Our life on earth is a preparation for the life beyond death when we approach more closely the understanding of eternity. But eternity is not simply an experience in store for us; it is in fact our constant dwelling place, even at this moment in time. We would know this if only we were fully aware of the glory that surrounds us. But the doors of our inner organs of perception are usually so firmly shut that we are impervious to all impressions except the coarsely material ones. This in itself is no bad thing, since our place of growth is where we find ourselves, and our tools of operation are the circumstances at hand. But if only we were aware, albeit dimly, of the destination ahead of us while we were about our earthly business, we could act more effectively and joyously. The beauty of this world would itself assume a renewed radiance. We would be less grasping and more compassionate, less demanding and more solicitous about the wants of other people. In this way, the apparently great divide between our earthly existence and the dimly perceived life beyond death would be narrowed and therefore more easily bridged.
There is, significantly, no incontrovertible evidence of survival of death, but as we grow more fully into our own identity so the continuation of life becomes increasingly certain to us. This identity, as we have already seen, is something more than all we hold dear and treasurable in ourselves; it embraces the identity of our neighbour also. It is then that our uniqueness, which is absolute, is shared so that it contributes to the whole of mankind, and we in turn receive the unique presence of those around us, so that in sharing and exchange we enter with increasing awareness the full Body of Christ. Ultimate reality is neither a fusion of the unit with the whole, nor a merging of the one with the many. It is, on the contrary, a union of the many into a whole that is all-embracing, whose centre and periphery is God.
It follows that in spiritual growth the establishment of full identity is also a growth into the knowledge of the love of God and the love of all our fellow beings, who become to us our most intimate neighbours. It is this vision of wholeness that should illumine the way of the counsellor, as he treads the path in the company of the many whom he ostensibly leads onward. In the spiritual life, the master is the servant of all, and his most characteristic action is that of washing the feet of his disciples. This washing of the foul-smelling feet of the lowly ones is, incidentally, not merely a gesture of humility and devotion; it also symbolises the preparatory work of the spiritual teacher in cleansing the surface of the psyche. When this is done, the Holy Spirit will be available - and welcome - to continue the cleansing, healing process at a deeper level.
When we begin to see every action and every relationship, every possession and every experience, as both the way towards eternal life and a sacrament of that life in the present moment, we are beginning to live in abundance. The counsellor, the one who channels and focuses the divine wisdom on to the psyche of his client, should know something of this full life and transmit that knowledge to those seeking help. This he does, as we have already seen, not so much by exhortation as by his transparency, not so much by description as by his radiance. In the end we do not describe what we have seen at the peak of the mountain of illumination; instead we enshrine it in our own personality and bring it down to earth with us. Just as to have seen Christ is to have seen the nature of the Father also, so to see the truly illumined person is to glimpse the glory and destiny of the human soul embodied perfectly in Christ.
Every relationship is a preparation for the consummation of love in eternal life. Therefore every relationship is sacred. This does not mean that it must never be challenged, disturbed and even terminated, at least here on earth. But, as in the shattering encounter between Jacob and the angel of God, there must be no relinquishing of it until a blessing has been attained. The blessing is growth into a more mature person measured in terms of love and wisdom. As we grow in spiritual awareness so we come to see that those whom God has brought together - whether in marriage or in the looser ties of a professional collaboration or social relationship - can never be torn asunder. To be sure, the relationship seen in physical terms is by its very nature of limited duration. The vicissitudes of life and the irreversibility of death bring an end to all raptures of physical affection. But the soul is outside the physical order; it is our first private intimation of immortality. It was never meant to be alone or isolated. Indeed, as Heraclitus observed, one can never define the soul's boundaries, so deep are they.
The soul is the organ whereby we attain union with all that exists, and by the spirit within it we know God directly; His inner presence is attested by the Holy Spirit. A soul attachment goes on until the consummation of all things in God. When a relationship has been so destructive that a complete break has been essential for the survival of at least one of the parties concerned, the psychic link has to be cut - at least on the level of morbid attachment and subversive control.
The same is sometimes true of an extremely powerful personality, now deceased, who can still effect emotional pressure on the psyche of someone close to it who is still alive in the flesh. This is something more than an obsessive memory conditioning the life of the one who has suffered under that person; it is a direct presence that a psychically sensitive person can detect, often quite easily. The bad link has to be severed, but the one now freed from this psychic incubus - whether from a deceased or a living personality - has to start a new life of service and prayer, including prayer for his former tormentor. In the end we are all parts of the one body - the body of Christ, Who embraces all men irrespective of their religious belief - and we all have to be made whole according to the will of God.
