The 21st Century and the Crisis of Meaning

I love vacations because I get to catch up on reading, and I just finished reading one of the most fascinating books I've ever read. It's called Between Two Ages: The 21st Century and the Crisis of Meaning by William Van Dusen Wishard. Here's the premise in a nutshell:

We Americans have lost touch with our transcendent self because we have experienced "psychic overload". There has been such rapid change in all dimensions of human experience, especially in the areas of information and technology, that the psyche, both collectively and individually, has not been given sufficient time to assimilate the changes. This is has led to profound ego-inflation and the building up of the conscious self in an attempt to find meaning and to compensate for the loss of depth.

Religion used to be the vehicle on which our transcendent selves were projected. Religion gave expression to what was deepest about us in our inner being and provided meaning to our lives. But what happens when that vehicle is shattered? Transcendence is then reflected back to us, and then we re-project it onto other external causes, like politics for example, to the point where these things become ends in themselves. We take up causes in the quest for meaning, but we end up with nothing but standoffs and ego-trips. We involve ourselves with external causes without thinking through the implications.

Wishard draws heavily on Jungian psychology. C.G. Jung was arguably the greatest psychologist of the 20th century. Many mental health practitioners still rely on Freudian theories, which say the individual unconscious is a repository of repressed thoughts-- a psychic garbage can, if you will. Freud can be given credit for discovering the individual unconscious. Jung went a step further in discovering the collective unconscious, which he said is where meaningful images are found. These images he called "archetypes". Wishard draws the conclusion that the collective unconscious contains a God template that is individually accessible. In other words, we must make the unconscious conscious by developing a rich and deep inner life. We must do this in a way that doesn't destroy the ego (a very important aspect of our being), but in a way that recognizes the ego's relationship to the self (another important aspect of our being). I would like to suggest a way to do this, but it's going to require another book report, so hang in there with me. If you've read this far, don't stop now!

I believe that The Work of Byron Katie fits in very well here. Katie's "method" (for lack of a better term) allows you to give your ego the day it has been waiting for-- to give it a voice and let it scream out. The ego is very judgmental and loves to criticize. Katie says let it! The ego is filled with very sad and painful stories about how life isn't fair and how everything just sucks. Let the ego tell these stories, one at a time. Katie has worksheets on her website to facilitate that. Instead of projecting onto causes, write it all down. Go to thework.com to download and print these sheets.

After you've filled out the worksheet take each statement, one at a time, and run them through a gauntlet of four questions. Katie's claim is that these questions are already a part of us that we haven't known how to tap into. Do you see what Katie has done? She has made the unconscious conscious!! She has discovered a way to bring the Self into the field of play to bring balance to the ego, thereby bringing depth into consciousness!

Life has become crazy and burdensome for many people, but it doesn't have to be. Do yourself a favor if any of what I've written has resonated with you at all. Go to Katie's website http://www.thework.com or read her blog http://www.byronkatie.com You will find a plethora of resources, including audio and video, to developing a very rich and meaningful inner life.