THE RELATIONSHIP OF
THE INNER AND THE OUTER

 ROBERT A. JOHNSON¹

 

Dr. Jung said, “If anyone understands the story of the Rainmaker and its implications, he will understand my philosophy perfectly.” He told Barbara Hannah (an early follower of Jung) that she never was to speak in public without telling it. Since the story was so important to Dr. Jung, I have based the following material on it, a story so simple and so short and so to the point that it is difficult to comprehend. The story is this:

A Chinese village has been besieged by drought and if rain does not come soon, the village will be in desperate straits, suffer famine and probably death. The local people have done all they know how to do. They finally decide to summon a great rainmaker from a distance. (Have you ever noticed that wise people always live someplace else and have to be brought great distances for their services?)

When he arrived and saw the plight of the village, he said, “Build me a straw hut. Give me food and water for five days, and leave me alone.” This they quickly did. The rainmaker went into the straw hut and at the end of four days it rained just in time to save the crops.

The people of the village dragged the poor rainmaker blinking into the light and gave him his fee, showered gifts on him, and poured out their affection on the good man for saving their village and saving their lives.

Somebody took him aside and said, “How did you do it? How do you make it rain?” And he said, “Oh, but you must understand. I felt such discord inside myself, when I came into your village that I spent that time getting things straight inside myself. I hadn’t ever gotten to the rainmaking ceremonies.”

And that’s the end of the story. It’s one of those small jewels, which says so much so briefly.

This opens up our subject: the relationship of the inner to the outer. I have observed four ways in which people relate inner and outer, and you will see that these are a progression or evolution. To begin with most people live the relationship of the inner and the outer world as if it were a warfare. They go out in the morning prepared for a hostile world. They simply are keyed up and geared to the battle of life—namely the battle of the inner and the outer. I and my wishes and they out there and their wishes are entirely incompatible. At best it is a standoff battle, which I will eventually lose anyway. I can lose it more slowly, which is the highest hope I can have. My bank account and the Director of Internal Revenue seem to be in utter collision. One’s boss and oneself seem to have quite different ideas about how life should go. I even battle objective fate inside myself. Most people are discontented in some measure or other. They don’t like the shape of their nose or the shape of their ears or what their hair is doing or not doing. The world seems to be on a downhill course, and I, with my own efforts, have to keep it up as best I can. Or, as somebody put it very directly, “I have to run up the down escalator very fast to stay in one place.”

Such is most people’s unconscious, unthoughtout view of the world—one of almost total hostility. The inner and the outer are simply irreconcilable. “Well, up and at ’em!” “Off to the salt mines for the day!” Such expressions stem from that first level of relationship. What a terrible way to live.

The second way is just simply the pendulum gone in the other direction. The world doesn’t count for much, so take it easy. This is the laid back way of living. Clocks go clockwise for no particular reason; checkbooks have a way of not being in balance, but that’s their innate way. Bills accumulate, but that’s all right for bills too.

This is occupying a serious place in our philosophy these days and has an interesting origin, which is a misconception of the teachings of Eastern thought. The idea that the physical world, the world out there, is a world of illusion first appeared in Europe in the 12th century. Those espousing the Catharist heresy believed one should terminate one’s physical existence as fast as possible so that the world of the spirit might reign supreme. What they called the “endura” consisted simply of not eating until you died, so as to finish off this illusory world and get on with real things! Of course it’s a heresy, and Christianity would have nothing to do with it.

The idea reappeared in translations of Indian scriptures in the 18th and 19th centuries and on into the 20th. It has gone like a shock wave through the unconscious of the Western world and affects all of us whether we know it or not. I found out to my astonishment and my horror that this idea of the unreality of the objective physical world out there is not Indian thought. What Indians do believe is that the world projected upon the physical world is unreal. It is these projections, from which India would save us.