Therefore, when a relationship has to be terminated on a mute note of failure here on earth - and this applies especially to a broken marriage - each party has to learn from the failure about his or her weaknesses and immature attitudes, so that during the remainder of earthly life there may be a more aware, less selfish approach to other people. In human relationships no dogmatic rule can be laid down because of the enormous variation that exists in the vast range of human personality and the complexity of the problems that so often arise. But one principle must not be overridden; the sanctity of each person irrespective of the evil of his actions. That which is perverse, anti-social and destructive in a person will require determined, unsentimental treatment that may extend far beyond the limits of this mortal life, but we are always called on to help rather than condemn. The ultimate means of help is prayer, especially when terrible retribution is striking at the foundation of an evil life. We can never relinquish another person even when absolute separation is mandatory on a physical level.
The end of all relationships is a closer union between man and God; that which is terminated in failure now will, we believe, also have its moment of reparation and triumph later in the life of the person in eternity. We have always to be open to this extended hope; admittedly it has a negative aspect of temporarily destructive, psychic influence that must be severed, but of greater ultimate importance is its positive, constructive promise of healing and redemption. The counsellor should be aware of these deeper springs of human relationships. He should neither work towards the continuance of every attachment, remembering that some are so deleterious that they ought to be terminated at once, nor should he ever fail to acknowledge that all attachments have their end in God, however remote it may appear in respect of their present aberration. Admittedly there lies an extended period of growth between what now prevails and the final divine realisation. Furthermore, this growth will be punctuated by suffering, renunciation, learning and service. In God nothing is lost. His face is that of the stranger whom the disciples met on the road to Emmaus. And it is the perpetual stranger on the way who, once accepted, leads us closer to God in Christ.
What I am saying is this: there are no bad experiences in life for the person who is open to the mystery of divine grace. When something that we regard as vital for our well-being has been summarily removed by the apparently impersonal inroads of fate, it will be replaced on a higher level of reality provided we have the faith to persist, to soldier on in the face of adversity. The end is to know ourselves and each other even as we are known by God and are, in eternal life, to know God also. One of the most valuable by-products of misfortune is its tendency to strip from the personality all social subterfuge. How important it is to be aware of the cesspit of anger, resentment and aggressiveness that lies deep in the psyche, but is so convincingly concealed by agreeable social attitudes in the run of daily life! But the personality will remain unformed until the darkness of hell within it is brought to the light of day and given its due respect also. Until it is acknowledged, accepted and loved - and this means allowed to express itself in full consciousness when we are secluded from our fellows - it can never be transmuted to forgiveness, compassion and service by the ever-available but all too infrequently sought grace of God.
There is a world of difference between the social theorist who speaks from the intellect of peace but whose life is an amalgam of ambition and crude manipulation of others and the saint who has no theories or ambitions any longer but who radiates peace from his humble presence. The theorist uses his ideas to protect himself from too wounding a self- knowledge. The saint knows himself so well that he needs no further protection: he also knows that all he possesses is in the hands of God, Who alone can transmute the dross of evil intentions into the gold of sacrificial love. 'If I climb up to heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in Sheol, again I find thee' (Ps. 139:8). If we could only fathom the depths of God's love, we would know that He is with us in the darkness of hell no less than the radiance of celestial light; the passion of Christ reveals the first sequence and His resurrection and ascension the second.
The joy of counselling is to be able to guide the person in difficulty on the road that leads to completion. This guidance is an aspect of companionship, not leadership. The techniques of psychotherapy can be of great value in releasing pent-up emotional material from the depths of the unconscious to the full light of awareness. But it is the assimilation of this material into the personality where it may form an integral part of our contribution to life that is the ultimate work. This is assisted by the enlightened counsellor under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is noteworthy that the most sceptical of the disciples, Thomas, was convinced of the reality of the risen Christ only when he saw the wounds of His passion. This is the authentic testimony of God's participation in the affairs of our world, that He was not merely a transcendent power or even an immanent principle of the soul, but that He took His place among us as a man among men and reached His ultimate veracity in His moment of greatest humiliation, when He visited us in the form of His Son. Likewise the testimony of a person's integrity is found in his creative response to suffering, so that it is incorporated into his personality and transformed into an instrument of compassion and service for his fellows. It should also be noted that suffering need not be on a grand scale. 'The heart knows its own bitterness, and a stranger has no part in its joy' (Prov. 14:10). It is when we have been demoted from our position of security or lowered from our point of vantage that we begin to participate psychically in the lives of other people; until then it is temptingly easy to play the Pharisee in Jesus' central parable, and thank God that we are so much better than our neighbour. The counsellor has to be stripped naked of all his illusions before he can be a reliable guide. Jesus says 'The gate that leads to life is small and the road is narrow, and those who find it are few' (Matt. 7:14). It is so under- populated because there are few who can bear to be freed of all inessential possessions.
