What the world needs now is for more men and women to learn how to access and embody the optimal forms of the archetypes of maturity discussed by Jungian theorist Robert Moore of Chicago Theological Seminary. In Anthony de Mello's posthumously published book THE WAY TO LOVE: MEDITATIONS FOR lIFE (reissued 2012), he urges us to cultivate awareness, which can open the way for us to experience the optimal forms of maturity.

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(Article changed on January 31, 2013 at 18:25)

Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) January 31, 2013: Anthony ("Tony") de Mello's fine book THE WAY TO LOVE: MEDITATIONS FOR LIFE has recently been reissued (Image, 2012). In this short book Tony offers us the most coherent and cogent presentation of his thought. He begins each short chapter with a brief quotation from one of the Christian gospels. As a result, there is a general ambience of Christian thought about the book.

However, non-Christian readers could disregard the Christian conceptual scaffolding and still find much in the book to value if they are interested in pursuing the spiritual life. After all, Christians do not have a monopoly of the spiritual life -- the life of mystics.

Tony de Mello, S.J. (1931-1987), the Jesuit spiritual director from India, was a mystic. He was born and raised and lived most of his adult life in India, where he entered the Roman Catholic religious order known formally as the Society of Jesus (also known as the Jesuit order). However, at times, Tony presented spiritual conferences in various other countries, including the United States. Some of his spiritual conferences were recorded and audiocassettes of them sold. In addition, a couple of his spiritual conferences were transcribed and published posthumously as books. During his lifetime, he published a number of books that he had written. His posthumously published book THE WAY TO LOVE consists of a series of short meditations that he wrote as reflections and elucidations of certain passages in the Christian gospels.

I myself have not had the kind of mystic experiences that Tony had. As a result of his mystic experiences, he came to a new understanding of certain passages in the Christian gospels. He elucidates each gospel passage in light of the new understanding that his mystic experiences enabled him to have. Even though I have not had the kind of mystic experiences that he had, his elucidations of the selected passages make sense to me.

Some Background Information

Arguably the most famous compilation of instructions for meditation and contemplation in Western culture is the book known as the SPIRITUAL EXERCISES of St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Roman Catholic religious order known as the Society of Jesus, mentioned above. Before he founded this religious order, Ignatius Loyola was a mystic. In addition, he was a spiritual director, directing people who wanted to make retreats following so-called "spiritual exercises" that he himself had been given by various spiritual directors he had consulted. Eventually, he wrote up instructions for a sequence of meditations. The book titled the SPIRITUAL EXERCISES is the result.

This book belongs to the larger category of books that cookbooks belong to, which is to say that it is a book of instructions for doing some things in a particular order. Just as you could read a cookbook carefully from cover to cover without ever trying to follow any of the recipes, so too you could read the SPIRITUAL EXERCISES carefully from cover to cover without trying any of the spiritual exercises yourself.

Viewed in another way, however, the SPIRITUAL EXERCISES of St. Ignatius Loyola could be categorized as a self-help book, at least if you undertake to do the spiritual exercises yourself, instead of just reading over the instructions for doing them. But stand forewarned: Doing this kind of imaginative meditation can trigger a psychotic episode, because doing these spiritual exercises involves using one's imagination to try to access the archetypal level of the human psyche. But certain archetypes can take over one's ego-consciousness, resulting in a psychotic episode. So if you plan to try doing these spiritual exercises, you would be well advised to do them under the guidance of a spiritual director who has done them and consult once a day with that person about how things are going.

In any event, mystic experience involves the experience of the sacred. The young Jew known to the world as Jesus of Nazareth almost certainly had a profound mystic life. As a result, he famously proclaimed that something wonderful is here, which is rendered in English (from the Greek texts) as the kingdom (or rule) of God. In THE WAY TO LOVE, Tony is also proclaiming that this kind of wonderful experience is still here for us to experience for ourselves, a message that Jiddu Krishnamurti from India also proclaimed to the world. Tony's thought in general and in THE WAY TO LOVE was deeply influenced by Krishnamurti's thought -- perhaps more deeply influenced by his thought than by St. Ignatius Loyola's thought.

Definition of Certain Terms

In his famous book THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE (English translation reissued 1987), Mircea Eliade discusses the experience of the sacred, as the title indicates. But most of the time, all of us experience the profane world of space and time.

Arguably the most common experience of the sacred today occurs in what is referred to as experiences of nature mysticism, which are usually brief but memorable experiences of inner harmony and peace and tranquility.

