Entering the Emptiness
From Gerald May, Entering the Emptiness in The Awakened Heart:
Excerpt available at my website.
With both these people, as with so many others who have confided in me, the real problem was believing that their sense of inner restlessness and lack of fulfillment indicated psychological disorder. They had swallowed the cultural myth that says, “If you are well adjusted, and if you are living your life properly, you will feel fulfilled, satisfied, content, and serene.” Stated conversely, the myth says, “If you are not satisfied and fulfilled, there is something wrong with you.”
The myth is so widespread that the majority of adults in our culture accept it without question. There are three ways we actg out this belief: We may try to “fix” ourselves, our life situations and our relationships because we feel there is something wrong with them. Or we may repress our restlessness, trying to appear to ourselves and others as if we had achieved perfection. Failing this, we dull our concern altogether, seeking to lose ourselves in work, food, entertainment, drugs, or some other escape. Ironically, all three ways easily become addictions in themselves; addictions to self-improvement, to perfect adjustment, or to various means of escape.
The myth has pervaded virtually every aspect of our society. Popular religion promises peace of mind if only we will believe correctly. If we are not completely happy, it maintains, it is because we are somehow not right with God. Perhaps we are too sinful, or our faith is insufficient, or we have missed the one true doctrine. Countless people believe the religious myth, even when a cursory reading of the lives of saints reveals great agony, doubt, and struggle within themselves and their world. A slightly deeper probing of spiritual growth shows that as people deepen in their love for God and others, they become ever more open: not only more appreciative of the beauty and joys of life, but also moroe vulnerable to its pain and brokenness.
Popular psycholofy promotes the myth as well. It promises peace of mind for only two categories of people: those who grew up in perfectly functioning families and those who use modern psychology to rise above the scars of their dysfunctional families. Countless people believe this psychological version as well, even when the knotted lives of our most successful citizens are continually displayed in the media for all to examine and when no such thing as a truly functional family can be found.
Although it is very right to treat our real disorders and maximize our health, we make several great mistakes if we think life should or even can be resolved to a point of complete serenity and fulfillment. To believe this is to commit ourselves to a fantasy that does not exist and that, if it were true, would kill our love and end in stagnation, boredom, and death. It is also to remove our concern from the real issues of our life and worlad, to transfer our energy to a vague, self-serving agenda that must be carried out before we can get on with the business of living, loving, and creating a better world. Further, the myth perpetuates the willful delusion that we human beings are objects, like machines, to be built and repaired, meant for efficiency rather than love. Most importantly, the myth of fulfillment makes us miss the most beautiful aspect of our human souls: our emptiness, our incompleteness, our radical yearning for love. We were never meant to be completely fulfilled; we were meant to taste it, to long for it, and to grow toward it. In this way we participate in love becoming life, life becoming love. To miss our emptiness is, finally, to miss our hope.