Approaches to Inner Life, Part Seven

Lanza del Vasto

Translated from
LANZA DEL VASTO, APPROCHES DE LA VIE INTÉRIEURE
ÉDITIONS DENOËL, 1962

The Path of Consciousness

A COMPANION: You often speak of Self-Knowledge or Consciousness.

RESPONSE: That is the etymological meaning of the word. Con-scientia stands for cum-scientia and cum means “with.” Therefore: knowledge that one carries with oneself, inner knowledge, self-knowledge. One cannot speak of “consciousness of self” without saying the same thing twice. If we have consciousness of another thing than ourselves, it’s because this thing is within us and because consciousness of ourselves is implied. This is the case with “moral consciousness.”

THE COMPANION: If consciousness is self-knowledge, how can I say: “I am not my consciousness”? For if I don’t have knowledge of myself, I should rather say: “My consciousness does not exist,” but if I have this knowledge, how can I still deny that I am conscious and even, in a certain way, that I am this “consciousness”?

RESPONSE: You have very astutely uncovered the ambiguity and contradiction in the formula. To avoid it we could say: “I am not my thought” or “I am not my intelligence, my sensibility, or my will,” but we prefer to leave the ambiguity and contradiction to indicate the state of this consciousness that comes and goes, and of myself who exist without being. This contradiction, as soon as discovered, will reveal its source and driving force.

He who says “I” finds himself at the center of his perspectives of the sensible world, at the source of volitions, acts, thoughts, pressed by various feelings, immersed in the humming of blood and organic sensations.

This collection of sensations, volitions, passions and notions constitutes consciousness; he who says “I” speaks of it, and it speaks of him.

I could, it seems, conclude from this that my consciousness is me.

But a careful examination of the content of my consciousness would already invalidate this proposition, for I would have to recognize that this singular object called “I” is, of all those that can occupy my knowledge, the most obscure. I cannot perceive it, describe it, define it, or distinguish it. I do not conceive it as I conceive this stone; I cannot place it before my eyes, for it remains behind my eyes; my eyes cannot look at it since it is what looks through my eyes.

I have only a confused, reflective, and negative self-perception: confused, because I do not stand out from the rest as a distinct object; reflective and negative, because I only grasp myself indirectly, as being the opposite of everything I grasp.

Moreover, if I believed I was my consciousness, this illusion would be definitively overturned by the experience of sleep. For, as soon as I fall asleep, my consciousness darkens and fades, while my being is neither annulled nor altered; it will even emerge regenerated from sleep.

It even seems that it is in sleep that the self finds its integrity, its purity, its peace, while in wakefulness it collides with what is other or mixes with it, and becomes complicated by artifices, fictions, and pretenses.

Does this mean that the true self is unconsciousness?

There is only one self; consciousness and unconsciousness pass into each other and are different degrees of illumination.

Illumination casts reflections on the surface; it covers rather than reveals the nature of the water and the depths.

Whatever the intensity of the illumination and the extent of the illuminated surface, the depth of the water remains invisible and unfathomable.

We call science the light that forms the reflections; consciousness, the refracted light that reveals the color and substance of the water. And “I” — I am the depths.

I am neither my intelligence of surface reflections, nor my consciousness of intermediate depths (dreams, impulses, instincts, complexes). I am the pure and simple depths.

It follows naturally that if the depths are completely obscure and unknown, then I find myself divided from myself; thus my own self becomes foreign and unknown to me, my intelligence without truth and my consciousness without unity or foundation.

This paradoxical state is that of every man. Sin has placed us all in this state. Conversion and illumination can draw us out of it.

Conversion and illumination bring inner knowledge of the depths. Not just an applied light, but an inner light, a fusion of light with the depths.

The light, in penetrating these depths, not only shows them as they are, but also forms them, transforms them, purifies them, vivifies them, makes them pass from the latent and larval state to the life of Grace. It makes of them “a spirit of life.”

