17th December 2020 - Dante and the Beasts
Roberto Assagioli, M.D. - Transpersonal Development, The Dimension Beyond - Psychosynthesis
Chapter 13
Purification of The Soul
We will now begin to examine the work of purification we must undertake in order to transform the lower characteristics of our personality and bring unity to our being. As we start our examination, I will take a lead from Dante Alighieri.
Everyone knows the Divine Comedy, but few understand its most intimate, deep significance, so although everyone studies it and admires it as the highest work of literature in our (Italian) language, few appreciate it as a true ‘holy poem’, that is to say as a wonderful description and guide for the inner life and for the spiritual development.
As with all writing and words which are attempting to express the inexpressible, Dante’s work is allegorical and symbolic. Furthermore, each symbol is complex and multifaceted – in other words it has different meanings at different levels, so in order to discover each of these meanings we need to be in possession of the appropriate ‘key’. To begin with, as we all know, the Divine Comedy has an historic and political meaning, and in order to understand this aspect we need the ‘key’ of knowledge about the political conditions in Italy, and indeed in Europe, in Dante’s time, as well as knowledge about his political opinions and ideals and the activities he engaged in during his life.
The same applies to the spiritual and esoteric meaning of the symbols used by Dante. Here too we need the ‘key’ so that we can get beyond the threshold of appearances and forms, and discover the great truths the symbols represent. Let us attempt this for the theme we are dealing with here. The part that interests us comes at the beginning of the divine poem.
‘Half way along this life’s pathways’ Dante finds himself, without how, in a ‘great, rough, wild forest’ – but even here he finds something of benefit. For it is as he wanders through this forest that he reaches the foot of a hill; he then looks up and sees that it is lit by the sun.
In the form of a brief synthesis this simple allegory symbolizes everything connected with the forest stages of spiritual development. The wild forest represents not only (as commentators want to tell us) the harsh life of ordinary man, but also, and indeed more significantly, that special state of restlessness, that acute suffering and inner darkness which usually precede that awakening of the soul. What Dante says about the forest has far more to do with this state than it does with life of ordinary man. Indeed, the mere memory of it filled him with fear: ‘So bitter is it that death could hardly be any worse’. What comes next confirms this interpretation. Indeed, his discovery of the hill lit up by the sun and the raising of his eyes clearly point to that decisive moment when the soul is awakened. Fear is then quieted in the lake of the heart and, after a short rest, he begins to climb the slopes of the hill. This clearly refers to the stage we will now be examining, the stage following this spiritual awakening.
Anyone who has a first glimpse of the blinding light of the spirit and who has experienced, if only for a moment, the great peace and perfect bliss of those who have been awakened, will naturally feel rising up within him an intense desire to receive more of this light and to live continually in those serene regions of bliss. He will then set out to reach the dazzling heights of that light. In the enthusiasm of that first revelation he thinks he can go straight ahead without any problem. It is not long, unfortunately, before he runs into difficulties and dangers. Thus ‘almost at the first upwards step’, Dante tells us, he comes up against a wild beast which continually blocks his path:
And somehow it managed to stay in front of me
In such manner that it blocked my way so much
That I was often forced to turn back the road I had come.
Translation: C.H. Sisson, Pan Classics
This first wild beast, a ‘fast running, slender leopard’ symbolizes above all the attractions and temptations of the senses.
When it comes to the moment of enlightenment and joyful exaltation, man is no longer drawn by such attractions: he feels that every illusion has vanished, that every earthly bond has been served. But this is not the case. The soul suddenly realizes, with painful surprise, that the lower nature has only fallen asleep or become paralysed for a moment; it has not been killed. Very soon it will reawaken and rebel violently: it will stand in front of him and block his way.
But the awakened soul does not allow itself to be won over by the attractions of the senses. Instead, buoyed up by its aspirations, and lifted and encouraged by various signs and indications, as well as by helpful influences within and without, it has hope that it will triumph.
This is expressed by Dante in the following verses:
… … … … …; and this,
With the hour it was, and the delightful season,
Gave me reason to entertain good hope
Of that wild animal with the brilliant skin.
Translation: C.H. Sisson, Pan Classics
But very soon new and more serious obstacles present themselves to the man, producing new stronger apprehensions:
But not so that I found myself without fear
When a lion appeared before me, as it did.
The lion stands for one of our worst inner enemies: spiritual pride, which can so easily take over a man when he discovers new forces and new powers within himself and catches a glimpse of the wonderful possibilities for development that lie before him. But when this happens he is developing that sense of separation which is the very antithesis of spirituality and places a great barrier across his own path.
This is not all, however. Soon the lion is joined by a she-wolf, full of ‘excessive appetites’. This beast represents the very essence of separateness, of selfishness, the true source of all appetites. This is what the Orientals call the ‘tomb’, the thirst for living, the root of desires in the individual soul.