But across cultures today and in world history, certain people have aimed deliberately to experience the sacred, however briefly. Such people can be referred to as mystics, or at least as mystics in spirit. People can deliberately aim to experience the sacred through the cultivation of forms of meditation and contemplation. Some forms of meditation involve the use of one's imagination, as mentioned above. But certain other forms of meditation such as Buddhist meditation do not involve the use of one's imagination.

We can use C. G. Jung's conceptual framework to understand the experience of the sacred. The experience of the sacred involves the brief experience of the Self. But in such brief experiences of the Self, the person is not taken over by an archetype in the archetypal level of the human psyche, the kind of takeover that results in a psychotic episode.

In any event, the experience of the sacred discussed by Eliade can be understood as the experience of the Self discussed by Jung.

Anthony de Mello' Thought

In THE WAY TO LOVE, Tony uses the key terms attachment and attachments. As he sees attachments, they usually involve thrills and excitement and pleasure.

Digression: Because Tony was a Jesuit priest, he was trained in Jesuit spirituality (also known as Ignatian spirituality, the spiritual orientation based on the work of the founder of the Jesuit order, St. Ignatius Loyola). Jesuit spirituality built on and encourages a certain kind of detachment, as do certain other spiritual traditions. So Tony's reflections about attachments come out of a spiritual tradition that encourages a certain kind of detachment. Not surprisingly, Tony also encourages a certain kind of detachment.

In other words, Tony has not studied attachment theory developed by John Bowlby and his followers. In attachment theory, it is common to refer to secure attachment bonding of the child and parent(s) and non-secure attachment bonding of the child and parent(s). Non-secure attachment bonding is manifested in anxious-ambivalent attachment, avoidant attachment, dismissive attachment, and fearful-avoidant attachment. As perceptive as this kind of attachment theory may be for certain purposes, Tony was not familiar with this kind of attachment theory. As a result, he works out his own understanding of attachment and attachments. End of digression.

I admittedly find it tricky to write about Tony's understanding of attachments and a certain kind of detachment. Tony does his best to write about attachments as clearly as he can. However, at times, his comments about attachments seem like verbal gymnastics. But I am not sure that I have figured out how to avoid his verbal gymnastics in my own efforts here to summarize the key points of his thought.

For Tony, attachments include our cultural conditioning, our programming, our unhealthy desires (such as our desires for thrills and excitement), and our unhealthy fears (of losing things we are attached to and cling to in inordinate ways). Thus as he operationally defines attachments, they are not healthy.

For readers who are familiar with Albert Ellis's thought about rational-emotive therapy, I would suggest that Tony can be described as Albert Ellis on steroids.

But what would Tony call the healthy way to be?

According to him, the healthy way to be would be to be without attachments, because by definition attachments are not healthy. Nevertheless, he does not regularly use the root word of "attachments" to suggest a name for the alternate healthy way to be. For example, he only occasionally uses the term non-attachment to characterize the healthy way to be.

Instead of using the term non-attachment repeatedly, he uses the term "love" to characterize the healthy way to be -- to be in love. So according to Tony, when we experience love as the healthy way to be, then we are free of attachments, which is to say that our ego-consciousness is not encumbered by the baggage of attachments. For him, freedom involves being free of unhealthy baggage.

In this way, he uses the term "love" to name and explain the mystic experience of the sacred in the present moment.

Tricky, eh?

I should mention that the Canadian Jesuit philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984) formulated five transcendental precepts for people to follow that are 100% compatible with Tony's basic advice about love unencumbered by baggage, as he puts it:

(1) Be Attentive.

(2) Be Intelligent.

(3) Be Reasonable.

(4) Be Responsible.

(5) Be in Love.

Lonergan's American Jesuit follower Robert M. Doran extensively discusses the dissolving of images that block cognition, which in effect is what Tony refers to as baggage, the kind of stuff that encumbers us and that we need to be free from in order to love. In the life of St. Ignatius Loyola, the dissolving of images that block cognition (and thereby block clear thinking) involved the famous gift of tears. People in the last century or so who have been lucky enough to have everything in their psyches cooperate with their undergoing psychoanalysis using dream analysis may have also experienced the dissolving of images that block cognition. Certain other kinds of psychotherapy that do not use dream analysis may also assist certain lucky people in dissolving images that block cognition. But Tony suggests that people can undertake working on dissolving images that block cognition through awareness.

At times, Tony's comments about awareness call to mind the practice known in Ignatian spirituality as an examen of conscience, which can be understood as an examen of consciousness. An examen is the practice of examining oneself and one's conscience and consciousness. Usually, one would undertake such a process of examining oneself in down-time when one can reflect in peace on the day's events.

