The heart of the Christian ascesis is the struggle with our unconscious motivations. If we do not recognize and confront the hidden influences of the emotional programs for happiness, the false self will adjust to any new situation in a short time and nothing is really changed. If we enter the service of the Church, the symbols of security, success, and power in the new milieu will soon become the new objects of our desires.
Thus the false self accompanies us, implacably, into whatever lifestyle we choose. Here is the story of a macho young man from a society in which drinking his friends under the table is the symbol of domination and success. He experiences enormous satisfaction as he watches his friends slithering under the table at the local tavern. Of course, this feeling of exaltation only lasts a few minutes, and he has to go to another tavern if he wants to enjoy the same result. Whatever satisfaction comes from getting what the false self wants is always brief.
This young man hears a televangelist and is totally converted from his evil ways. Not only is he resolved never to drink again; he isn’t even going to eat an ice-cream cone. He looks around for the hardest religious order he can find, and, sure enough, he discovers the Trappists. “There,” he thinks, “they scarcely eat anything.” He applies to a monastery and is welcomed with open arms. He evidences that great spirit of austerity that the Trappists were especially strong on in those days. So he enters the monastery and dives into all the rules of strict silence and heavy work.
Lent comes and the monks are fasting on bread and water. As the weeks pass, he notices the older brethren disappearing from the refectory. They are eating in the infirmary because their health has been weakened by the severe fast. Others are catching the flu. By Holy Week he is left alone in the refectory. As the great bell rings out for the Paschal Vigil, he staggers out of the refectory. To his surprise, he feels a familiar surge of pride and self-exaltation reminiscent of his former tavern accomplishments; only now, instead of drinking all his friends under the table, he has fasted all the monks under the table.
What, I ask you, has changed in this young man? Nothing apart from his address, hairdo, and clothes. This is what the gospel means by worldliness. When John says, “Leave the world,” he does not mean the world with its desperate needs that cry out to be served. He means the self-centered projects, programs, demands—rationalized, justified, and even glorified—of security, pleasure, esteem, and power, which hinder our growing up into full human personhood.
Persons who take responsibility for their emotions do not project their painful emotions on other people. In fact, even if we should succeed in manipulating other people and situations to our liking, nothing really changes, for the root of the problem is not in them but in us.
~Father Thomas Keating, Invitation to Love