This is true also of the Christian point of view. Christ came to save us from the world, the flesh, and the devil — not this world, not the physical world, but the illusory, psychological, projected world, which we put so lavishly on objective events. We don’t see the objective events but relate rather to our own projections. This is what we need saving from. I would happily be saved from that.

In contrast to the first and second ways of relating inner and outer, the first stressing the outer, the second the inner, is a third way well known to you. Highly trained and intelligent minds have discoursed on it extensively. That third way is to take the inner world and the outer world as both real and interacting. Most people’s view of the inner and outer worlds is that there are two: the inner world of the spirit and the phenomenal, time-space world out there. This is the basis of prayer. What you do in your interior world, in the depths of yourself has an effect upon the outer world. And the outer world certainly has an effect on the inner world. This is the highest level of exchange between the inner and outer which is commonly known.

But there’s a fourth way also, which will concern us here. This way is best gotten to by referring to the observation of medieval theologians that there are three levels of prayer open to us. The first level is the prayer of petition: “Please, may it rain.” One prays for the healing of a loved one, for enough money to accomplish what one needs to do. One prays for specific things. An idea, or a need, or a wish originates deep in the inner world, and by prayer, one asks that it affect the outer world. I don’t have to labor this or justify it, because this is characteristic of the society we live in as Christians.

The second level of prayer is one wherein one asks to be a vehicle for the will of God but does not specify what it shall be. This has turned out to be rather unpopular. Not many people engage in this.

The third level, that interests me so much, is contemplative prayer, the prayer that one’s will and the will of God may be made one. It’s as if one says that the small circle, which is the ego, and the large circle, which is God, shall be placed on the same axis and coincide. This in no way is to say that one becomes God, but the gulf between God and oneself is annihilated, and a unitive experience follows from that. This fourth way of relating inner and outer is in the identity of one with the other, and since this is so unusual an experience, in no way common in this society, we have no language for it.

We do have one bit of terminology and that is the term, mandorla. It is bewildering to me why this should have been lost almost totally from our culture. It is a Christian, medieval term, and it means that almond-shaped segment, which occurs when two circles partly overlap. The Italian word for almond is mandorla.

Almost everybody knows what a mandala is, and we had to go to the Sanskrit to get that. It has become current in our language. But almost no one knows our own Christian term of mandorla. The mandorla, the overlap, is the fourth way of relating inner to outer, a non-duality between inner and outer. In Christianity the mandorla is defined as being the overlap of heaven and earth.

The greatest symbol of mandorla which we have is the nature of Christ himself, because he is equally divine and equally human. It is so interesting to observe heresies, because by definition a heresy stems from a misunderstanding of the nature of Christ. It is a heresy to say that Christ was all human and non-divine. It’s an equal heresy to say that he was all divine and non-human. It takes that exact balance, that exact overlap of two equal circles to make a true mandorla. The non-heretical way is the perfect overlap, and the deeper the overlap, the deeper the experience.

Characteristically in Christianity only Christ or the Virgin may be framed in a mandorla. One often sees this over the main door of the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe, where Christ or the Virgin will be seated in majesty with the mandorla to frame them. That is to say that within the realm of overlap only the Christ-like part of us, or the Virgin-like part of us — thank God there are both—is appropriate or is possible. So if there is mandorla, one is on holy ground and very close to Christ or the Virgin. The art of mandorla is the means by which we draw duality back into some kind of unity. It is our duty to make mandorlas of the dissenting or warring elements of our life.

“Integration” is another way of speaking of mandorla. But there is often an implication in the use of the word integration, that I, or the favored side of a situation draws the other in and digests it, so to speak. A true integration is a true mandorla. The two elements make something greater than either. There are many teachings in the world that there really is only one circle. Since we have two eyes, we see it as two circles. In the process of coming back again to the divine unity of our life, of making our way from the garden of Eden to the heavenly Jerusalem, the more we can overlap the two circles and approximate the divine one circle, the closer we are to enlightenment.