It is said of Adam in the First Epistle to the Corinthians (15:45) that he is “a living soul.” And of Christ, that he is “a vivifying spirit.”

But we — we are, rather, wandering souls, shadows of life and living phantoms. However, this inconsistency, this drifting, which contain the perpetual risk of perdition, can offer us a chance of freedom.

The risk changes to freedom as soon as consciousness dawns of our fallen condition and our obscurity. The Gospel teaches: “Know the Truth, and it shall make you free” (John 8:32).

It will open the way for us and show us the path whose first stage will be to help us rediscover the degree of living soul, the natural and human integrity, the Adamic dignity and finally, with the help of the vivifying Spirit, the glory of being an inhabitant of Eternal Life.¹

Just as man cannot be saved if he does not recognize himself to be in a state of sin and reprobation, and this not because of his personal failings, but as Man, as a dual being precariously positioned in the universe, likewise he must recognize his ignorance and his error to access the baptism of Light and inner Life.

A COMPANION: John the Baptist announces: “I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with fire and spirit.” How, in relation to these three baptisms, should we understand the baptism of Light that you speak of?

RESPONSE: Water reflects light while death in sacrifice brings forth light; the Spirit is the light of life.

ANOTHER COMPANION: If the “Baptism of Fire” means martyrdom, charity extending even unto death, I understand better than for the “Baptism of Repentance” how it purifies; but I have trouble believing that mere consciousness could bring about the same transformations.

RESPONSE: This is not at all about mere consciousness, a notion or a correct formula, but rather about Simple Knowledge, knowledge unique in its kind and applying to a unique object which is the Self, which is the One.

At this point, knowledge is the pinnacle of both spirit and virtue, while ignorance is the fault and downfall that brings its own punishment.

For no other error affects the object it concerns, which remains unchanged when we are mistaken about it; and if the idea we form of it is wrong, that is all the worse for us who, in such a case, have no hold over it. It is not the same with the error we make about ourselves, since here the object and the knower are the same.

As long as the object that we are remains unknown, forgotten, while our knowledge is scattered in dealing with a thousand other things, it wallows in darkness; but as soon as consciousness penetrates it, it finds light and fullness — it is a second birth and a new life.

He who knows, in this world, only the good of his soul, which nothing and no one can take from him because it is himself, and he knows it — such a person finds himself sheltered from all defilement, for sin no longer presents itself to him as a temptation, but rather as an absurdity. The truth that is in him is not a received truth, learned, a passive truth, but it necessarily translates into all his acts. This truth he brings into being through his actions, and it in turn shapes him.

Similarly, the corresponding error has the same character active which makes it one with Sin. By dint of believing in it, one realizes it in a concrete way, and this reality is the punishment that it contains.

A COMPANION: You have shown us, with terrible simplicity, the destiny of one who takes himself for his body, which is to go with it into the grave. Also the destiny of one who takes himself for his persona and lives by vanity, which is to go into nothingness. But what harm can come to one who takes himself for his consciousness, even when he is mistaken about it?

RESPONSE: If we have taken ourselves for our consciousness, we will go where the flame of the candle that has been blown out goes.

THE COMPANION: Does this mean that consciousness would not take part in eternal life?

RESPONSE: Our consciousness only persists beyond death if it is united with our being. Only then does it become spirit. Here lies the usefulness of action for the spiritual life: action effects the conjunction of consciousness with being.

A COMPANION: Is it possible in this life to reach a state where consciousness of body and persona is abolished once and for all?

RESPONSE: Yes, in ecstasy, but these are crises rather than states. To tell the truth, original error never reaches “once and for all.” It is like the horizon and the limit of body and persona: like the horizon line. We all know that the horizon is not a circle of iron or glass, that where we see it there is nothing, and yet we continue to see it.

Thus even the blessed perceive the suffering of body and broken heart without their profound joy being taken away, just as one weeps at the theater with delight, as one rejoices in sacrifice accepted through love.

