. The spiritual community should refine it's strengths, round of the edges a bit, and work tirelessly to cultivate its weaknesses. This is the perfect storm because the disciplined approach of the pragmatist is their
strength, which is the weakness of their idealistic counterparts. While, the
idealists have an abundance of inspiration and creativity, something the
pragmatists have lost touch with. This means that the spiritual community is impregnated with an abundance of possibilities.
The pragmatic mind wants to measure progress using a very solid
or fundamentalist metric. This is typical of an extroverted mindset. But their
goal, which is the cultivation of inspiration and creativity—to reconnect with
the ground of meaning and being—is a bit more abstract. (Actually, there is
nothing abstract about it, but abstract seems to communicate the ungraspable
nature better than unconscious. The experience is actually quite precise, but
it is unformed or pre-conscious.) It cannot be measured in units of
thought. The extrovert has to learn how to read between the lines—how not to
interpret everything in a black and white, literal sense. He has to learn how
connect the symbols in his external world with the principal forms of energy
that animate his internal world. Study and contemplation are indispensable in
the accomplishment of such goals.
An extroverted mindset, particularly in someone who is extremely
pragmatic, uses thought as a metric system that evaluates and analyzes the
value or pay-off of every possible option. This creates a rigid and lifeless
inner world. Everything has sharp corners. Study, listening, writing, debate,
and discussion all work to exercise one's imagination, which rounds off the
corners a bit. Here are some simple examples: Watching an interesting talk or lecture
daily, reading a challenging spiritual book every morning, engaging in debate,
asking questions when frustration arises, instead of saying, “Let’s just agree
to disagree!” These exercises all cultivate the instinctive, primary function
of the intellect, which is to imagine.
The pragmatist is always working towards understanding,
"What’s the point?” or "I don't get it..." This is an adulterous
use of the intellectual faculty. The pragmatist must end his affair with
utilitarian thinking, and reunite his thinking mind with the creative spirit
that is his true Bride. As Albert Einstein said, "The true sign of
intelligence is not knowledge but imagination." To imagine is to image—the pressing out or expression
of our deepest Self in the form of a symbol. Knowledge works towards an end. Imagination was there in the beginning.
While the introvert must focus on bringing the teachings and
practices to bear through action, the extrovert needs to be focused on
reconnecting his actions with the source of inspiration, the indwelling Spirit.
A daily practice of study, listening, writing, debate, and discussion will go a
long way towards this end, but it will not be enough. The pragmatist must
familiarize himself with the presence of wakefulness through the practice of
contemplation. I have chosen to use the word contemplation, rather than
meditation to denote a certain degree of formlessness or a somatic emphasis.
Rather than returning to the breath at the tip of the nose, as most meditation
instructions suggest, a somatic emphasis encourages the practitioner to ride
the breath.
As you breathe in, connect with the breath at the tip of the
nose, feel the coolness of
of the breath. I emphasized "the coolness" in order to encourage a
relationship with the spirit or essence of the breath, not a solidified or
mechanical concept of the breath. Notice the difference between the revelation
of the breath, and a thought about the
breath. Allow the movement of the breath to guide your awareness deep into the
body—feeling the chest expand, the heart beat, and the abdomen inflate with the
inhalation. Notice the haunting silence in the gap between the inhalation and the
exhalation. Then feel your abdomen collapse, your chest contract, and the warmth of the breath as you exhale.
Follow the breath out of the nostrils into space, and allow your mind to linger
in the gap between breaths for a split second. Then reconnect with the coolness of the inhalation.
The pragmatist may be grounded in action, but without vision
he is going nowhere. He may get up every day and put one foot in front of the
other, but without vision he is walking in circles. Spirituality is a process
of ascension and descension. Just like the idealist had to learn that the human
condition contracts, the pragmatist has to learn that they are expanding from
within. We cannot be embarrassed about our innate ability to imagine or image. Angelic sparks are forever emerging from our subterranean depths and rising up through the channel at the core of our being, soaring towards the heights of heaven. They light up the sky and then descend back into the ground from which they came. The human body is an inseverable
umbilical cord that connects heaven and earth. If you are too grounded, you are depressed. If
you spin off of the earth and get lost in space, you are delusional. If your
head is in the clouds, but you are rooted deep in the earth, then you are fully
human and fully divine. Spirituality is all about the union of heaven and
earth.