One of the loveliest bits of our scripture, “If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be filled with light,” would be the total mandorla, where the two circles have disappeared and a single circle remains. The Hindus put a little spot of rouge or vermilion just in the center of their foreheads, which is to tell the world that they are enlightened people, and that they see the world with a single eye, not with the two eyes of duality. This, of course, is no more true of a Hindu with the caste mark on the center of his forehead than anyone else, but it’s an ideal and a lofty one.

When I first went to India I found, to my utter astonishment, that I was an untouchable because I didn’t have any caste. A family adopted me and gave me their caste. They put the circle of vermilion on my forehead every morning so I could hold my head up in public. I grew to like it. My duality was no less than before, but simply to be aware that there was such a thing as a single vision of life wherein the duality of life would cease, pleased and inspired me.

One can make an analogy something like this: If one were to see and hear someone ringing a bell, and if he did not have the power of synthesis, which we all do in this respect, his eyes would bring him one series of information — here’s someone making some motions and hitting a bell with a hammer. One’s ears would bring something very different. They would bring a sense of pitch and a certain rhythm of the sounding. If one’s power of synthesis were not adequate, he would never put the two together and would be talking about two different things. Apparently that is precisely what we do, lacking the power of synthesis, when we see the world as dual. We describe this and we describe that and leave it at that. The power of the mandorla, the power of approaching enlightenment gives one the capacity for pulling these two together and saying, “Aha!”

There are marvelous mandorlas in the world that one would never think to look for. If you look carefully, every sentence correctly put together is a mandorla. This is probably why we like to talk so much and why we are so sensitive to speech. Good grammar, good syntax, is a pleasure to us. It gives us some sense of safety, some sense of security. Bad grammar grates on our nerves.

A sentence is an equation. My mathematician friends get such pleasure out of putting something down on the left hand side of the paper, an equal sign, and something down on the right hand side of the paper. If the equation works out, a look of glory comes over their faces. This is largely lost on me, but I enjoy watching them.

A sentence is no less an equation than the mathematical one. The sentence has a verb in the middle, which is the equal sign of the equation and two things which are said to be equal. This is easy to see with our primary verb, the verb to be. It’s for this reason that the object of the verb to be is always in the nominative case and never in the objective case. One does not say, “I am him.” One says, “I am he.” This was not devised to torture high school students but is a sublime statement of identity. The verb to be, that royal verb, is that which makes identity of our fractured world.

Sentences are describing heaven for us. This is true of all verbs, but not so easily seen as with the verb to be. Use some sentences for a short time in your life as if they were holy, and you will learn a great deal. Such an experience brings a sense of awe into one’s being. It is so healing to talk. I often tell my patients when they come, “Now look. If you’ll tell me what is, you will have developed past that point immediately. As soon as you have said what is, it is superseded and then you must organize that new place and do the work necessary so you can say what that is, which in turn is immediately superseded. So please begin now and tell me what is.” People will circle around it. They will explain. They will evade. They will do the thousand-and-one things which we are equipped to do and I will shake my head and say, “No. You are not telling me what is. You are telling me what you wish, or what you regret or you are telling me everything except that one divine fact, what is. If one can find the courage for that, then there is an Aha!

I have a good friend who lives a long distance from me. Years ago he sent me a tape recorder with a tape on it for Christmas. I listened to the tape and he said, “Now turn the tape over and make a tape back to me.” I was awkward and complained. I couldn’t think of anything to say. And then I was astonished to find I was angry when the tape ran out at the end of the hour. I have made many tapes to that man. I will start a tape and I will say, “I need some talking cure, please. Will you listen?” And by the end of the hour on the tape I generally worked something through, because if I am true, I will have said what is, and immediately see the next thing which needs to be worked out, what is. My friend met me once—we meet seldom because the distance is so great. He said, “Robert, why is it that you are so much more intelligent on tape than you are in conversation?” He said, “Wait. Don’t answer me. I know. I don’t interrupt.” One of the very great gifts you can gave another person is to give him that quiet space and the encouragement and the energy wherein he can say what is. It is far, far more powerful than any advice you could ever give anyone. Give him the miracle of the true sentence. Plato said the verb to be is non-temporal. It is a statement of infinity. I urge you to use it as such.

