Mind-Space or Soul-Space?

The balance of our minds is a fragile thing. The daily diet of bad news has profound effects on our moods and our thinking. The terrible tragedies and mindless acts of cruelty that are relentlessly reported eventually disturb the delicate equilibrium of many souls. The resulting insecurity is constantly spreading and is too often expressed in break-down, despair or thoughts of suicide. A serious, silent tipping point is gradually being reached and vulnerable people are looking, often desperately, for ways of keeping a precious balance in their everyday lives.

Beyond an ever-increasing recourse to medication, there are some hopeful reports about ‘talking therapies’ such as counselling and cognitive behaviour therapies, but these services are not free, and are often found wanting. Some significant sources are recommending a form of ‘secularised’ mindfulness. Blue-chip companies such as Goldman Sachs, the Marine Corps (with record suicide rates), General Mills and Nike are all experimenting with mindfulness-apps for their stressed-out employees.

Emma Watson, Heston Blumenthal, Goldie Hawn and Tiger Woods are among the many enthusiastic adherents of this practice. ‘Sorts my noggin out’ is Davina McCall’s verdict on the new ‘Headspace’ mindfulness app.  A recent UK report (January 2014) revealed that mindfulness causes ‘a measurable improvement of up to 20 per cent in symptoms of anxiety and depression . . .’ Many retreat centres are currently offering these courses.  Priests are often asked if this is a Catholic thing.

A starting point would be to consider whether such programmes consider the complexity and mystery of the human condition? In their instructions and tactics does a profound ‘soul-power’ find its place – that spiritual depth and muscle, that compelling predisposition towards a more radical transformation in the practitioner? Is there a presumption in the marketing pitch of the multimillion pound meditation business that the healthy mind we need can be achieved through a daily discipline of mental, will-powered exercises alone?

True meditation, spiritual writers believe, is about the mystery of who we are, of the sacredness of our true self, of our connectedness to a Spirit – that Being from whom the individual soul can never be separated. It is also, however, about the inevitable shadow that is intrinsic to human nature, those ingrained instincts, those dark and stubborn energies that will not budge or buckle under a daily ten-minute exercise in bodily awareness or mind-control. There are parts of us that resist the light, that prefer the darkness, that always tend to self-destruct. Inner harmony is not easily won. It costs ‘not less than everything’, as T.S. Eliot reminded us.

It is difficult to see any real and lasting change happening in a person’s life without the prior vision, implicit or explicit, of a Being who lives and loves at the human core. Beautiful and sublime as our scrambled minds may be, they are transformed only at a deeper dimension of our humanity. The subtle mystery of the sublime soul needs to be awakened.

In their openness to the Risen Christ, the fearful, anxious souls of the first disciples were liberated from panic and confusion, experiencing a harmony and a clarity that restored their energy and joy. The profound change we long for happens only when we surrender to the gracious mystery of which we are, from the beginning, an integral part. Only then will the negative and desperate edges of our thoughts be radically softened and transformed. This surrender may be the most courageous thing we will ever do – to believe that our destiny and God’s desires are already written in our genes and our natural gifts, to accept and trust who we essentially are, to be just our essential selves.

When desperate people, stuck in their depression and hopelessness, begin their various mindfulness programmes, it seems vital for them to acknowledge the presence of another deeply connecting energy that seeks only their complete well-being. Whatever project or app we may use, it is ultimately the saving water from the ever-fresh eternal well within, that nourishes us into our wholeness. This is the pure gift, unearned, unmerited, that is offered to all.

Does this mean then that those easily accessible and affordable mindfulness methods have no part to play in securing the holistic well-being of troubled people; that no app can take us down into the deeper daily dive required to reach and regenerate the psyche? On the contrary, because in the end, for the authentic searcher, mind-space and soul-space share the same sacred space. How can this be?

Many great Christian mystics have developed techniques of meditation and contemplation similar to those followed by today’s adherents of mindfulness. The Christian believes that grace builds on nature; that, acknowledged or not, our reaching for a commercial exercise to heal our anxiety is already a blessed instinct; that the strengthening of the mind will lead to the healing of the soul.

While both theists and atheists alike generally benefit from the techniques of mindfulness, for theists it will be approached as a spiritual exercise involving the divine presence. Zen practitioners however hold that there are not two separate realities here at all – a merely human mindfulness and a more sacred meditation work. When the experience of mindfulness is full, deep and trusted, when the attention is totally focussed on ‘what is’, then the exercise is already an experience of peaceful unity with the Mystery of Being.

There is however, still some confusion about the meaning of mindfulness. In a recent article Fr Laurence Freeman states that mindfulness alone ‘is not enough’ for ‘good works’. To become effective and useful, he holds, ‘to cross the street’ to help someone, our awareness needs to be developed towards an additional attentiveness, personal connection, empathy and so on.  But, for the Christian, is not true mindfulness already an intimacy with God, a gift of the Holy Spirit that intrinsically includes all these additional characteristics and virtues?

In graced awareness we are radically transformed, and in this moment of profound and blessed consciousness we are already moved to reach out to others. Is not our transformed consciousness already a participation in the mindfulness of Christ, inescapably inspiring and motivating us to live out this intimacy in our service of the community. There are no other ‘extra’ human steps to be taken. All is grace. God first falls in love with us and that love inspires our dedication to service.  God is always everywhere, in everyone, in everything.

There is a quiet stream flowing beneath the often-shallow mindlessness of our living; there is a still point in the pressure of our days. And there is always the invitation to flow with that stream, to tune in to the energy and rhythm of all creation, of all life. Waiting to be recognised and welcomed, there is, within every mind and soul, aching to be happy and to be loved, a compassionate being that is our origin and our future, that desires only our true completeness. In the end, only a healing love will bring peace to our troubled minds.

In his poignant ‘Late Fragment’, poet Raymond Carver, dying of cancer, is in dialogue with his destiny;

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.