The following is a recent email from my father. It's encourageing and thought provoking. The greatsest thing of all is that it's loving.
Mostly just wanted to say hi, but want to follow up a bit from our last conversation
I felt badly about your unsatiated hunger to understand more about the inner man (and probably truth in general). I understand that internal longing all too well, and it is every bit as real as the physical (blessed are those who hunger). Socrates as related by Plato gave what I thought was a pretty good understanding of the difference between pleasure and pain vs. good and evil – whether the two can be equated. In the interest of brevity, hunger is painful and the satiation of hunger is pleasurable. Both the pain of hunger and its satiation can exist in the body at the same time. We continue to eat and be satisfied as we hunger – to feel hungry and in pain while being satisfied and in pleasure. This he compared with a good eye (whole eye, healthy eye) vs. an evil eye (sick eye, disease in the eye). The eye is either sick or it is healthy. It can not be both. Sickness and health do not coexist whereas pleasure and pain do. Therefore good and evil can not be equated with pain and pleasure. They are not the same. So your hunger is neither good nor evil but it is useful and beneficial and meant to be sated. The hunger of curiosity will persist but so can the pleasure of discovery and understanding.
Anyway, as to the inner man, I think you can come to greater understanding of his existence within the business of your life and even especially within the business of your life.
I believe that we live move and have our being in the unseen world and the seen world together. When living by the inner or hidden man of the heart, I do not think that it is by searching within for his existence but by simply recognizing our continual operation within the invisible world. (For we look not on those things that are seen but those things that are unseen). By seen world, I understand it to be the world of the senses. Unseen is the realm of the heart, understanding, intellect, emotions, imaginations, memory, will … When we are exposed to any stimulus, it is brought to that invisible world for whatever reason. Sometimes it is dismissed as unimportant, other times it is reflected on, othertimes it arouses passions, and things which I am sure I do not understand. We make sense of it. In our doing world, whatever we do, is started in the unseen world and materialized into the seen world. We do not ever do something before we see it. We do it within (sometimes extremely quickly – for instance speech) and then it materializes. By being more aware that you are operating continually in the unseen, the reality of the inner man is apparent.
All of our attitudes, works... are brought to fruition inside of our hearts and minds. By being busy within before being busy without (pray without ceasing?) we realize that our busyness does not have to be disjointed from the supernatural but can be very much a part. In fact all seen reality is reality to us only because of the operation of our mind either making sense of the senses or germinating a new - i.e. brand new - seen reality.
There is so much that can be said and discussed about this but I hope this helps to take a bit of the anxiety out of your hunger and perhaps nourishes more productive thinking and discovery in these regards. Anyway – for what it's worth.
Love Dad
