Beyond the experience of duality

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Sin and the Unconscious

Sin, Repentance and the Unconscious

Bede Griffiths

This article is a compilation from letters written by Bede Griffiths to his friend Dr Mary Allen in the 1960s. The originals are in the Bede Griffiths Collection in the archive at Douai Abbey. This article was first published in the Sangha Newsletter March 2005

 

Now I must tell you something about prayer and the great ‘revelation’ which has been made to me.  During all this past year I have been going through an extraordinary experience, which is summed up in the need for repentance. I believe that this is what is lacking in our prayers and in our life – the lack of awareness of the depth of sin.  It is not a question of conscious sin so much as of sin in the unconscious.  I want very much to know what you think of this.  I believe that in the depths of our unconscious lie the root of all sin, and it is because we fail to recognise this that we make no progress in prayer.  It represents an insuperable obstacle to union with God.  For convenience I divide these roots of sin into seven. 1) Greed – the desire for the satisfaction of our appetites.  This is very subtle and needs great discretion, but I believe it is fundamental.  Unless we are radically detached from food and drink, we are always bound down to the body. 2) Sloth.  The desire for rest and ease, avoiding difficulties, labour etc.  I think that this also goes very deep, 3) Lust. I have found in myself, the most appalling capacity for sheer physical lust.  I believe that this exists in all of us, and prevents our love being given to God. 4) Anger. In myself it takes the form of impatience chiefly with myself.  But it is a strong passion, often deeply concealed. 5) self-love.  This is really at the root of all these passions.  It is theoriginal sin – the turning upon the self – unconsciously seeking oneself – one’s pleasure in everything (particularly religion). 6) Pride.  This is my besetting sin – especially pride of intellect – again largely unconscious. 7) Self-will.  The desire to rule oneself (and others), making oneself the centre of everything.

This is only to give you a rough idea of what we have to look for.  What is the remedy?  In the final place repentance – i.e. change of mind (metanoia).  We must consciously face these sins.  It seems to me that prayer should always begin with this confession of sin.  The point is that though these sins are largely unconscious our will has consented tot hem.  This is the mystery of original sin.  The will has been dragged down to consent to sin and we have to force ourselves to acknowledge our sin and to repent of it.

This leads to the second point – abandonment to God.  As soon as we realise the depth of sin, we realise that we can do nothing about it.  It is we ourselves who are sinful – only the total rejection of self – of all that we are – and total abandonment to God can save us. (This links with Hindu and Buddhist dictums that the ‘ego’ must be totally transcended, if we are to find our true Self).  I can go more into this, I am still working at it.  But do read, if you have it, the Early Fathers from the Philocalia (Faber) especially Isaac the Syrian.  This is their way of prayer – everything begins with repentance and tears of compunction.  This is also St Benedict’s way – ‘let him pray with purity of heart and tears of compunction’.  If you haven’t got the Early Fathers, you ought to get it: it is a necessary book.  I do believe that this is the authentic tradition of Christian prayer, and this is what we have to learn.  In regard to you own experience, it seems to me that you were shown in a vision, as it were, the state of your soul, but you now have to labour at this transformation.  The Golden Flower does not open automatically – the unconscious has to be cleansed by repentance – by deliberate sorrow for sin and hatred of oneself – only then can the life of the unconscious – Kundalini – be set free.”

“I am sure that it is a question of coming to terms with the unconscious (the Hindu lives from the unconscious) but I don’t see it exactly as you do.  What I have been learning recently is the tremendous need for the purification of the unconscious.  The unconscious is full of demons and daemonic powers which seek to ‘possess’ us, as you say.  Many people do not ‘come up against’ these powers, no doubt, consciously, but they are nevertheless possessed by them.  This is the meaning of original sin.  We are all by nature under the power of these forces of the unconscious – the apparently harmonious type which you mention do less than the others, though it may be less evident.  These forces may be kept down to some extent – a kind of balance established – and that is the normal human condition, but it is very inadequate.  In some people, on the other hand, and this leads to madness, there is only one way out of this condition.  The unconscious has to be purified – the daemonic forces which are hostile to life subdued, and the healing powers released.  I think that all religions from the most primitive to the most advanced have for their purpose this purification of the unconscious – to se the soul free from the daemonic powers and allow it to be transformed by the powers of good.  Of course, there are debased forms of religion which lead to possession by daemonic powers but this is not normal.

Hinduism is a wonderful example of this cleansing of the unconscious – forms of incredible beauty, expressions of love and grace, have been evolved from the unconscious.  But at the same time the daemonic powers have not been altogether subdued.  There is evil in Hinduism and in all Hindu society.  To some extent I feel that all Hindus are still under the power of the unconscious – whether for good or for evil.  They have not yet been set free.

I believe that it is Christ alone who can set us free from the unconscious.  Baptism is a descent beneath the waters, a conflict with Satan (in which the soul is mystically identified with Christ) in which the daemonic powers are defeated and the healing powers of the unconscious are realised to give birth to a new life.  But this new life is not simply a transformation of the unconscious.  It is a new power of life beyond nature, something divine which enters into the unconscious and transfigures it.  This is what should happen in our Christian life.  The Holy Spirit should penetrate to the depths of the unconscious, to the ultimate root of being, and transform us.