Of course the next thing to talk about is that group of people who are masters of statement, the poets. All poetry is mandorla and all poetry is deeply healing for that very reason. When the poet says, “The daffodil is the harbinger of spring,” one is immensely pleased, and a thrill goes down one’s back. This sentence, a simple one, is a perfect example of mandorla and a fine example of poetry. If you look at it carefully, it says that the daffodil, a finite, tangible, physical thing, is equivalent to or is the same as spring, which is an airy, spiritual concept. Anytime we are convinced, often against our will, of identity of any kind, we are pleased and healed. That is why the poet has such power for healing. It is as if God, having suffered multiplicity, delights in endless statements of unity.

Dr. Jung says, perhaps less poetically, that in the very beginning of our human experience we see only the unsplit archetype. This is how the child, or the very simple person (none of whom are still left in America) sees things. He sees the archetype which has not yet been broken into duality. When it breaks we see things with our two eyes. We see a world of duality, of pairs of opposites: masculine and feminine, exterior and interior, spirit and matter, on and on and on. It is at one’s enlightenment, or redemption, or salvation, that one’s two eyes converge, that synthesis takes place, and one sees that the archetype is unsplit. This is the “beautific” or unitive vision, that most prized experience of medieval theology. The thing that is so awesome is that the archetype never was split anywhere along the way. It’s only our eyes which split it. It is the work of the poets or artists or musicians to put our fractured world back together again for us. This is the somber and profound task for which we might well respect them. The more they can overlap for us, the greater the art of the poet, the more profound is the mandorla, and the greater is the healing thereof. Poetry, by definition, happens at the meeting of two worlds. Metaphor is a statement of identity. If one says, “This is like that,” it’s coming as close as we can verbally, with our clumsy equipment, to talking about the unity or the non-splitness of this and that. Poetry happens where the realm of insight intersects with the realm of sense. This is mandorla. When the daffodil and springtime are said to be the same, the world is put back together again for us.

I’d like to make an interesting observation about this. The near great in the world have been eccentric. We think of poets and artists or the genius as a little odd. They do strange things. But the truly great have always been ordinary people, which is to say that they live in the here and now. They live in the mundane, practical world as thoroughly and as completely as they can, but they have a vision of the mystical world strong enough to equal it. If they can stand this overlap, for it is won at considerable suffering, then they are great artists. Observe Dante and Blake and Shakespeare and Bach. All of them were married, all of them earned their own living, all of them lived most ordinary, down-to-earth feet-on-the-ground lives. Remember that the word “ordinary” comes from the root verb to order, to make order. These men were plain. They had a full, human earth circle to bring to bear. When their celestial vision of the heavens came, there was a good strong overlap. The near-great will go off on one circle and be insufficient or perhaps even lacking in the other.

Once I pulled some strings and managed to get two precious interviews with Maezumi Roshi, the Zen Master of Los Angeles. I talked to the gardener while I was waiting to make the appointment. The Japanese garden had a pool which had no growing things in it. My pool at home is overflowing with water hyacinths and all manner of things. So I brought a great plastic bag of growing things and gave it to the gardener and went in for my precious hour with Maezumi Roshi I had brought a gift. And, as is customary, I brought a subject, which I thought would be interesting to talk about. He waived it aside. He said, “Now, the propagation of water plants in pools.” And we spent our whole hour talking about how to manage a pool. Next time I came, I brought a gift and suggested a subject. He cleared his throat and said, “Now, about the propagation of goldfish in pools, ” which I know a lot about. So we talked the whole hour about the propagation of goldfish in pools. And at the end of the hour, I, having enjoyed myself thoroughly, was a bit bewildered wondering, “Why have I driven a hundred miles twice?” He looked at me as I was getting up to go, and said, “Ordinariness. Do you understand?” I said, “Yes, I understand.” I had my jewel in my hands to take home. The word “ordinary.” The greatest of men are ordinary men.

