The True Nature of Integration - Paragraphs 2 and 3
Last time we looked at what Robert’s called integration; the time it takes to assimilate any new revelation or understanding that comes to us. Today’s text uses the idea of a puzzle and its pieces as metaphor for understanding how the Whole is difficult to see when all you’ve got are pieces. Here’s our text:
“Like seeing parts of a puzzle without seeing the Whole, we cannot envision the outcome ahead of time. Seeing parts without the Whole is, in my view, an unreported dilemma in everyone’s spiritual journey. More often than not, a part is mistaken for the Whole. Such a premature conclusion, however, may only close the door on a further revelation. As it stands, our efforts to integrate different revelations into a Whole can never bring about any true or authentic integration. We can intellectualize all we want, study, ask around, even guess and hope, yet no conclusion will last or satisfy, much less yield an honest or lasting certitude. All we can do is be patient and pray God resolve[s] the dilemma - which God will do with a further revelation. Until God steps in, all we can do is submit to not knowing, incertitude, and our own helplessness in this matter.
It is up to God, then, to integrate his own revelations. As we move up the spiritual ladder, everything that went before is gradually integrated and assimilated into each new step. It goes without saying, while a lower rung of the ladder can be integrated into a higher one, a higher rung can never be integrated into a lower one. And since we cannot know what is higher until we come to it, we cannot incorporate what we do not know. Even if we have heard of a higher rung, it remains pure hearsay, and like all hearsay, what we “think” it is, is not IT.”
Robert’s words are certainly a comfort and encouragement today. She seems quite certain that this journey will entail “not knowing, incertitude, and our own helplessness.” It dawns on me that the words “the narrow gate” may be quite accurate. Her words, “seeing parts without a Whole is…an unreported dilemma in everyone’s…journey” are wise words. I certainly wish I had known more about this uncharted course and the “dilemma", but perhaps it was meant for me to learn from or out of the dilemma, difficulty certainly does grow some faith and trust along the way. At the end of the day that is all any of us can do, learn from our own life experience. Each unique life is like a unique experiment that we must become intentional about and attuned to, particularly on the inner journey.
It is also true when she says, “we can intellectualize all we want, study, ask around, even guess and hope, yet no conclusion will last or satisfy, much less yield an honest or lasting certitude.” These words remind me of some of her earlier text where she explains that this journey is one of experience. It is not enough to talk about Mystery. No, we must learn to experience it for ourselves, to learn how this relationship works within our deepest interior. I would like to clarify here that Roberts is not condemning intellectual pursuit or study, if you know her and her work you know she is well read and studied. What she is pointing out here is that those things alone will not bring us “lasting certitude.”
But back to the dilemma, until I got some ground under you me I’m not sure anything anyone said would really have made sense, and isn’t this exactly what Roberts tells us. Only a further revelation or understanding can make the unclear seem clear. You must just keep feeling your way forward in the darkness trusting the small steps you are taking will be enough. What I discovered for myself was until I could clearly see the difference between my ego, personality, habitual structure (however you like to think of it) and the ground of myself anything anyone were to tell me seemed nonsensical. Who wants to be told you must suffer along the way?
So for a number of years anytime a great unknown presented itself, or that felt sense of helplessness appeared, my habit was to retreat. That’s what Enneagram Nines do! Until I could get a handle on my structure, and enough awareness through meditative practices, that place of unknowing was just too uncomfortable to stay in. Even if someone had told me that the uncomfortable place was the correct place I just didn’t have the capacity to believe it. Like most humans I’d spent my whole life making sure I was comfortable and my mind just couldn’t comprehend that this difficult place was, in fact, the place where learning and/or experiencing would take place.
Today I am more comfortable with the unknown place. Those liminal spaces we must stand in before we cross over into the next thing. Love has not let me down nor disappointed, and even with more ease, curiosity, and comfort in the Mysterious unknown, Roberts’ words invite a continued pressing into those uncomfortable places where Mystery leads me forward. Her words encourage me to surrender so that the Mysterious integration may be worked in me. May it be so.
