Illness, sin and guilt

Zola insulted, Henry de Groux (1866-1930), 1898 (from Wikipedia)

질병에 대한 생각을 하다가 만난 책인 The Healing Power of Illness (Thorwald Dethlefsen and Ruediger Dahlke, 1983)을 보다 만난 귀절.

No true religion has ever attempted to turn the world into a paradise: instead it has taught the way that leads out of this world and into Oneness.

Whatever we human beings may do, we always finish up guilty or sinful. It is vital, then, for us to learn to live with this guilt of ours if we are not to be dishonest towards ourselves. Redemption from sin means the attainment of oneness - and it is precisely those who attempt to avoid one half of reality who are incapable of attaining it.

In the gospels this ancient misunderstanding of sin is shown up again and again. The Pharisees stand for the typical ecclesiastical view that salvation can be attained by keeping the commandments and avoiding all evil. Jesus exposes both them and their view with the words: 'Whoever among you is without sin, let him cast the first stone.'

... Jesus' exegesis in the Sermon on the Mount has the effect not of making the commandments stricter, but of exposing the illusion that sin can be avoided merely through recourse to polarity. Despite, however, the people of some two thousand years ago already regarded the true doctrine as so objectionable and irritating as to try and expunge it altogether. Truth is always an irritant, no matter from whose mouth it may come. It cuts through all the illusions with which our 'I' continually seeks to sustain itself. Truth is hard and penetrative, and does not easily lend itself to sentimental daydreams or moralistic self-deception.

(Part One, Chapter 4: Good and Evil 중에서)

우리가 몸에 대해 인식하는 방식은 우리가 사회를 인식하는 방식과 닮아 있다. 그런 점에서 이 책의 여러 귀절들은 비단 의철학적인 통찰 뿐 아니라 우리가 다른 인간을 보는 시선과 사회를 보는 시선에 대해 다시 생각하게 해준다.

Sin is not to be escaped by endeavouring to do good - which always involves repressing the relevant opposite pole. The attempt to free sin by doing good leads only to dishonesty. On the contrary, the road to oneness ... demands of us that we become ever more conscious of the polarity within everything, without shrinking from pursuing our path through the very midst of the conflict that is inherent in human nature. Only in this way shall we develop the ability to unify the opposites within ourselves. The challenge is one not of avoidance, but of redemption through experience.

Thus, darkness is simply a byproduct of polarity, and one that is necessary in order to make the Light visible on the level of polar consciousness.

Darkness has no power over light. Light, on the other hand, immediately transforms darkness into light - which is why darkness has to avoid the light ....

The shadow is the area that is not illuminated by the light of consciousness and is therefore dark - unconscious. Yet at the same time the dark aspects remain evil and fearful only so long as they stay in the dark. Merely looking at the contents of the shadow brings light into the darkness and is sufficient to make the unconscious conscious.

We have to learn to look at everything that exists and everything that happens in our world without letting our ego immediately get involved in considerations either of approval or of disapproval.

Every value-judgement binds us to the world of forms and leads to 'clinging'. So long as we persist in this clinging, this holding on, we cannot be redeemed from suffering: just so long, consequently, do we remain sinful, unwhole, ill. So long, too, do we persist with our yearning for a better world and our constant attempts to change it. Moreover, at the same time we are caught up once again in the old mirror-illusion, convinced that it is the world itself that is imperfect, and quite unaware that it is only our vision that is imperfect and preventing us from seeing the picture as a whole.

This equanimity, however, is not to be confused with the attitude commonly referred to as 'indifference' - that indifference, that mixture of uninterest and lack of commitment, which Jesus refers to when he speaks of those who are 'lukewarm'. These are people who never venture into any conflict and think they can use repression and avoidance as tools for achieving a whole world - that same world which true seekers strive to attain through recognising the conflict that is inherent in their own nature, and through not being afraid to take on polarity consciously - with a view to overcoming it.

(Part One, Chapter 4: Good and Evil 중에서)

The Demon Seated, Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910), 1890. (from Wikipedia)

무엇보다 이 책은 질병에 대해 내가 고민하고 있었던 많은 점들에 대해 신선한 통찰을 선사해주었다.

In our own personal story, too, it is only the question of evil, the investigation of our own dark side, that has the power to heal. In the course of his wanderings, Parsifal has valiantly got to grips with his shadow and has descended into the darkest depths of his soul - to the point of actually cursing God. Whoever is not afraid to take this path through the darkness eventually turns into a bringer of healing.

All the deceptions of this world are relatively harmless compared with the one that we inflict on ourselves our whole life long. Honesty towards ourselves is one of the toughest challenges that we can face.

Illness makes us honest, mercilessly unmasking those deep aspects of the psyche that we have long kept hidden. This (involuntary) honesty is presumably also the basis for the sympathy and devotion that people feel towards those who are ill. Honesty makes them kind - for in illness we become as we truly are.

(Part One, Chapter 3: The Shadow 중에서)

Our vanity makes us just as blind and vulnerable as the proverbial emperor whose new clothes were woven form his own illusions Yet our symptoms are incorruptible, and force us to be honest with ourselves.

Illness always puts its finger on our impotence and insignificance precisely at the moment when we think we can change the course of world-events through sheer personal authority.