But this, of course, is exactly what does not happen.  The average Christian simply represses the unconscious like everyone else and lives from his will and reason.  This is why his life is so un-inspiring.  On the other hand, the Hindu, I think, lives much more from the unconscious, but he is subject to both the good and evil forces in it.  That is why there is no much immorality in India – he has not learned to control his imagination and the passions that govern it.  But this is really only a description of our human stage.  We either give way to the forces of the (unpurified) unconscious and become slaves to passion, or we repress these forces as much as we can and are controlled by the unconsciously. ‘Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’  I am sure that the secret is humility and repentance.  Repression arises when the ego tries to suppress the instincts and establish the mastery.  But the ego itself is a more dangerous enemy that instinct.  The ego has to be submitted to God – it has to die – and this is the real difficulty.  When the ego that is the fallen image which has come under the powers of Satan, dies, then the true Self appears.  The Holy spirit transforms the soul and a new control comes into play.  This control does not repress the unconscious – it penetrates and transforms it.  It brings about a marriage between conscious and unconscious, male and female, animus and anima, in which the values of each are preserved.  This is the re-integration of our being in Christ.

For me Hinduism seems to act as a means for regaining contact with the unconscious, but it must be Hinduism transformed by Christ.  Hinduism by itself will not do – it still belongs to nature.  Only the grace which comes from above – the free gift of God in Christ can really transform us.  But how difficult it is!  To submit one’s who conscious being to God, so as to separate from the unconscious, is incredibly hard – this is repentance in the deepest sense…

I don’t think you have understood what I am trying to say about repentance.  The whole point is that one must learn to repent of what is unconscious – totally unconscious. We have to repent not only of what we have said and done and thought and felt, but of what we are – i.e. of original sin.  You remember that I described in the golden String how I felt called to repent, but did not know of what I had to repent. I am convinced now that it was this – I had to repent of what I was – of my ego.  I believe that this is the most profound psychological experience and it enables us to penetrate to the root of sin – of cosmic sin, and to realise the sin of mankind.  I can’t tell you of what I have experienced lately – and I don’t think it would do any good – but I believe that I have been going through something of this. I begin to see what is meant by the ‘dissolution of the menes in the buddhi’.  But it is deeper than this.  It is the dissolution of the ego.  If one could do right through this, then all repressions would be eliminated.  But it is very hard and I have felt very near to a breakdown at times, but I seem to have come out into a more settled state.  Undoubtedly the physical austerity of this life imposes a great strain, but I am learning to adjust to it, and I can see that one must go through it.  The supernatural world becomes more real but at the same time the natural world has to find its reality – I am beginning to see how the Buddhist and Hindu denial of reality can be reconciled with the Christian view of the reality of all things in Christ – which is their only final reality.

… I don’t think you have understood what I am trying to say about repentance.  The whole point is that one must learn to repent of what is unconscious – totally unconscious. We have to repent not only of what we have said and done and thought and felt, but of what we are – i.e. of original sin.  You remember that I described in the golden String how I felt called to repent, but did not know of what I had to repent. I am convinced now that it was this – I had to repent of what I was – of my ego.  I believe that this si the most profound psychological experience and it enables us to penetrate to the root of sin – of cosmic sin, and to realise the sin of mankind.  I can’t tell you of what I have experienced lately – and I don’t think it would do any good – but I believe that I have been going through something of this. I begin to see what is meant by the ‘dissolution of the menes in the buddhi’.  But it is deeper than this.  It is the dissolution of the ego.  If one could do right through this, then all repressions would be eliminated.  But it is very hard and I have felt very near to a breakdown at times, but I seem to have come out into a more settled state.  Undoubtedly the physical austerity of this life imposes a great strain, but I am learning to adjust to it, and I can see that one must go through it.  The supernatural world becomes more real but at the same time the natural world has to find its reality – I am beginning to see how the Buddhist and Hindu denial of reality can be reconciled with the Christian view of the reality of all things in Christ – which is their only final reality.

… Now about Christ and the unconscious .  You say that baptism doesn’t cast out the devil, but I am not so sure.  In the ancient church, as you know (it survives in the present Roman rite), there were several exorcisms in the baptismal service, and the idea was definitely that the devil was cast out and Christ took possession of the soul.  Today we may think of it rather differently.  Would say that in the unconscious there are powers of evil which owing to original sin, have power over the soul.. In baptism a new power of grace is implanted in the soul, which is able to overcome the power of evil and to reform the soul in the image of Christ.  But the power of grace is like a seed – it has to grow before it can take possession and transform the soul, and this growth depends on our own co-operation and our external circumstances.

Now, as you say, if this power of grace does not take possession of the soul, it is because we fail, – ‘we cannot receive it’.  Could one put it like this?  The power of grace enters the soul, but it meets with a tremendous resistance from the unconscious, particularly as our coconscious is so largely split off from the conscious.  People are Christian in their conscious mind and want to be kind and charitable etc, but the intention never penetrates the unconscious because so much in it is deeply repressed. The whole problem is how to open the unconscious to this power of grace, which means, of course, also how to bring the unconscious again into vital relation with the conscious.  But this seems to be so incredibly hard.

I think that behind all this there is a hard core of pride and self-will which we fail to surrender and which prevents the opening of the unconscious.  I am feeling that this hard core in me is gradually melting – but I have been going through a terribly difficult period of frustration and conflict.  Now my mind seems to be expanding and I feel that the repression is being dispelled  .  I find that I must do without any images – the images of Christ is a great obstacle.  The only way I can find out is to consider that on the cross Christ died to this world and disappeared.  After the resurrection he no longer belongs to this world.  We have to pass out with him to the Father, to lose ourselves completely.  I can only think of God as Nothing and myself as nothing.  Do you remember that Augustine Baker described the mystical union as the union ‘of the nothing with the nothing’?  This seems to be exactly true.