For many years I was persecuted - yes, I know it’s a strong word - by something that the Archetypal Psychologist, James Hillman had written about in a paper called, 'Peaks and Vales’, which is found in a book called the Puer Papers. I’ll put a link at the bottom where you can access it for free.
In it he said that there was a big difference between soul and spirit. I’ll say what he means by this next but just remember these are his definitions and any definition of anything as nebulous as these concepts is always open to a million interpretations.
OK. So spirit is associated with the peaks of mountains and by association spirituality. From the peak we can look down and see everything clearly but at the same time it is removed, distant, detached, separate. It’s also cool, cold, airy, spacious, transcendent. In contrast soul is associated with the valley bottoms, a place where we can only see to the next bend and may never know whether we are lost. It is warm, moist, and is the realm of the emotions, dreams, fantasies, the imagination, delusions, hallucinations, intuition, immanent, everything that can be sensed but is not graspable - especially by using the cool logic and rationality of the spirit.
If I remember rightly Hillman says these two need each other and it is important not to collapse each into the other. Spirit is warmed by soul, soul is drawn out of self-obsession by spirit. He also accuses most forms of psychotherapy - the healing of soul - not to be psychotherapy at all because they are concerned with travelling a path that leads to clear goals - all stuff of the spirit. In contrast a true psychotherapy is all about anima - the soul and wanders where the soul will, simply accompanying her as she endlessly journeys.
Another intriguing thing about this idea is that has been attributed - quite wrongly - to the Dalai Lama. He is said to have said:
I call the light and high aspects of my being spirit and the dark and heavy aspects soul. Soul is at home in the deep, shaded valleys. Heavy torpid flowers saturated with black grow there. The rivers flow like warm syrup. They empty into huge oceans of soul. Spirit is a land of high white peaks and glittering jewel-like lakes and flowers. Life is sparse and sounds travel great distances. There is soul music, soul food, and soul love... People need to climb the mountain not simple because it is there But because the soulful divinity needs to be mated with the spirit.
Again, if I remember correctly Hillman quotes it and it comes from a French man called Pierrre Delattre in his fictional book, Tales of the Dalai Lama. Certainly a romantic.
So what was my problem? Hillman is firmly on the side of soul and he says everything - including all ideas about spirit - come from soul. As the imagination, it is the most fundamental thing. We could say it is soul who makes up the whole Buddhist thing. I found this unsettling because in a way he is right. Everything is made up and it is we who are the creators. However, soul is also our emotions and I was just not ready to say that the creative force, the most basic thing in existence, was my emotions. If it was then we were in trouble, (and here you may say it is and we are).
And how was it resolved? I’m not really sure but I think it just happened out of my meditation. When we find a spacious awareness that is neither emotional nor cognitive, neither soulful nor spiritual by Hillman’s definition, a space where both emotions and thoughts simple come and go like reflections in a mirror … then somehow the soul/spirit, peaks and vales thing just drops away. It's no longer important.
And how do I know the Dali Lama didn’t really say the quote? Well, apart from the language being all wrong it is also without any doubt that the Dalai Lama has spent his life establishing himself in the non-dual wisdom of spacious awareness. From this perspective, finally peaks and vales are of the same stuff - they are both the ephemeral expression of awareness. (And yes, I know, Hillman would say this is just spirit speak!)
Judge for yourself: https://archive.org/details/isbn_0882143107/page/n7/mode/2up
NW. 18. December 2024
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