It is illness that ultimately makes us heal-able. Illness is the turning-point at which unwholeness can start to be turned into wholeness. But in order for this to happen, we have to lower our guard and instead learn to hear and see what illness has to tell us.

(Part One, Chapter 5: Illness is in our Nature 중에서)

The more open and receptive we are towards our unconscious impulses, and the more prepared to give them free rein, the more lively (and unorthodox) our way of life will be. If, on the other hand, we have very clear ideas and standards, then we cannot afford to admit to such impulses, for they throw into question our whole life thus far and stand all our priorities on their heads. In this case, then, we tend to lock up within ourselves the source from which those impulses generally spring and carry on living our lives in the conviction that 'such problems' are unknown to us.

Problems and conflicts, like quilt and sin, are unavoidable concomitants of polarity and so are there a priori. In an esoteric text the authors once came across the sentence, 'Guilt is the incompleteness of the unripe fruit.'

As we grow older, however, we distance ourselves increasingly from the unconscious and become more and more set in our ways - which is to say stuck with our personal norms and living lies - as a result of which our proneness to disease-symptoms naturally also increases with age.

Healing is made possible only by making ourselves aware of those hidden aspects of ourselves that are our shadow and by integrating them. Once we have discovered what we are lacking, the symptoms become superflous.

The aim of healing is wholeness and oneness. We are whole the moment we finally discover our true self and become one with all that is.

Illness prevents us from straying from the road that leads to oneness. For that reason illness is a path to perfection.

(Part One, Chapter 7: The Technique of In-depth Enquiry 중에서)

의학사를 공부해 왔지만, 또 나름대로 기존의 시각과는 다른 시각으로 의학과 질병과 사회를 들여다보고자 노력해왔지만, 지금까지 내가 얼마나 편협하고 오만한 태도로 나의 연구 주제와 이 사회를 바라보고 있었는지 깨닫게 된다.

Holistic approach, conflicts and unorthodoxy 등의 주제에 관심이 많은 나였지만, 이 책의 저자들이 말한 데로, 나는 polarity의 관념 속에서 다른 한 쪽을 답답하게 그리고 못마땅하게 바라보았고, 또 그러한 관념의 틀 속에서 '억울하게' struggle 해온 나 자신을 알게모르게 hero로 인식해온 것같다.

저자들의 illness에 대한 시선도 매우 신선한 자극이었지만, 또한 이들의 sin 과 guilt에 대한 인식이 무척 인상적이다.

사람들은 illness, sing, guilt 를 모두 부정적으로, 피해야할 혹은 피하고 싶은 대상으로 인식하지만, 어쩌면 저자들의 지적 대로 우리는 우리 안의 darkness 에 대해 너무 무지하고 오해해오고 있었던 것이 아닐까 생각하게 된다.

그리고 이러한 통찰은 솔직히 이 책을 읽기 전부터 내가 내심 원했었던 시각이기도 했다. 내가 가진 오만과 싸우고 싶었고, 내가 가진 아집과 싸우고 싶었다. 내가 매우 deceitful한 인간이라는 사실과 obsession이 강한 인격을 가지고 있음을 나는 막연하게 나마 느끼고 있었다.

겉으로는 사람들과 있을 때 gentle 하고 nice 한 인간인 마냥 연기하지만, 나는 그런 나 자신을 알고 있었고, 단지 그런 어두운 내 이면에 대해 어떻게 대해야 좋을지 모르고 있었던 것같다.

실제로 현실의 일상 속에서 나는 과식과 폭식을 하거나 손가락을 계속 뜯는 것과 같은, 지나치게 뭔가에 집착하는 강박적 행동들을 해왔고 그럴 때마다 나는 그러한 disorder 에 숨어 있는 anxiety 나 fear의 근본 원인이 뭘까 하는 궁금증을 늘 해왔다.

이 책의 저자들은 그런 내게, 그러한 aggressive 하고 sinful 한 내 자신에 대해 'more open and receptive'하도록 조언하고 있다. 그리고 궁극적으로는 그런 나 자신을 'integration' 해야 함을 말하고 있다.

그 결과로 illness의 symptom들은 superflous 해질 수있다는 저자들의 설명은 Andreas Moritz의 질병관 (독소를 제거하고 폐색된 부위의 순환을 뚫어주면 몸 안의 종양도 더 이상 존재할 이유가 없어지게 된다는 시각)과도 비슷한 부분을 공유하는 것같다.

돌아가신 아버지는 죽기 전 어머니에게 '미안하다'는 말을 남기셨다고 했다. 며칠 전 얘기 나눈 한 지인은 자신의 아버지가 돌아가실 때 마지막으로 가족들에게 '사랑과 감사'를 말씀하셨다고 했다.

사람은 얼마나 더 솔직하게 자기 자신을 대할 수 있을까.

있는 그대로 자신을, 타인을, 사회를 받아들이는 것은 가능할까.

일그러진 자화상, 내 안의 distorted emotions 들을 어떻게 integration 해나갈 것인가의 숙제는 여전히 남아 있다. 하지만 이 세상에는 나에게 조언을 들려주려는 많은 현자들이 있음에 감사하게 된다.

Hoping to integrate my darkness and light and also be truly kind to others with more honesty and sympathy...