InLight said:
Why are we created as both flesh and spirit but required to kill the flesh and become 100% pure in spirit? Is such requirement reasonable?
I’m not sure exactly what you are saying here, but it sounds as though you may be suggesting that we must somehow become 100% spirit at the expense of our bodies. If this is so, and please correct me if I am wrong, then you may be running the danger of looking at what is material, or fleshly, or bodily, as “bad,” and pure spirit as “good.” To be pure in spirt is not the same thing as to be pure spirit. We are indeed created as body and spirit, and as St Paul says, “The body is made for the Lord” not to mention that Jesus rose from the dead, body and soul, and so shall we, in the resurection on the last day.
It may perhaps help to distinguish the “flesh” (in the sense that it is used in Scripture and by the mystics) from the body. That particular meaning of the flesh is indeed something we should “kill,” for the flesh in the biblical sense is our fallen nature, the inclination in all of us toward sin, our tendency to follow our own wills instead of God’s, which is what we inherited from our first parents in what is known as original sin. We all have this tendency, and this is what must be killed in us in order for the new man (or woman) to emerge. And what emerges for those who have managed to undergo this stage is still a human being, body and spirit, but one transformed, restored to the image and likeness of God, as far as that is attainable in this life.
The whole idea behind the contemplative way is to try to achieve this goal. The writings of St Teresa of Jesus (Avila), St John of the Cross and all the other mystics address this same issue, whether they call it an Interior Castle with seven dwelling places or the Ascent of Mt Carmel with its “nada, nada, nada, nada,” its denial of all the pleasures and even joys that can be had from the material or even the spiritual order so as to get to the innermost dwelling place or the summit of the mount, which is union with God. This denial is not something done for its own sake, not some grueling exercise with a sort of masochistic or stoical purpose. Behind this self-denial, or detachment, is one thing, and one thing only: the love of God for His own sake, for Himself, and not for all the things that He can (and often does) give us, not for the joys, not even the spiritual joys, that come from Him. If those “favors” come, fine, as these very saints tell us, for they were no strangers to these mystical favors, but we are not to seek them. Many people do not understand this: they actually seek these experiences for their own sakes. But by so doing they stop short of the Giver in favor of His gifts. And loving God for His own sake is something that can be done without a single mystical experience. Again, if the experiences come, fine, but St John of the Cross advises us to pay them little or no heed. This has the added benefit of relieving us of the trouble of trying to discern where the experience is coming from, whether it is a genuine locution or vision from God, or whether it comes from our own imaginations or from the devil.
But to return to the main track, the killing of the flesh you mention, if the flesh is taken to mean our false selves, our fallen selves, then this is exactly what we must do. It is in fact what Jesus said time and again with such words as “he that would save his life will lose it, and he that would lose it for my sake will save it to eternal life”–this “life” we must lose for Jesus sake is precisely the “flesh,” the egocentric false personalities we have made ourselves to be. It is the seed that must fall to the ground and die so that it does not remain a single grain but produces a rich harvest. And ultimately it is something that we cannot do on our own. But the good news is that we can do something in order that this can be done unto us: we can predispose ourselves to receive this gift. And that is precisely what St John of the Cross attempts to instruct us to do. In his writings, and those of St Teresa and others, we find a roadmap to this goal. They instruct us as to how to get to the point of surrender, and yes, it is a purgation which eventually must arrive at a death, the death to self, at which point the soul can do nothing more, nothing more, that is, except die, and this is, of course, a painful experience, the dark night. The process is really quite simple, but it is not easy: it means letting go, relinquishing control of our own lives, and truly surrendering ourselves unconditionally to God. For those who are determined to reach this point though the reward is beyond anything they could ask or imagine. God knows when a soul is ready, and when that soul is, it is He Himself who will lift her to the summit.
