In us he verily dwells
Just before leaving for my spiritual retreat, an annual feature for us priests and nuns, usually in October, someone handed me a sheaf of papers containing notes for reflection during the six days. Every year each of us is recommended to make this spiritual journey and spend time in silence, spiritual reading, prayer, meditation and some rest.
On the train journey I pulled out the notes titled, “The avoidance of each personality type”, and read them carefully. It was a study of the Enneagram in a nutshell, describing each personality type according to “avoidance”, and are numbered one through nine on a circle. Besides being interesting to read, they are also quite revealing about one’s own and others’ personality and what each type tends to avoid.
I also remember our novice master telling us about four humours (or temperaments) during our novitiate, known as Choleric, Melancholic, Sanguine and Phlegmatic. Learning characteristics of these “personality types” and then labelling them on others was one of the cool activities, especially during our recreation time.
The priest who directed our retreat this month happened to be one with a doctorate in psychology and so the subject of personality and sub-personality types surfaced again in his reflections and sharing.
What is amazing while studying various personality types is the discovery that we human beings are so different from each other. And so the question that arises is if we are poles apart, what then keeps us bound together? Going by “personality type” variations, our lives should really be full of conflicts. True, there are many tensions, both within one’s own self as well as with others, but they are too few and far between and rather negligible compared to our differences.
I believe that the reason for this is that there is a strong spiritual element in each one of us and despite our failures and unworthiness God’s spirit abides in us. Jesus promised us that the Holy Spirit would live in us for ever. The Bible teaches us that the fruit of His abiding in us is love, joy, peace etc. (Gal. 5:22-23). “This is how we know that we live in Him and He in us: He has given us of his Spirit... (Again), God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them… Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar (1 John 4:13-20). St. Paul wrote, “The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
The Aham bramah asmi belief of the Advaita reflects the same reality. Would it not be cool if we let God’s abiding spirit work for us in a deeper manner?
Father Dominic Emmanuel, a founder-member of Parliament of Religions, is currently the director of communication of the Delhi Catholic Church. He can be contacted at frdominic@gmail.com
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