We practice Deep Philosophy because we want to get in touch with the depth during the session. But in addition, we may also have a long-term goal in mind: to transform ourselves and be connected more fully to the realness for which we yearn.
Our normal mental life is superficial and fragmented, and it is limited to a small portion of its potentials. It is restricted to patterns of thought and emotion, while the deeper dimensions of our being are dormant and inactive. Therefore, our ability to connect to what is real and true within us is limited. Discovering realness is not just a matter of looking and seeing. If your eyes are blind, no amount of looking will help you see – you will need to “change your eyes,” to transform the state of mind from which you search, to awaken your hidden sensitivities.
The need to transform ourselves and transcend our superficial existence was recognized by many philosophers throughout history. Those thinkers, whom we call “transformational philosophers,” include Plato, the Stoics, Spinoza, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Emerson, Bergson, and many others. Although they used different concepts and theories, they all agreed that we are normally imprisoned in thoughtless psychological tendencies and mechanisms, and consequently live on the surface of life. With the help of philosophizing, however, we can transcend this prison, whether temporarily or for a longer period of time, and live in fullness and realness.
In Deep Philosophy we accept this task. We work to awaken our dormant capacities – our Inner Depth – not just during the session but also beyond it. How can we do this, given that this inner dimension is not in “our” control, not in the control of our psychological self?
The answer can be found in the writings of the Stoics and other thinkers: We can awaken our Inner Depth by encouraging it to “speak” within us and express itself. When it starts speaking, its voice strengthens and grows in us. Here our role is that of a gardener: The gardener cannot tell the plant how to grow, or which flowers to produce. The gardener can only create the conditions – soil, water, sun – in which the life-forces of the plant would express themselves in their own way. Likewise, the “philosophical gardener” creates the inner conditions in which our Inner Depth can express itself, free from the normal avalanche of psychological activities that choke it. As our Inner Depth becomes more active, gradual self-transformation would follow.
The expression “self-transformation” may be misleading. It does not mean that I will become a totally different person. The eucalyptus will always remain a eucalyptus – it will never become a rose. Many of my patterns and tendencies will remain the same, but with one important difference: Now they will no longer be independent blind forces; they will gradually be integrated around a new inner center which will guide and direct them. (Compare: A new monk, or a new freedom fighter, is still the same person as before, but now his personality revolves around a new devotion.) My awakened Inner Depth will not replace who I am, but it will bring me together, center me and expand me, and connect me to deeper roots and greater horizons.
Our psychological structures will always play an important role in our lives. You cannot function without the structures that control hunger and thirst, without the linguistic structures that compose and decipher sentences, thinking structures that plan and analyze, emotional structures, or structures of social functions. But hopefully these mechanisms will no longer be independent rulers over our lives, and will become part of a bigger and deeper whole.
Thus, self-transformation will probably not give us “enlightenment” or fill us with permanent peace and joy. But it will give us the center, the plenitude and the inspiration to live more connected to the fountain of our being. We will continue, as always, to work and create and interact, and sometimes struggle and suffer, but while being anchored in the depth of human reality and living from it.