We should not be surprised, therefore, that it is the she-wolf who not only blocks Dante’s path, as the other beast did, (that is the path up the hill) but who also forces him back down to the place where ‘the sun is silent’. It is in this dangerous state that he encounters Virgil and calls out to him in humility, asking for help.
Having gone through the painful experiences and difficulties of life, and having suffered the first bitter defeats, man loses his self-confidence and presumption; he recognizes his weakness and powerlessness, thereby attaining true humility, and is then in a state where he can be helped. Indeed, as soon as reaches this position, help comes.
This is great, comforting law of the life of the spirit, and one which we often forget at time of doubt or discouragement, though we ought always to keep it at the forefront of our minds. Help from above is always at hand; it is never denied. We ourselves are the only obstacles that make the help seem distant. We do not know, or want, to ask for it in the right way. But what does this help actually consist of? And where does it come from?
Let us consider who Virgl is. We are usually told that he is the personification of reason. This explanation is not wrong, but it is inadequate: it does not provide sufficient comment to throw light on the true nature and true functions of the principal Virgil symbolizes. This principle might accurately be defined as ‘spiritual discrimination’, what the Indians call viveka, that is to say the power that human reason has – when it is not obscured or side tracked by passions and personal feeling – recognize the right way to go and to guide the personality along that path, giving him encouragement and keeping him safe from all dangers.
But who is behind this power? What is its inspiration? Dante gives a very deep answer to this question, an answer that calls for a lengthy commentary. The first initiative relating to this help comes from the exalted spheres of Paradise, from a generous lady who has pity on Dante. She symbolizes the mystery of the divine principle compassion which sets in motion divine grace, the light of the soul, personified – as Dante sees it – by Lucia; and grace in turn enlists the divine wisdom, represented by Beatrice.
She said: ‘Beatrice, you who are a glory of God,
Why do you not help him who loved you so greatly
That for your sake he left the common crowd?’
Translation: C.H. Sisson, Pan Classics
From this we learn that Dante had endeavoured to attain divine wisdom, that is to say his sold had seriously resolved to travel along the way of the spirit; this is why it receives help from a higher source. But still the divine wisdom is not revealed to him direct: in his impure, unregenerate state, still surrounded by the impenetrable veil of matter, man is unable to directly contemplate the supreme truth. Thus Beatrice send Virgil arouse and inspire the power of awareness or discrimination that must guide Dante’s soul in the first part of his pilgrimage, that long difficult path of purification and expiation across the kingdoms of his lower nature.
But before describing the various stages of his pilgrimage, and before indicating the methods of moral purification, we must pause to discuss and resolve an important question that is central to our understanding.
There are various schools of thought which state, some openly and explicitly, others more of less by way of inference and more in practice than in theory, that moral purification is not necessary, and that one can enjoy great revelations without the need for this painful, unwelcome work. This type of teaching fits in very well with our selfishness and laziness, of course, but the temptation to adopt such a costless view is both wrong and dangerous. We must therefore clarify the issues here, especially since the arguments adopted by what I will call the immoralist schools are spacious and could easily deceive untrained or incautious minds.
Good and evil are relative, say the immoralists, for the same action can be good in one instance and bad in another. The spirit is above such human distinctions and is indifferent to them: the Spirit justifies everything. Morals, they go on to say more explicitly, are a product of society, made up of a series of traditional standards which ordinary men accept uncritically; but the initiated, the superman, can be free from such limiting standards of behaviour, for he has such important tasks to accomplish that he is allowed to do what others cannot or dare not do, using means forbidden to ordinary mortals.
But anyone who does not allow himself to be readily taken in by these fine-sounding claims will quickly realize how fundamentally ungrounded they are. In the first place these lofty claims are based in a confusion between the great moral principals of a universal nature, and the particular, imperfect application of those principles that men have made at various times and in various places throughout human history. Actual moral standards and the various codes of moral law are, of course, relative and at times contradictory, but this does not in any way detract from the validity of the great moral principles which are as fixed and certain as the laws of physics. The reason for this is that both cases what in essence is being demonstrated is the great Law of Causality, or Karma. Thanks to this every effect is not only a necessary outcome of its cause, it is also implicit in that cause.
So a man who commits some wrong action is not punished because he is breaking a human law, nor because he has offended a personal God: he is not punished for his wrong action, but directly by his wrong action. The first and most important effect of an action is the immediate effect it has on the soul that committed it: a good action lifts a person up and ennobles him, we might almost say automatically, whereas a bad action debases the person who commits it. This is a fixed law, and the justness and necessity of such a law is obvious. No fine sounding claims or juggling with words can do anything to change this fact. As for the other argument put forward by the immoralists, this is based on confused ideas. It may be true that the pure Spirit, or to be more exact the Absolute Being who cannot be perceived by the senses, is essentially without attributes, which means that among other things he is above good and evil. But since the first moment of cosmic manifestation the Eternal One has been two – that is to say there appeared a polarity, an infinite series of opposites, one of which is good and evil. Now which of us can claim to be pure Spirit and therefore above good and evil? Anyone will recognize the enormity of such a presumptuous claim.