There exists in Bach’s handwriting a letter which at first is shocking. But in the light of what I have been saying this letter shows a great humanness, an earthiness, an ordinariness. In the letter he complains that it’s been a mild winter and funeral fees were down—this from the man who knew how to cross one corner of heaven. He’s the greater for that.

The storyteller makes a mandorla. A story tells of a man who gave a beggar a cup of cold water. You know the story from the New Testament. If it is told correctly, through the mind of a true storyteller, this is mandorla. It is an overlap of the stuff of a cup of cold water and the stuff of heaven. This is why stories are immortal and why we treasure them and simply won’t let them die. A true storyteller spins a story which has light and dark in it, ups and downs, the known and a surprise. These are true mandorlas and do the healing for us.

There is another story. A man called Moses was walking and he saw a burning bush. Well, this is a mandorla. This is as close as our clumsy, linguistic minds can get us to the overlap. Bushes are easy to come by, and lots of things burn. But when something is of the nature of burning, and retains its bushness and is not burnt up, one knows one is on holy land and that God is near. This is the visionary overlapping with the mundane and the ordinary.

And so it was that God approached Moses and instructed him to put his head in a crack in the rock. Moses being mortal, could not stand the vision of God, the impact of one of the circles all by itself. Moses begged and finally God agreed. “Yes, you may look up just as I disappear. You may see my back.” As my Yoga teacher in India told me, it’s easy to come by enlightenment, but it’s not easy to bear it. It’s best to have your two circles fairly well worked out before you try to merge them.

The most powerful mandorlas in my world are musical, and they are the hardest to talk about. I have virtually no terminology with which to describe them, but I will try. In Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, about seven-eighths of the way through, there is a lovely, soaring, delicate and tranquil alto aria. Bach loved the alto voice so much! When Bach scores for an alto voice, two woodwinds and a bass you know you are in for a treat. The words of the aria are: “Lord Jesus stretched forth his hand.” It is just before the crucifixion, one of those tender poignant moments, which Bach uses in his passions where a solo voice will step aside, so to speak, and make a commentary on the progression of the story. The bass line is carried by a contrafagotto, a rather rough, low pitched reed instrument. And it does the unbelievable by making a series of leaps of natural sevenths. That would be from C up to B or G up to F# which is just a semitone less than an octave. If you have ever studied counterpoint you will know this is the most forbidden of all things to do. The leap of a natural seventh sounds so much like a donkey braying that it simply is struck out of musical notation. Ferde Grofe actually uses this leap of natural sevenths to portray donkeys in his Grand Canyon Suite. The contrafagotto under Bach’s alto voice makes not just one leap of a natural seventh but a whole series of them, as if fairly shouting at one. Above the bass line all the while the alto voice is singing its serene, gentle aria. It is the contrast of the rude disjointed contrafagotto and the lofty alto voice which makes a musical mandorla of exquisite beauty.

Probably the most beautiful statement of mandorla which I have ever found comes from that odd medieval work called The Cloud of Unknowing by Dionysius the Areopagite. Its subtitle reads, Wherein the Soul May Be Oned With God. I have never known that word to be used in any other place. “Oned,” meaning to be made one with God. That is the simplest statement which can be made. If one can comprehend those few words, one has the whole understanding, the whole comprehension of the subject of mandorla.  

 

NOTES

 

1. Robert A. Johnson, Jungian analyst in San Diego, was educated at Oregon State and Stanford Universities, the C. G. Jung Institute of Zurich, Switzerland and worked with Fritz Kunkel in Los Angeles and Toni Sussman in London. Relating the teaching of India, Dr. Jung and Christianity is his special interest. He has made many journeys to India and is the author of three books, He and She, studies in masculine and feminine mythology and We, a study of the Medieval myth of Tristan and Iseult.