Spiritual mastery is very different from the elitism inherent in most other provinces of human endeavour. It is constantly fascinating to behold the considerable range of spiritual understanding that is to be found in members of a single family. Of course, there is an equally inexplicable variation among individuals in the different skills of common life, such as athletic prowess, mathematical brilliance, artistic creativity or linguistic proficiency. It would seem that such individual skills are private matters, determining the life-style of the person for good or evil depending on how he uses them. In this respect, great physical beauty or intellectual brilliance can prove a stumbling-block to an unwary person by placing him on a pedestal of false esteem in the eyes of his peers, so that he feels superior to others. By contrast, our weaknesses cut us down to size so that we share fully in the lives of our most unfortunate neighbours. Indeed, God's power comes to its full strength in weakness, since His grace is all we need (2 Cor. 12:9). Spirituality, on the other hand, can never be sequestered in an individual, nor is anyone outside its influence. We are all called on to grow into a knowledge of God, in Whom alone the soul finds its rest and the person his fulfilment. Thus there is no isolated spiritual elite; the Master serves the beggar and gives His life for the sinner, so that all mankind may attain healing and be able to participate fully in the life of eternity. Those who reject God's love fail the test of life, but they proceed in labour and quest in the life beyond death; those who succeed will give of themselves more fully than before to their brethren who are in distress. The one closest to God is closest also to his neighbour - in eternal life no less than in the narrow confines of our social milieu.
Spirituality should also be distinguished from psychic sensitivity, while their close connection is acknowledged. That some people are more psychically attuned than others is a mystery of God's grace, but no more remarkable than outstanding ability in the fields of art or science. Such sensitivity is invaluable in effecting close relationships with other people, both here and in the life beyond death, but it can be used as easily to seduce and ensnare as to heal and liberate. Spiritual authority, on the other hand, is a product of experience.
Spirituality is acquired in the hard school of life when we have, by slow and arduous progress, begun to assimilate the golden rule into our personalities: always treat others as you would like them to treat you; this is the Law and the prophets (Matt. 7:12). It is the vast range of spirituality that may be found in members of even a single family who share a common environment and a somewhat related heredity (though each person, apart from identical twins, is genetically unique that leads one to consider the possibility of aspects of the personality, notably the soul, having enjoyed a previous existence.
However, there is no final solution to this fact of life. While heredity and environment no doubt play their part in fashioning the personality and determining the temperament, the inner core of spiritual excellence is of a different order. It is a special gift of the Holy Spirit to one who has travelled far on the road of renunciation, who has discovered the meretricious attractiveness and ephemeral duration of power and riches, beauty and fame. When all these illusions, these objects of vanity, dissolve into the mists of oblivion with the passage of time, the heart of love and wisdom stands firm, enduring the attrition wrought by suffering and ageing, and affording an inextinguishable beacon on the way to eternal life in God. Once the spiritual life is vibrant, the psychic sensitivity tends to become much more acute. It lies dormant in all of us, unlike intellectual or artistic mastery, which is the prerogative of the comparatively few. It is when we have attained spiritual insight that the psychic link becomes the means by which the Holy Spirit speaks from one soul to another, since in that state of coinherence (to repeat the term beloved by Charles Williams) we are indeed parts of the one body. This becomes no longer a mere theological assertion, but a fact of existence. In this respect psychic sensitivity divorced from spiritual understanding tends to separate one from one's fellows no less than do the other private gifts we have mentioned.
It seems paradoxical indeed that psychic sensitivity can have a divisive effect, since its function is to connect one person with another on a very deep level. However, one has only to witness the tendency to judge and disparage their neighbours that some psychically sensitive people exhibit, according to what they claim they can detect in them, to realise how separative and elitist that gift can be if it is not informed by the charity that comes with spiritual grace. Indeed, spiritual gifts alone bring us all together in love through the psychic empathy that follows prior union with God.
It is in fact another variation on the theme of the two great commandments: loving God first with one's whole being and then loving one's neighbour as oneself. The first must precede the second, but as the second grows in intensity, so the love of God becomes stronger. The spiritual gifts inform the psyche, and the psychic outpouring brings us closer to God.
Part of the work in any life is preparation for death. The period of retirement that should precede the final dissolution of all earthly ties provides an admirable means of entering the deepest knowledge of life. In the Hindu scheme of spiritual life, the aspirant proceeds from the stage of student to that of householder. This ends when his grandchildren are born. He then retires into the depths of the forest, alone or with his wife, where he proceeds to contemplate the deep things of existence. The last stage is one of complete renunciation, perhaps at a holy place, where he awaits death in a state of profound meditation. But it is important to understand that God, however He may be conceived, is the centre of all phases of this four-fold scheme of life: He is with the youth in his studies no less than in the arduous work of the householder or the contemplation of the mendicant. It is of interest that a not very dissimilar scheme of development attends the Jewish Kabbalist tradition, and that the deep secrets are withheld from those whose previous career has not rendered them worthy to receive them.
