As I wrote above, when I was actively nursing, I had this theory based on experience, that the soul was experiential knowledge and was moved emotionally more than intellectually. It helped me feel into an event, a scene, or an encounter before I understood it. Especially in emergency situations, it meant that I was moving before rationally thinking. In fact, I often had to go away to understand what had happened. When I did that, and after I meditated, I had the combination of emotional and intellectual understanding. When I stopped nursing, this intuition was still there, but I was expected to react rationally rather than emotionally, which I could do, but it wasn’t second nature.
I found that my spiritual life was the same, and my spontaneous reaction to a text, a sermon or in a group was closer to the truth that I intuited than some rational statements of other people. I asked myself why they couldn’t feel it. Furthermore, I was told that I had to put this intuition to the back, and first take in the words, which I found to be a contradiction of the spirit versus the letter. At the same time, I preached and held bible meetings in this exciting state that moved people as well. I could feel something happening when we “felt” the message and people were surprised at themselves, for reacting to it.
At the same time, I rejected the hyperventilation that I experienced as Pentecostalism or Evangelical spirit, because it seemed not to be spontaneous, but pumped up. It wasn’t natural to me, and I found myself sat between the chairs, not identifying completely with either side. I tried then to contain myself within Buddhist rationality, which helped me professionally in management, but I found it to be lacking spiritually, which finally caused burnout and depression.
It didn’t help that my idea, that the New Testament is designed for emotional/spiritual reading and is problematic when rationality rules, was rejected by people. They wanted to be assured that there was indeed a God in their idea of heaven and that Jesus went there after his death. It was too flimsy to suggest that the spiritual truth is beyond the pointing finger of the Bible. Even the rational argument that reality is far more, far greater than the reality portrayed in the Bible, didn’t work for other people. I was told that I was too intense and reading up on how other religions expressed a similar spiritual experience was leading me astray.
Consequently, I find myself alone with my experience, unable to deny what I have come to know, but also unable to restrict myself. Jung speaks to me in this immediate way, although I can’t say that his experiences are mine. But this new book has many examples which help me see that he was at least on a similar journey, despite the differences.