This is the all important question raised by God in serach of his first human companions. However, this couple had tasted a fresh fruit - that of self realisation - and now discovered for themselves self consciousness. First consequence - covering up their embarrassing nakedness.
Years of walking away from the garden has left us lost in selves of our own creation, aided and abetted throughthe various stages of our upbringing by family, peers, church etc. The invitation and the challenge is to stop, take stock and seek to delve into the unconscious to discover our true selves.
TRUE SELF/FALSE SELF
This is not an easy option. Just recognising that there is a false self in no way delivers me from its clutches and control. I have simply rationally and intellectually acknowledged its reality. A change in my informational database is no sign or symbol of any meaningful change in who I am or how I am able to live in the world.
Hence I can rage against the tension I experience in seeking to live in a dynamic transactional world, where my ability to live and survive is directly related to the transactional relationships I successfully generate. If I don't care to play that game, no problem I will sink and disappear - the outcome will most likely be both ugly and painful.
THE CONTEMPLATIVE WAY
However, if I recognise that I am invited to partner the Divine in a discovery - or rediscovery - of my true self, happiness will be my reward. I certainly believe this, yet recognise it is no easy equation. It requires a commitment from me to journey faithfully as a contemplative, and that self discovery in the realm of my unconscious will present some challenging questions to my conscious acceptance of myself. There will of course be the emotional turmoil that such a journey creates in its wake!
Yet I am now about ready, after ten years of preparatory work, to say yes to the invitation to embrace the contemplative life. I do so feeling all the angst and fury that daily life causes to rise within me, yet accepting that the regular rhythm of pursuing God in solitude and silence will mature me in ways that have as yet eluded me.
