Becoming involves moving in up to four directions, often simultaneously. These directions are:
This is the journey of self-discovery and self-knowledge. The ancient oracle at Delphi in Greece, symbol of wisdom, had the slogan "Know thyself" prominently displayed; and self-knowledge is a significant part of wisdom (though not, as some mistakenly believe, the whole of wisdom).
This is the via negativa of the mystics, St John of the Cross's "dark night of the soul", the emptying taught by most Eastern ways. This is not the whole of wisdom either, though it is (unfortunately) an indispensable part of it.
So understressed in so many traditions that I will find it difficult to write on. This is the journey whereby we become for others. Most people who have been really good at this have not written very much; they have been too busy on the journey. We'll see what we can come up with.
This most enjoyable journey, too, is understressed in most traditions. It is the via positiva of Christian mysticism (on which few have written); all of the Eastern approaches, and for that matter most of the Western, have it so tied to the journey downward and inward that its significance is obscured or (in my opinion) distorted. Since I am not a mystic anyway, I will draw largely on non-mystical sources for this section.
| The Journey in Four Directions can be represented as a square
(right). If we are becoming we are always moving in at least one of the four directions. If we are becoming balanced, we are probably moving in several if not all of them. If we are serious about becoming, we will probably move in all four, but the order is not fixed. For this reason, I have taken advantage of the hypertext medium and not imposed an order on the four sections. Beginning with the one you resist most is probably a productive approach. |
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| The Four Directions by themselves, though, still leave
something out, and that is the centre, the still, silent centre which the
directions are taken to and, in one case, from. So here is another representation, in the
form of a Celtic cross: Why a Celtic cross? For two reasons. The merely personal one is that I have a number of ancestral links with the Celtic church, as my autogenealogical digression outlines. The more important reason is the symbolism of the Celtic cross - not just its christian, but its pre-christian symbolism. The christian symbolism is clear enough; the Christian Note below explains it if it is not. The pre-christian symbolism was that the Celtic cross represented the world; the four arms (which were even in length) were the four cardinal directions, and at the centre, where the arms met, was the doorway to the Otherworld. |
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This is the world of what we would call the supernatural (though this is a post-enlightenment category that doesn't really apply exactly to the distinction the Celts were making). This underlines the point I would like to make at length in a digression on the silent centre.
The Journey in Four Directions is not a journey to a destination where we stop. It is a journey where the journey - the process - is the important thing. This is not to say that we never have goals and never arrive anywhere. It is to say that we never finish the journey.
The first great theologian of Christianity, Paul of Tarsus, summarised the four directions as follows (taking Christ as the centre, as he always did):
The Journey Inward (a prerequisite)
If you have any encouragement in Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any sharing with the Spirit, if any gentleness and compassion,
The Journey Outward (a natural expression)
fulfill for me my joy by having the same concerns, the same love, the same soul, the same preoccupations [as each other]; not out of ambition or empty boasting, but humblemindedly, considering others above yourselves; each of you not looking out for his or her own interests, but for the interests of others.
The Journey Downward (a means)
Let the same preoccupations be in you that were also in Christ Jesus:
Who, being in the form of God, did not consider being equal with God a thing to be seized,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a servant,
becoming in human likeness; and, found in appearance as a human
humbled himself,
and became obedient to the point of death,
the death of a cross.
The Journey Upward (a consequence)
Therefore, God lifted him up to the pinnacle
and gifted him with the name above all names,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord
to the glory of God the Father.
- Philippians 2:1-11 (Paul's Letter to the Church at Philippi, Chapter 2, Verses 1 to 11).
I have also written a liturgical meditation around the Five Wounds of Christ which uses the ideas of the Journey in Four Directions and the Silent Centre.
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This material is copyright 1998 to Mike McMillan. Use for profit is reserved to the author unless otherwise arranged.
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