The brook constantly searching for the river

Sulivan’s spiritual journal details his own move away from conforming to finding out for himself what he believes. Part of it seems to be sorting out commonly accepted ideas that need to be debunked. One example is the family, Sulivan is against the idea, suggesting it’s best to be a mother or father for as briefly as possible. He writes how the family opposes ‘the free and joyous movement of life.’ And comments: ‘How much time has been lost in struggles against the jealousy or ambition of fathers, or against maternal love.’

Much of what he says makes good sense in terms of what comes up in therapy. Take this extract:

‘From the start the child has to defend herself against the reflexes, ideas, and dreams that people confer upon her, in which all the riches of experience are stored, of course, but also its fears. Later, if she has not been asphyxiated, she will be forced to break open the very vocabulary she has learned in order to rediscover innocence. It’s a hard battle against convention, pre-judgement.’

Is Sulivan speaking from experience here when he writes: ‘The family seizes the individual and never leaves him alone, just like the society that overwhelms him … each individual ought to tear himself away from the clan and the weight it has on him, and make his own truth conquer the inhuman.’ He sees the gospel as a plea for the essential solitude of a man or woman, and that Jesus has not blessed the family as such, rather offering a rebirth of the spirit.

‘Nothing will ever replace for a child the experience of being completely loved by a father and mother. Let family life be intense but brief, aimed at healthy pain and a new birth. … A divided family is hell. But there’s something worse – a united family … Don’t need your children too much in order to exist … to turn them into carbon copies of you is to assassinate them.’

One idea that he wrestles with from the gospel accounts is what Sulivan calls ‘the vertical instant’. He sees Jesus in the gospels as someone travelling ever onwards, crossing and recrossing the country side – always on the go, and encouraging us to be natural again. The words are filled with the sights and smells of rural life, the wind in the trees and the gestures of ordinary people.

‘His words invite us to become joyously present in the instant, like the brook constantly in search of the river, or the river enroute to the sea. Look for the Father. Your neighbour is yourself, your unknown self. Non-duality is present everywhere. … Jesus’ word touches you like a hand on your shoulder, a threat as well as a friendship, a fraternal and dangerous invitation that leads from the known world and the deciphered text and makes you cross over to a land that is both here and elsewhere, whose image you carry deep within you.’