What can this apparently self-directed process, which challenges us to overthrow our old ways of thinking, feeling and responding to life mean, and how can we grow from such upsetting disruptive encounters with the darkness of our underworlds?
In Dante’s case, his journey through the underworld began as a divided person. One half of Dante was stern, moralistic and legalistic, which acted like the supreme judge and decided who belonged in hell and more specifically, which circle of hell each sinner belonged in. The other half of Dante was a humble pilgrim who journeyed to sacred places for spiritual reasons. He was a man who had himself been lost in the underworld, and who was sympathetic to others who had strayed from their souls’ paths.
When Dante finds himself lost in the underworld, he is terribly frightened until Virgil, who symbolizes human reason and wisdom, arrives to deliver him from hell. Dante the pilgrim is at first apprehensive, cautious and frightened until he is reassured of Virgil’s noble intentions. However, near the end of the journey, as things become increasingly complicated and difficult to comprehend, Virgil shows signs of failure and weakness. This makes Dante the pilgrim irritated and fearful, until Dante’s stern, moralistic and legalistic side — now compassionate—rises to the occasion, giving support and strength.
In the end, Dante returns to the upper world, the two halves of his self joined, united with the wisdom and enlightenment of the one (Dante) and of life in general. While it has many symbolic representations and meanings, the overall message of Dante’s “Inferno” is the duality of life: that there cannot be pain without its opposite pleasure, light without darkness or enlightenment without suffering.
Courageously Fearful
A friend one day told me he admired my courage. Because I was surprised by the fact that he thought I of all people was courageous, he went on to explain to me that even though I am frequently scared shitless, I go ahead and face whatever the challenge may be. After I laughed and thanked him for the compliment, I came up with a saying that, whether I’m the first to coin the phrase or not, has worked for me many times in the past: “courageously fearful.”
Perhaps right now, your life is calling you to rise to the challenge of your underworld journey and you need to be courageously fearful.
Keep this in mind while you consider the following questions:
- What has brought you to this place in your journey, this moment in your life?
- Wh(ich gods), what forces, what family and what social environment has framed your reality; supported, and perhaps restricted, it?
- Whose life have you been living?
- Why do you believe you have to hide so much from others, from yourself?
- Why does life seem to be a script written elsewhere, and you were barely consulted, if at all?
- Why is the life you have been living too small for your soul’s desire?
- Why is now the time, if ever it is to happen, for you to answer the summons of your soul, the invitation to a larger and more meaningful life?
If any of the above questions speak to you, scare you a little or challenge you, then you are already answering your soul’s call to an enlarged being, and have been for sometime. Our movement from the old blueprints of life understandably upsets our intrinsic longing for the familiar, comfortable, secure and predictable. These longings are a prime directive of everyone’s psyche (the Greek word for soul) and have strong motivation to bring meaning, healing and wholeness into our lives. Our role, most often, is to relax, have faith and surrender to what is transpiring within our psyche…Yeah I know, it’s easier said than done, right? But the popular alternative is to consider ourselves helpless, victimized or unable to imagine some enlarging purpose from our suffering, only to later recognize that something was moving us purposefully and initiating a new phase in our journey, even though it certainly didn’t feel like it at the time. Later, we may even grudgingly admit that our suffering did enlarge us and made us more fully and richly human.Our acknowledgement of the deep currents that initially course beneath our conscious awareness is the beginning of what we may legitimately call wisdom. The Greek dramatist Aeschylus (525-456 BC), the world’s first great tragedian playwright, observed that the gods ordained a solemn decree that from suffering alone comes wisdom. Such earned wisdom brings forth greater dignity and depth to our lives, and we are gifted with a more embracing spiritual enlargement.
Of course when we are in the midst of such suffering and tragedy, talk of enlargement and wisdom seems pointless and insensitive. Yet much later we will often come to realize that we have acquired a more discerning consciousness, a more complex but clearer understanding of our self and a much more interesting life. If you choose to pass through your underworld with courageous fearfulness, you will emerge with enlarged spirituality, you will grow psychologically richer and, greatest of all, you will experience affinity. The choice is yours.
