Self forgetfulness?

I have only begun this post with a 'question' because, though I most certainly can recognise the self forgetfulness in the mystics of whom I often write, I would be hard put to genuinely define what this entails. I'm tempted to say that they reach a point of 'just do it!' - where there lives become a total Eucharist (praise and thanksgiving). I hesitate because our concepts today make classic concepts in the spiritual life easy to misunderstand.

Self forgetfulness does not at all mean self hatred (more about that in a moment), for all the excess certain saints, Francis in particular, devoted to atonement for sin. (The great ones know what is most important, but remain as fragile and confused as the rest of us - divinity is always beyond the human grasp. Francis' tendency to self hatred would never disappear, but a careful look at his life shows that the praise and joy were central.) Nor does it mean denial of one's unique identity - the mystics and other holy ones were about as real as it gets. Struggling for a way to capture the idea, I have a sense that, for those greatly focussed on the divine and union with God, have no considerations of 'achievement.'

Isn't that true of all genuine love? Certainly, one may have a human whom one loves and wish to please, delight, care for him or her - but love comes as naturally as breathing. With others whom we truly love, we would hardly be weighing what merits we could gain, or punishing ourselves for falling short, or comparing how we love one with another. We would not be artificial. Sacrifice (frugality to save for the benefit of one's children, caring for an ill spouse, and so forth) would be part of one's life, but not anything one sought to increase (for its own sake), or to use to impress another, or to be a bargaining process of 'buying love.' We see this every day, yet it is very difficult for us to imagine it in relation to God, probably because, where human intimacy (of any kind - not only romantic), flawed though it can be at times, involves communication, mutual affection and warmth, and so forth, God not only is remote and beyond us but becomes all the more the mystery for one who catches a glimpse of the glory - and realises how far beyond our grasp this is.

Some time ago, I mentioned how enlightening (and tragic) I had found Richard Burton's Holy Tears, Holy Blood, which explored dimensions of a 'culture of vicarious suffering' which was common in France in the century following the Revolution. Though Simone Weil certainly is a very tragic and extreme case, I think there is much to be said for a passage related to her which is contained in this work. It refers to Simone's anorexia and its connection with seeking self-perfection, but the overall concepts extend much further. (Emphases are in the original) :

"Anorexia is, crudely put, an assertion of identity and autonomy; self-deprivation becomes a deluded force of self-empowerment, though the quest for total control over body, self, and world is always, by definition, frustrated.

Of the women considered here, Simone Weil's anorexia most clearly falls into this pattern. By denying herself food (and sleep, warmth, and basic human comforts), she sought to impose mental and spiritual control over what, in due course, she came to define as the domain of weight (la pesanteur) - of the self, of society, of the world - which she opposed systematically to the domain of grace. She rationalised this abortive quest for total self-control - abortive, because the more she sought to dominate herself, the less, in reality, was she 'in control' of herself - through a series of political, social, and spiritual identifications...

The paradox of her situation, as her philosophical mentor, Gustave Thibon, pointed out, was that she was never 'detached from her detachment.' She wanted to control her self-abandonment to God, to create her own self-decreation, to will the relinquishment of her will and her self. Grace, said Georges Bernanos's curé de campagne, consists not in hating oneself, but in forgetting oneself, (which Simone could never achieve) because of the intensity of her own rejection of self; her self-willed effort to transcend the domain of weight had the perverse effect of imprisoning her within (its scope.)"

Certainly, most of us are not going to be imprisoned in tragic, highly extreme circumstances such as those of Simone - but intense examples, no differently than those harmless and trivial as I sometimes use, can place matters into focus. I doubt that any of us, devout or not, have not seen those who are at their wit's end to be impressive. Others never grow beyond wishing to please - authority figures of any kind (and, if one is devout, which one greater than God?!) are to be feared, placated, and tempted for favour.

Self-hatred accomplishes nothing. Yet I have noticed, in forums where there is a religious flavour, that there is a 'cult of self hatred,' mainly based on achieving wealth or 'control' over weight or health (think of it - lots of people are making a fortune controlling customers with fear of failure, humiliation, competition), where self hatred is glorified because supposedly we'll be 'motivated' either by guilt or some bizarre idea (I've heard this more than once!) that self hatred is positive - some subconscious sense that one is harming one's 'health.'

I was in capital purchasing for long enough to know advertising tricks when I see them! Manipulation of that sort inflames me. Yet I mention this (not only because churches often fill collection plates with 'guilt) because the mystics were beyond 'weighing' their value. They could not have had their genuinely detached love had they not already realised the dignity of their own being, bestowed by the Creator, assumed by the Logos. They were not weighing 'merits' or fearing judgement. Their ascetic practises were ways to remove distractions, not to punish themselves.

It is a very imperfect analogy, but those who feel truly loved by another delight in one they do for the beloved. Obviously, there is nothing the omnipotent God 'needs' from us, yet I think that it is only when we feel that we are unlovable that we're trying to win the favour of God (whether we see him as parent, judge, teacher - whatever). The mystics had reached a point where the love of God (and for neighbour) was so integral to their very being that they stopped weighing merits and demerits.