However, at other times, Tony's comments about awareness call to mind the more formal practice of meditation such as Buddhist meditation -- more formal practice, that is, than the practice of reflecting on one's day in an examen would be.

But perhaps what Tony has in mind is that one might un-self-consciously move from the practice of awareness in an examen to the practice of meditation such as Buddhist meditation.

In any event, Tony is the great champion of awareness. According to him, awareness is the key to the kingdom of God that Jesus is portrayed in the gospels as proclaiming.

Even though the central thrust of Tony's book is to advocate mystic awareness ("the unaware life is not worth living"), he also advocates clear thinking. He says that "what clear thinking calls for is not intelligence -- that is easily come by -- but the courage that has successfully coped with fear and with desire, for the moment you desire something or fear something, your heart will consciously or unconsciously get in the way of your thinking" (page 141).

So to engage in clear thinking, we need "a heart that divests itself of its programming and its self-interest each time that thinking is in progress; a heart that has nothing to protect and owes nothing to ambition and therefore leaves the mind to roam unfettered, fearless and free, in search of truth; a heart that is ever ready to accept new evidence and to change its views" (page 141).

At the risk of sounding more mundane than Tony sounds in THE WAY TO LOVE is, I would suggest that the experience of the Self in mystic awareness can open the way not only to shedding cumbersome unhealthy baggage (i.e., maladaptive learning and functioning), as Tony indicates, but also to learning how to access one or more of the optimal forms of the archetypes of maturity that the Jungian theorist Robert Moore of Chicago Theological Seminary describes as the King/Queen archetypes of maturity and the masculine and the feminine Warrior, Magician, and Lover archetypes of maturity.

Using colorful terms that he himself has coined, Moore works with eight forms of maladaptive learning and functioning that Theodore Millon identifies in more abstract terminology in his book MODERN PSYCHOPATHOLOGY: A BIOSOCIAL APPROACH TO MALADAPTIVE LEARNING AND FUNCTIONING (1969, page 87):

(1) Passive-Independence (= Moore's passive "shadow" form King/Queen archetypes)

(2) Active-Independence (= Moore's active "shadow" form King/Queen archetypes)

(3) Passive-Ambivalence (= Moore's passive "shadow" Warrior archetypes)

(4) Active-Ambivalence (= Moore's active "shadow" Warrior archetypes)

(5) Passive-Detachment (= Moore's passive "shadow" Magician archetypes)

(6) Active-Detachment (= Moore's active "shadow" Magician archetypes)

(7) Passive-Dependence (= Moore's passive "shadow" Lover archetypes)

(8) Active-Dependence (= Moore's active "shadow" Lover archetypes)

The correspondences that I have indicated above are taken from the 2007 revised and expanded edition of his book THE KING WITHIN: ACCESSING THE KING [ARCHETYPE] IN THE MALE PSYCHE by Moore and Douglas Gillette (page 200). Even though Moore has published five books about the masculine archetypes of maturity, he has not published any books about the corresponding feminine archetypes of maturity. Nevertheless, he claims that the four feminine archetypes of maturity are basically similar in structure to the four masculine archetypes of maturity.

If you would like to take stock of where you are with respect to these eight maladaptive forms of learning and functioning identified by Millon and borrowed by Moore, you can take the Millon Multiaxial Clinical Inventory III, an inventory that has 175 items. On the printout summarizing your results, the eight numbered measures correspond to the above eight maladaptive forms of learning and functioning I have listed here, but I have not numbered the eight listed above here in the order and with the numbers of the eight numbered items in the printout. You should be able to learn something useful about yourself from your scores on each of the measures. For further information, see Millon's website.

Surely what the world needs now is for more men and women to learn how to access the optimal forms of the archetypes of maturity that Moore discusses. According to Anthony de Mello, awareness is the royal road to accessing the Self and thereby opening oneself to the possibility of learning how to access and embody the optimal form of each of the archetypes of maturity discussed by Moore.

Authors Website: http://www.d.umn.edu/~tfarrell

Authors Bio:

Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book WALTER ONG'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CULTURAL STUDIES: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE WORD AND I-THOU COMMUNICATION (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000; 2nd ed. 2009, forthcoming). The first edition won the 2001 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology conferred by the Media Ecology Association. For further information about his education and his publications, see his UMD homepage: Click here to visit Dr. Farrell's homepage.

On September 10 and 22, 2009, he discussed Walter Ong's work on the blog radio talk show "Ethics Talk" that is hosted by Hope May in philosophy at Central Michigan University. Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to. Here are the website addresses for the two archived shows:

Click here to listen the Technologizing of the Word Interview

Click here to listen the Ramus, Method & The Decay of Dialogue Interview