We see something quite different in the unanimous teachings of both Eastern and Western schools involved in developing true, pure spirituality. They tell us that every passion and every selfish desire are like a ball of lead tied to the feet of anyone eager to climb the spiritual heights; they represent a state of slavery to lower forces and elements. They teach us that every manifestation of selfishness, however well-hidden and subtle, is by nature divisive, whereas spiritual development consists of the harmonization of various conflicting elements into a higher synthesis, as a necessary preparation of conscious union with the universal Principle, and this unity becomes a reality at all levels and from all aspects.
One comes to the same conclusion if one looks at the questions from the point of view of the powers that emerge naturally at the various stages of spiritual progress. There are great difficulties, dangers and responsibilities that accompany the achievement and use of those powers. We need to learn how to control and use wisely the universal forces (macrocosm) of the universe and to use them for good. But how can we presume to do this if we are still slaves to the small forces of the ‘microcosm’, the narrow passions of our small individual personality?
In summary, then, obedience to these moral principles, far from restricting us and slowing down our progress unnecessarily, is the only way in which we can truly become free, and any form of immorality, amorality or supermorality – however liberating it may appear – actually makes us even more enslaved because we are deceived and ignorant of our chains.
We have a great many sober warnings in this area, handed down to us by those who truly now, in that they have reached the loft summits, the summits we look up to, full of longing and eager expectation, from the depths of the valley. From Buddha to Jesus, from the unknown wise authors of the Upanishad to great Christian mystics, every awakened soul impresses on us that it gained victory through a purification of the personality and through the elimination of selfish attitudes.
All this shows us that anyone advancing along the way of the spirit must not only observe the great ethical principles of humanity, but must actually have a purer, stricter and more conscious concept of morality than the ordinary man. As he increases in knowledge of the existence of the laws governing the higher levels, he assumes new responsibilities and new duties. For instance, when he learns that thoughts, feeling and the intents of the will are not abstractions, but living forces, powerful realities operating at subtle levels, and that they are real creations for which we are responsible, he becomes more conscious of the use of those forces than a person with no knowledge of them. For him wrong thoughts and unworthy intentions now become faults as serious as those committed in reality.
Great truth is contained in the apt statement by the author of The Initation of Christ: ‘Quanto plus et Melius, tanto gravies juducaverit nisi sanctis vixeris’ (‘The more you know and the better your understanding, the more strictly will you be judged if you fail to live a holy life.’)
I think I have now made this point clearly enough. I will only add the question of ethics is the safest yardstick for judging various movements, schools of thought and trends, and for assessing not only the theoretical claims made, which sometimes seem quite exemplary, but also and more significantly the practical applications and actual results, always bearing in mind that great truth: ‘You will know the tree by its fruit.’
The indispensable requirement of moral purification is the key to understanding the true reason for the long pilgrimage through the inner worlds which is the fabric of Dante’s famous epic.
Virgil, representing reason and the power of spiritual discrimination that resides in man, recognized that the soul, in its impure state, is unable to tackle and beat the wild beasts and to make an immediate ascent to the glorious peak. Tus, when Dante calls for help, Virgil says:
You will have to go another way then this….
If you want to get away from this wild place.
Translation: C.H. Sisson, Pan Classics
He then suggests that Dante set off with him to cross the abyss of darkness and expiation and then to ascend the mount of purification. He also promises him that once he has done this he will be permitted, with another to guide him, to ascend to the eagerly sought spheres of Light.
At this Dante sets off resolutely, without a moment’s hesitation, in the wake of his wise guide.
As little flowers, which in a frosty night
Droop and shut tight, when the sun shines on them
Stetch and look up, erect upon their stalks,
So I recovered from my failing strength,
My heart so filled with satisfying strength,
My heart so filled with satisfying courage
That I began, like a man just released:
‘How generous she was to give her assistance!
And how courteous you were, to obey her so quickly,
When she proffered her help and spoke the truth!
My heart is now so set in its desire
To come with you – and it is your words that have done this –
That I am back again with my first intention.
No go, for a single will informs us both;
You are my guide, my master and my lord.’
So I spoke to him and, when he stirred from where he was,
I entered upon the deep and thorny way.
These first two cantos of Dante’s Divine Comedy represent the human soul at the start of its spiritual journey – in other words it represents each one of us. Each of us has the opportunity, if we really ant it, of travelling along the path he trod, and of following him through the various stages of his pilgrimage climbing with him to the sublime spheres of Light and Love.