The almost completely secularly orientated Western man does not attend to matters so chilling in their immediacy as God and his own soul. These are swept aside in the hectic rush of daily acquisitive life. But the time comes when the old landmarks are swept away quite unceremoniously by the abrupt inroads of misfortune, illness and bereavement. All culminate in death, the moment of crisis and judgment. The counsellor for life is also a counsellor into death. Carl Jung has remarked in The Soul and Death, 'From the middle of life onward only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life'.
We begin to prepare for death when we cast an eye once more over past relationships, and see where reconciliation is possible in the light of truth. Grievances and points of radical disagreement cannot be summarily dismissed, let alone plastered over with insincere bonhomie. They should, however, be confronted, if possible, in mutual responsibility so that the conflicting parties can work together towards the resolution of the difficulty. For this way of reconciliation to succeed, there has to be a growing maturity in both parties. If one believes one has all the truth on one's side and cannot face the fact of one's own dark, shadow nature, one's intransigence (and that of the other person) will impede the way forward. In this case the matter has to be allowed to rest as quietly as possible, but we can proceed, at least in our own lives, in full awareness of the situation.
Prayer made ceaselessly to God not infrequently redeems a situation that seemed hopeless on a purely human level of reconciliation. The theme of confession and reconciliation is an autumnal approach to the ever-pressing advent of death. God alone forgives, and as we see the need for forgiving others, so we are brought closer to the footstool of the Almighty. 'If someone sues you, come to terms with him promptly while you are both on your way to court; otherwise he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the constable, and you will be put in jail. I tell you, once you are there you will not be let out till you have paid the last farthing' (Matt. 5:25-6). The right time to put our own house in order is always the present moment, and of no matter is this more pertinent than our bad relationships with other people. We can at least confess our sins to God and make what reparations are possible, without in any way trying to influence the other person in our favour by subtle emotional pressure.
The two great themes in working out a relationship are truth and reconciliation. The latter is very different from compromise; it means a growth in stature to accommodate another point of view by understanding and respecting the person who propounds it, which may be very different from one's own. Reconciliation pursued in honesty leads to the spiritual growth of all the parties concerned; its end is the gestation and birth of a new awareness of reality in which all the previously held views are seen to have been but the thoughts of little children. It is incidentally in this spirit alone that ecumenism in religion can succeed. The end is not to be a super-church that is able to smooth over and blur conflicting opinions, but a new church in God in which conflict is transmuted by illumined wisdom and healed by love. Indeed, we are told that in the new Jerusalem there is no Temple, for its temple is the sovereign Lord God and the Lamb (Rev. 21:22). In heaven our problems are solved by the Holy Spirit infusing our consciousness so that what was previously opaque to the understanding is now rendered transparent to the light of God. It is thus that the very commendable human desire for justice is fulfilled by the divine mercy and changed to universal love. We cease to care whether we get our just reward for our labour as we are about our Father's business in service to our brethren and healing of our neighbour. This is our privilege: to do the work of the One Who sent us. It is also the answer to the aggrieved labourers in the vineyard who were so shocked that those who started later on received the same wages as they who had begun the work early in the day (Matt. 20:1-16). In fact, the early labourers had the great advantage of being about God's work throughout the whole of their working life - seen figuratively as a day - whereas the latecomers enjoyed this happiness for only a comparatively short time. Nevertheless, the joy of coming to oneself, however late, cannot be measured in terms of material reward, hence the salary is the same for all.
Another important preparation for death that retirement brings is the work of disembarrassing oneself of possessions. Of course, our material possessions are bequeathed to those loved ones we leave behind after our death, but it is our secular power and reputation that are less comfortably relinquished. To learn to groom someone younger than oneself for the work ahead and then to move graciously but decisively out of the way, so as not to hamper him and his colleagues in the pursuit of new objectives, is a test of greatness of soul. As St John the Baptist said of his relationship with Jesus, 'As he grows greater, so I must grow less (John 3:30). This is the meaning of love: to give of oneself without holding back anything for the well-being of another person. The way of Christ, who though rich became poor for us so that we through His poverty might become rich, is the way of the aspiring soul moving towards death. It is the supreme lesson of the spiritual life, and happy is the counsellor who can accompany the slowly dying person on this shadowy path full of glorious promise for those who tread on in faith and self-abandonment to the providence of God. As we grow in the spiritual life, so we prepare daily for our death by living ever more vibrantly in the moment. It is then that we cease to be entrapped in hard feelings, resentment and fear, and can flow out in love even to those who abuse us. When we are no longer there as an obstructive physical presence but are simply a representative of Him Who gave up His life for the world in the form of His only Son, we enter into eternal life now, and bring the promise of that life to all who meet us. Thus we move from the threat of death to the experience of immortality.