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There is a bit of wisdom that one doesn't know what they have until it's not there any more. It has been expressed different ways. For example, the maxims “We never know the worth of water 'til the well is dry” and “Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory,” are attributed respectively to 17th century English preacher Thomas Fuller and 20th century American author Ted Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss). The quotes are not about regret but recognition, and it's intriguing that they're unified in theme despite being separated by continents and centuries. It suggests that not knowing what something is—its function, meaning or identity—until it's gone is a concept that consistently weighs on the mind of humanity.
That idea of realization through loss can be pointed toward objects outside of ourselves, but it can also be pointed toward the self. Accordingly, we best recognize our own function, meaning and identity when everything we are is taken away from us. But how can that be? If everything is taken from us, what remains?
Human identity is nuanced and built out of many parts. We are a complex of our nourishment, our personal mobility, our productivity, our expectations, our understanding. We spend much of our lives constructing our identities through our possessions, our living spaces, our social circles, our tools, our achievements, our beliefs. But isolate any one of those things—our sources of food, our dwellings, our jobs, our friends, the respect we've earned from others, what we know about how the world works—and we can recognize how it could be taken away. Then we can further imagine how many of them can be taken away, in sequence or all at once, which leaves us with the same question: When all of that is taken away, what remains of us?
If we follow the logic of the maxims, what remains is who we truly are. It makes sense if we think about it. In times of crisis, when our expected securities are stripped away, we can respond by being thoughtful or selfish or freezing up. For better or worse, that's who we are in that moment: the person who reacted or didn't react, the person who survived, the immediate self. Later we are also the person who remembers and reconciles, the emergent self.
Both those selves—the immediate and emergent—are valid. However, that also means neither alone is complete. To create a unified theory of self, one that does not just rely on the immediate or emergent self, on the temporal trappings we build around our ever-evolving identity, then we must stretch higher. We must reach for something beyond the apparent, something that not only attempts to be but guides, something that is consistent throughout our existence as the the self we strive toward. That self beyond the apparent self is the transcendent, eternal, spiritual self.
The spiritual self recalls a short story by early 19th century Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke, which is sometimes translated as “Why God Wants There to be Poor People.” In the story, God, having made humanity, is disappointed by how many layers of clothes they put on. That's because God can no longer see who they are under so much silk and brocade and pearls. Even if they're artists, the group that is supposed to be the most unfettered, they're pressured by society to display a concealed form. And so God turns to a group of people who aren't buried in fine clothing: the poor.
So why does God want there to be poor people? Is it because no one deserves nice clothes or because being poor is by default a virtue? No. It's because the finely clothed people of the story became so attached to their clothing—their outward appearance, their material and apparent selves—they forget who they truly were. That obscures who they are to the rest of reality and to God, so it is only by taking away the apparent that the real remains.
Jesus said that those who had nothing, even that would be taken away. It was a phrase he repeated, whether talking about our spiritual perception and knowledge, as well as the ultimate fate of humanity. The esoteric understanding of the phrase is that those who do not develop their spiritual selves are left with only the material selves; they have only the temporal and apparent, not the true and everlasting. So when those material elements are taken away, as all material things eventually are, there was nothing left of them: no striving, no wisdom, no awareness, no compassion, no inner strength. There were only the clothes they wore and the pearls they adorned themselves with, the earthly treasures and works they'd stored up, the forms that could not last. And so when those things were taken, the individual was lost with them.
The resulting loss is immediately felt by the individual, but it's also ultimately felt by everyone around them who miss the wisdom and compassion that could have been shared. To hoard one's material and abstract gifts is to reduce them to nothing through isolation; and if one does not share those gifts, they will vanish, just as Jesus predicted. However, at the same time as he said those with nothing would have it taken away, Jesus also said those who had would be given more. In other words, those who develop their innate divine identity, the spark of the Divine that dwells in us all, will be given more through through consciousnesses expansion and evolution of identity, and more spiritual responsibility that arises from the manifestation of divine purpose through the increasingly mastered self.
When everything fleeting is accepted as fleeting, then we can focus on the divine spark that drives us toward ourselves through insight and creativity; the same spark that connects us to others through curiosity and compassion; the same spark that brings us to God through humility and longing. Take comfort in that truth. The essential elements, the aspects of our identity that are eternal and ideal, cannot be taken away. It is our sacred duty to realize, appreciate and unfold them; when we do, we strip away artifice and reveal our truest selves.
Let us pray:
Dear God,
Thank You that there is so much more to us
Than the clothes we wear.
Forgive us when we forget that,
When we grow enamored with the apparent world
And its temporary forms.
Instead, may we set our sights on things eternal:
Presence, Peace, Truth, Love and Light.
May we seek those out, in our lives and actions,
And in doing so find ourselves there.
Amen.
“The ignorant knows his personal self as all that is or can be. He endeavors to create a God for himself of its rank, heaven of its consciousness, and earth of its desires. In that creation he totally fails, painfully learning that he cannot create the infinite from the finite, nor mold the sublime from what is base, nor construct enduring foundation from what is divided and subject to the consuming flames of reality. Lament, O one who failed to drink from the nectar of immortality, offered to humanity in the mysterious chalice of the gospels of life and the songs of creation. You have missed the opportune cycle of liberation. You have lost the path of light wherein man knows his Eternal Self, the sage finds the divine purpose of all that is, the wise is inspired with the why of existence, the seer reveals the mystery of resurrection and the marcher reaches the goal.” - Hanna Jacob Doumette, “The Mighty I”