CASTING OUTWARD, CASTING INWARD
by
Zane Maser
The way to truth is through the spirit. …You are looking outside for help,
Most of us are taught to seek our answers and confirmation outside of ourselves. We are often trained early in life to listen with our mind rather than our heart. This training begins when we hear refrains like: "I'm your mother. I know what's best for you!' Or, in our early education we hear: "Trust me; I'm your teacher. This is the right answer. This exam allows no freedom of thought or creative answers." Most traditional church teachings encourage young children to conform: "This is the way it is done within the rules, and you must obey." In how many ways, when you reflect on your life, were you prompted to beware of subverting the established order? In how many formative ways were you encouraged to follow outward dictates or limitations in order to fit in or stay in line with external expectations? Hence, many of us were properly groomed to circumvent finding our own specific answers, the ones that would lead us towards greater self-knowledge. No wonder we spend a lifetime attempting to get our scorecard back!
This kind of early cultural training is a necessary requisite of "tribal power" or group consciousness, because it creates and maintains an important foundation for understanding how to navigate life. Such an underpinning includes a sense of belonging, a sense of (external) identity, order, security, safety, and loyalty—all the way from one's family to one's nation. These positive benefits focus mostly on the external and thus often interfere with the attainment of self-empowerment and the fulfillment of individual and spiritual needs unique to each person.
This is what I call being held in the grips of "externalogy." Many people spend a lifetime restlessly seeking answers, quick fixes, and healing in the realm of externalogy. But many never do achieve lasting growth, individuation, or the deep satisfaction that all is well within their world. White Eagle speaks to this external whirl of discontent when he said, "People find it such a temptation—it is much easier to do—to go here, there, everywhere; going to all kinds of places: to the west, to the east, to the south, in search of a master! And all the time the Master is within, so close to them!"
The medical intuitive, Carolyn Myss, wrote an excellent book called "Why People Don't Heal — And How They Can." To her amazement, she discovered in her years of working with people that for many their physical, emotional, and spiritual dis-eases serve vital emotional needs and purposes that ultimately result in a self-limiting stagnation. Many were unwilling to give up their (conscious or unconscious) suffering or wounds, due to their receiving sufficient (primary and secondary) gains that make the patterns of stuckness worthwhile. Others operate under the illusion that they can continue to do the same old things and somehow derive a new outcome! Many voice the desire to be free of their pain, inertia, or meaningless daily life, but are unwilling to sacrifice in order to make the necessary adjustments by having an authentic vision and plan of action to heal. As a result, many never settle in, focus, and deepen, because this would mean sustained commitment and self-responsibility. The alternative, of course, is to make a conscious choice to undertake the demanding inner work required to become a whole, healed individual.
In a highly necessary process, even those sincere ones who want change may experience many years of exploration and bumping around, before they begin to let go of casting outward and embrace casting inward. Before any inward shifts happen, we must choose the goal of psychological maturity, the much written about and dramatized hero or heroine's journey—a journey of individuation we all must take at some point, in some lifetime. This journey represents the major shift towards "internalogy" or turning inward to hear the voice of Christ within. In this way, do we begin to perceive inner truths with our higher mind, because these cannot be absorbed through a restless outer mind in constant search. Plus, at some level, we all realize that "knowledge purely as a mental attainment is of little use to the soul."
Herman Hesse's book, "Siddhartha," is the story of one such journey. Siddhartha spent many years seeking answers and fulfillment in external modes, from the extremes of an indulgent, sensuous pattern of life to an equally extreme form of aesthetic deprivation and withdrawal from life. He discovered the transitory nature of outward life, which only satisfies temporarily and superficially. Broken, weary, and despairing from all his exhaustive searching, he found himself no closer to 'the' answers that would give him lasting inner peace and contentment. Hopeless, he finally ended up at the river, about to cast himself into the rushing waters. Fortunately, a ferryman who took people and cargo across the river appeared and took Siddhartha into his care.