ANOTHER COMPANION: What relationship should we understand between the person as your exposition showed it and the Persons of the Trinity?

RESPONSE: We must see here all the distance that separates man and the world from God. We call person, or more precisely persona, the inevitably deceptive representation that men give to one another, a game in which they mistake themselves and become lost. Whereas in the theological sense, the word “Person” translates hypostasis, which signifies subsistence. For in the perfect equality, perfect love, perfect coexistence that the Divine Persons have with one another, substance and representation are identical.

One can never speak of hypostasis on the human level, but one can, by transposing, use the word “person” in an analogous sense: person would be the degree of spiritual consciousness that man has taken of himself. In this sense, the identification of person with Self becomes, in effect, possible, and offers itself as a way out of Original Error.

But what we are going to say on this subject reminds me of Rose Oldenbourg’s remarkable little work entitled: Self, Image of God. I am going to take up its theme in my own way. I say well “in my own way,” for, on the one hand, I have only a distant memory of this reading, on the other hand, it seems to me that the author, in her search for traces of God imprinted in the deep nature of the Self, has not sufficiently accounted for the incomplete state and false consciousness of the Self in unsanctified man.

In truth, we know two Selves: a Self that says “I,” that acts and speaks in the waking state, a “conscious and personal” Self; and a substantial and hidden Self, whose existence remains assured, if only through the experience of sleep.

Troubled and intermittent is the relationship between the two, for the conscious and personal Self only becomes conscious of itself in relation to external objects and of its person only in relation to other persons. It remains unconscious of the true Self, or Soul, of that which subsists identical to itself in dreamless sleep (and no doubt also in bodily death).

Now, as long as it remains unconscious of the essential, substance is lacking, and one must call this Self not person but persona: and its consciousness is illusory.

If, by consciousness, we mean knowledge of oneself, it must be noted that the notion we have of ourselves is purely negative: we are something that stands in opposition to everything else: and of all things, we can have sensible experience and logical knowledge, but not of ourselves, since all our senses, all our desires, all our intelligence are oriented toward the outside.

While the depths of the unconscious present themselves as a fearsome lair of monsters, as an abyss over which it is dangerous to lean, if indeed that is possible for us.

There you have the image of the Father and the Son in human mire.

For the conscious and personal Self is indeed the son of the other Self, of the obscure and primitive one, and it will return to its father’s bosom, it returns there every night.

But it is not only distinct from the Father as is the divine Son, it is separated from him. It forgets him involuntarily and turns away from him voluntarily, each time that it runs after its pleasures and its affairs. This is what the Hindus call “Ignorance” and the Christians “Original Sin.”

The father, separated from the son and deprived of expression and light, stagnates in his hole of shadow and becomes the Demon. The son, deprived of his reason for being, becomes the plaything of illusion and vanity. He flutters at the mercy of circumstances like a dead leaf in contrary winds.

From time to time, the Vain One is frightened by his inconsistency, becomes dizzy, and says “Everything is useless. There is no God.” From time to time, the Obscure One becomes irritated, goes to shake the Vain One, breathes madness or crime upon him, or at least nightmare and evil thoughts.

The son does everything he can to forget the father and to flee from him, and that is why he attaches himself ferociously to external objects and to all distractions and clings to the futile and floating fellows who are like himself. But his affairs, the incessant necessities of his profession, his multiple duties are the strongest rampart he can erect between himself and himself, his protection and his support against the truth.

The father does everything he can to attract the attention of the distracted one. He pulls at him, hinders him and makes him stumble. The snares of temptation are most often only misunderstood calls of the inner life — the effort of the powers of the soul to obtain the conversion of the unfaithful one, or their vengeance for not having obtained it.

Conversion begins when man detaches himself from things and people to turn toward his own dark side and his own substance, toward his soul — to bring to it the light of intelligence, the force of attention, the warmth of life and love.

This love and this voluntary and conscious penetration of substance is indeed the image of the substantial Relation of Father to Son and of Son to Father in the Holy Spirit.

