WISDOM OF THE AGES

War, selfishness, greed, poverty, the abuse of power – all modernday problems … or are they? Psychologist Cynthia Hickman ponders whether the sages of the past may have answers for our modern maladies, if we are willing to look within ourselves.

Ancient remedies and a focus on our inner world may just be the answer to heal some of our modern maladies.

Time and time again, in the past couple of years, I have been hearing people voice their concerns about where the world is headed.

“I’m concerned for my children. What sort of world are they going to grow up in? For heaven’s sake – we have to line our streets with bollards just to stop someone running a car into innocent people. It’s crazy.”

This was Jess, a 36-year- old mother of two speaking. Jess had come to counselling to sort out some relationship issues. But along the way we encountered her fears about the state of the world when considering the safety of her children.

Of course, this isn’t new. As a psychologist, I hear this a lot. Many people today are worried about the environment, about refugees, about violence, about what sort of world we are creating for the future.

It is no wonder the rates of mental illness are through the roof. According to Beyondblue, today, on average, one in four people experience anxiety and one in six experience depression. That’s a lot of people. And it’s no surprise. There is so much going on in the world that is challenging.

As we tumble toward a chaotic future, there seem to be few helpful sources of support. For many, politics is now often considered a joke, full of egoists feathering their own nests instead of providing real leadership. Meanwhile, science and technology continue the forward march of research regardless of ethics or what is truly needed to heal humanity.

As I ponder these issues with clients, I’m often drawn to reflect on the perspectives of elders and sages from past ages. If people like Jess are to find a positive way to approach modern life, could it help to refer to teachers who have already pondered humanity’s problems?

I feel we are all so mired in materialism that we have forgotten to go to the foundational source of love and wellbeing that could assist us with our current situation. This source exists within every human – at least, so ancient wisdom has told us.

For example, revered historical teachers such as Hermes, Patanjali, Zarathustra and Pythagoras have an important perspective to bring to our current times. They all insisted that the inner life came first. It was the foundation for everything else. They explained that a disconnection from this inner life would lead to all the ills that humanity is prone to. As a psychologist, I agree.

Some might say that these teachers lived in different times, and that their teachings no longer apply. But is this really the case? War, selfishness, greed, poor leadership and disparity in wealth – haven’t these issues always been around? The only difference now is that these issues are so much more extreme. And we have a global perspective so we can see them writ large across the whole world.

This new global perspective amplifies the importance of the matter. We have completely turned our back on such teachings. We now live inside out, so the external world reigns supreme and the inner life is ignored – to our extreme detriment.

The Greek philosopher Plato was famous for his allegory of the shadows in a cave. He said that humanity is like a group of people in a cave, looking at the shadows on the wall caused by the sun outside. They are mesmerised by these shadows. They think that is all there is. They fail to realise the shadows can only arise because there is a source of light outside of the cave. If you get lost in the shadows, you may never know there is something far grander outside the cave.

So it is with modern society. We are lost in the shadows. We think that materialism is it. We all get lost in our

jobs, in social media, in consumerism, in entertainment, and think that is all there is. We have forgotten that there is another reality underneath, which is the true source of our existence. This greater reality has many names: it is called the soul, the source, or one’s spirit. Yet like Plato’s cave dwellers, we can turn our backs on this source and think that the shadow of material reality is everything.

But many people are recognising that without an inner connection to awaken us all to the truth about our nature, we will remain lost in the suffering of the external world. This knowledge used to be the domain of esoteric students who had to go through rigorous training. Today, though, this knowledge is available to anyone willing to put it into practice.

At present, much of humanity lives within a very narrow band of consciousness. We are only aware of what we can experience with our five senses. Yet we have another sense that would allow us access to a different level of information – an expanded level of consciousness. This sense is our feeling sense, an inner sensitivity.

This consciousness can only be accessed if we cultivate an inner attention and stillness so that this beauty within can arise. Too often we are overstimulated by substances such as sugar, coffee and alcohol; numbed by media or distracted by busyness.

Instead, we need to pause, focus within and take a gentle breath. And another. Just let the air enter through the nostrils. We can put our hand on the centre of our chest and connect with our sensitivity and care for ourselves. Then we can make our very next movement a gentle movement, guiding our bodies to move in a flow, with ease and presence. No racing, no hardness – just gentle presence.

In this way, we access our inner heart, instead of our ‘outer heart’.

If we spend time focusing within, rather than on the outer issues that triggered us, we can learn to contain our emotional life.

An inner focus can help to give us the foundation we need to ease some of the pain in this world. When we access our inner heart, we experience the same impulses that arise within every single person.

Firstly, as people connect within, compassion arises. Most people do care about each other. They don’t want some to have success at the expense of others. They want all to flourish. And it hurts them that people are suffering.

Another impulse that arises is the desire for true connection with others. Too often we connect superficially, but we want more. To access more requires an openness, and a preparedness to be vulnerable.

Such qualities enable a true heartto-heart connection that nourishes us deeply, in a way that the external world cannot. It is the antidote to addiction and depression. We crave to feel meaningfully connected to other human beings.

Take Faye, for example. Faye was a 32-year- old primary school teacher who had come to see me because she was in a low mood a lot of the time. She was wondering if she was sliding into depression. I worked with her to develop her connection to her own inner heart. Faye had been very focused on her work – so much so that she was starting to lose her connection with her friends, and was finding them draining. She loved her work, but she was very stressed by it and had very little energy left for anything else in life. Here was the source of her depression.

If we don’t allow time for a deep engagement with others, we lose our spark for life. Human beings naturally need to be connected – it warms our heart. When we feel this warmth, it connects us even deeper within our inner heart, where the source of this warmth resides. There is a stillness here, where we are all connected with each other. Cut yourself off from other people and you cut yourself off from yourself. And in doing so, you lose access to your own life force.

As I worked with Faye, she began to put her job into perspective, and she saw that perfectionism had been driving her. When we use our work to make up for some inner insecurity, then it will begin to drive us instead of inspiring us.

While Faye worked through her issues, she felt a new care and concern for her friends. She did have compassion for them, and wanted to be there for them – and, in turn, wanted them to be there for her.

The other thing that always arises within the human heart is the desire for purpose. When people settle deeply within themselves, they want to contribute in the world. It is not enough to be focused on the self: we want to make a difference to others.

This is what Faye found as she uncovered the unhealthy drive that had been running her work life. When she had reconnected to her love of the children she taught, she felt the impulse that had originally drawn her to primary teaching. She loved the sweet sensitivity of younger children, and wanted to encourage them to affirm their true nature.

As she connected to this meaning, her body felt lighter and her heart felt softer, and she felt her joy for life returning. Faye had begun to connect to a deeper source within herself. She accessed a profound quality of consciousness that exists within us all.

This is what the ancient teachers have all pointed to – an inner reality that gives us a steady foundation for life so that we are not rocked so much by the harshness around us. We access an inner light that brings meaning and fulfilment to life. We open up to others and thrive on the nourishment that comes from a compassionate connection with other human beings.

It seems strange that such necessary wisdom has always been available to us, throughout the ages.

I am often reminded of the lines from T.S. Eliot’s poem, Little Gidding:

We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.

Indeed. The wisdom is already within us. And slowly, one by one, we can bring this planet back to harmony and balance, working together to heal the pain we have created.

“This is what the ancient teachers all pointed to – an inner reality that gives us a foundation for life.”