Here, living at the bank of the quiet river in the uncluttered, humble environment of the ferryman, Siddhartha gave up the outer search and went inward. He became the still center of his own world, in harmony with and respecting the truths of his own nature. At last, he was living each moment in the presence of the Divine. His journey was the natural life progression of temporary unsettling—the cosmic call to awaken—so that one eventually settles into him or herself with grace and acceptance. He had "come home" to his Higher Self. When his friend, Govinda, arrived, he was mystified at Siddhartha's transformation and annoyed to lose his comrade in the quest. Govinda, unable to comprehend the shift from the outward to the inward, set off once again seeking the next alluring sensation that might be the golden remedy at last. Govinda, unlike his friend, had yet to learn that the elixir of life is only forged within quietude.
As part of our own evolutionary process of self-discovery and increased awareness, many of us do our fair share of time as the archetypal Govinda. A trainer in a workshop I attended some years back called such Govindas "bliss ninnies." This round of external search can cover the gamut of the latest, new-age consciousness-raising pursuit of the continual round of the next workshop (the group "followers"), or the latest promising book, to the most recent flower essences or aromatherapy oils, repeated astrology or numerology readings, all sorts of bodywork, energy work, expensive cruises to sacred sites, or chasing the current 'guru' in the healing, mind/body speaking circuit. This is the very trap White Eagle refers to when he cautions us to beware of scattering our energies hither and thither in outward, sensation-oriented outlets seeking answers and remedies with no lasting inner substance. Rather, he would gently say: "Withdraw each day from the tumult of the outer world, and try to feel the presence of your shining heavenly self. Look to that self for your guidance and inspiration in life. Be strong and poised and true to that enduring self."
What, you might ask, is objectionable with any of the above valid and helpful modes or disciplines of healing? Absolutely nothing! They must not be discounted, because they can be the appropriate touchstones in the school of life that provide us with another point of reference that might be the crucial piece where everything suddenly comes into focus. They serve a vital, experiential purpose, not only in how they broaden and open our awareness to wisdom but also perhaps as part of the route whereby we search for and find the true 'companions of our spirit.' It is well known that we magnetize to ourselves the experiences, events, and people we need to help us to grow. Often some of our most valuable learning in the larger cycle of self-change is during what may appear to be detours, side trips, meanderings, samplings, and the occasional banks of fog we walk into. Any of these are potentially an evolutionary call to new life. Our explorations can be the method where we personally winnow the valueless from the valuable and where we move more deeply into the soulful, inward life we are meant to lead.
It is only by withdrawing from the outer world and going within that we access the Divine Light or spiritual power that renews, quickens, and releases the Christ life within us. This is touching the 'sphere of ideation,' the place of creation, and the source of our true empowerment. In no other way than casting inward can we actually build the temple of our soul and experience how the Divine Rose perfumes our lives. Be that as it may, there are many who will choose the external way. When we pass each other in our travels, let us kindly nod in respect and honor to those whose timing is different than ours or who choose another way, saying quietly in our hearts "bless you, my brother." I may not understand or see eye to eye with some of your choices. You may not with mine, and I accept you as you are. Life is, after all, challenging enough, and we never know what another soul has set up for his or her highest evolutionary progress. If we understand that the search is ultimately to find the power of the spirit within—part of our own divine birthright as a child of God—and to free ourselves from the various attachments and restless desires of material life, then at best what we can offer one another is our love, respect, and blessing. Is there anything of more value?
and all the time the help you want is inside. The world of spirit that so many of you
Talk about and believe in, and long to touch, is all within.
It is an inner world, and spirit is within matter.
White Eagle
©
© Zane Maser 2004.
This article was published in Drumbeat, Journal of the White Eagle Lodge (Canada), Volume 12,, pages 2-5 (August 2004).
For more information, visit The White Eagle Lodge, Canada