Thus one can only speak of spirit and spiritual life in the converted man. In others, one can speak of intelligence and intellectual life, but not of spirit. Intelligence can operate in the unlimited field of the external world before it, but to have the slightest hold on its own substance and interior unity which is the self, it must turn back and convert itself.

As long as spirit has not appeared, man remains double, doubtful, and torn. But when the third element has become “dominant and vivifying,” it is this third element, the spirit, that unifies.

When the son unites with the father, the father delivers the son and the son the father. The son delivers the father from seclusion and darkness by bringing him the air from outside, and the father delivers the son from his bonds with the world, from entanglement, from impulses, from chance, from the force of mere things.

It is only in the converted person that one can speak of free action. Others do not act: they react. Their actions have their cause outside themselves in the world. Free alone is he who takes counsel from the father within himself and thus becomes the cause of his own actions.

To create, or rather recreate, within oneself the bond of knowledge and love is properly to “become a son of God” (John 1:12), for to be “son” is to resemble.

It is written that man was created by God in His image and likeness. Through sin, the likeness was lost, the image was broken in two and reversed. But through Conversion, which is the reversal of the reversal, and through Unification, the likeness can be restored and returned.

Saint Paul says: “For now I see in a riddle and as in a mirror.”

I see a trace of God in all His creatures, but these creatures — I perceive them only partially and from the outside, which is why they present themselves as enigmatic signs that leave me in trouble and doubt.

But it is in myself that I see God “as in a mirror.” It is thanks to the Likeness that I see Him, to the extent that I make myself similar to He-who-resembles-Him-perfectly.

ANOTHER: It seems to follow from all that has just been said that the highest achievement is Knowledge. But the Church, following Saint Paul, teaches that it is Charity. Is this opposition irreconcilable?

RESPONSE: Nothing is more contrary to religion than to oppose them. They must be pursued together and it is futile to ask which comes first. A third perfection, equal and joined to the other two, is even added: Purity. It is indeed possible to separate them and to cultivate only one at the expense of the other two, and this is how one laboriously arrives at the worst aberrations.

Charity is the recognition of oneself in the other. One cannot be conscious of this profound correspondence if one has not grasped one’s own essence at its deepest level. The condition of charity is therefore self-knowledge, and the fulfillment of charity is the recognition of oneself in the other. If one confuses charity with pity, mercy, benevolence, beneficence or any other human and natural sentiment, one cannot understand how it is a theological virtue. A virtue, and not a sentiment; theological, that is to say flowing from the knowledge of God who is the One, who is the Self in Self. And one no longer understands the admirable page of Saint Paul (I Cor. 13) to which you no doubt allude, nor why he speaks of science and prophecy as “incomplete” gifts, of this world where we know “in a mirror and in riddles,” while to attain Charity, “which alone shall not pass away,” one must, having reached the stature of a man, “empty oneself of what was of the child.” “Now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I am known”; but all this becomes clear if we understand that science and prophecy are clumsy approaches to Knowledge and, so to speak, childish things, while Charity is Knowledge Fulfilled.

A THEOLOGIAN: You say: to create within oneself the bond of knowledge and love is precisely to become a Son of God. This is not false, but why do you speak as if man achieved his salvation by himself and had to count only on his own strength, when it is Grace that does everything, since it is written: “Without me you can do nothing”?

RESPONSE: It is true that Grace does everything, since it began by making us. It is also true that it does nothing without our consent and our collaboration. God alone knows, in the work that results, the part of Grace and that of merit and will, as in the child the part of the mother and that of the father. Discussions have accumulated over the centuries around these secrets of God, which we will not rekindle, and errors too, which are called Pelagianism, Jansenism, Quietism... depending on whether one excludes the divine part or the human part of the question. In our usual way, we exclude nothing, but insist on the human part which is within our domain.

1. "And this is Life Eternal: that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" (John 17:3).