The inner manDmitry Shchedrovitsky, 2020
Man as a spiritual structure
“The inner man” is the name given in the New Testament to the most sublime part of our spiritual essence:
Therefore we do not lose heart; but if our outer man is smoldering, then our inner man
updated from day to day.
(II Cor. 4:16)
It is our inner man who listens to the commandments of the Lord and rejoices in them:
For according to the inner man
I find delight in the law of God...
(Rom. 7:22)
In this inner man every believer needs to be “established”:
...Be strengthened by His Spirit in the inner man
…
(Eph. 3:16)
“To be established” means to be convinced of the existence of our true, immortal personality as a reality - and to strengthen in this faith, which must develop into unquestioning knowledge. And for this we should understand the composition and structure of the inner man. Many New Testament texts remain misunderstood or misunderstood when there is no general view of the structure of man, of his spiritual composition. As a striking example, here are the famous texts from the First Epistle to the Corinthians:
But someone will say: how will the dead be raised? and in what body will they come?
Reckless! what you sow will not come to life unless it dies.
And when you sow, you do not sow the future body, but the naked grain that happens, wheat or something else;
But God gives him a body as he wants, and each seed his own body. (I Cor. 15, 35–38)
So it is with the resurrection of the dead: it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption;
It is sown in humiliation, raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in strength;
The spiritual body is sown, the spiritual body is raised. There is a spiritual body, and there is a spiritual body. (I Cor. 15, 42–44)
Often these texts are understood to mean that at the moment of resurrection the dead will “sprout” from their graves and rise from them like ears of corn. But not a single ancient thinker, much less a divinely inspired apostle, could have imagined that something similar to the development and germination of grain would occur in the grave. According to the universal experience of mankind, no life processes take place in the grave, nothing is formed, nothing “sprouts” - from the day of the funeral onwards. Consequently, this text remains misunderstood or is misinterpreted. It is in order to explain such texts in the true spirit of Scripture that we will consider what the New Testament says about the spiritual composition of man.
The most succinct text describing the composition of man is found in First Thessalonians:
May the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, both your spirit and soul and body
May it be preserved in its entirety without blemish at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
(I Thess. 5:23)
The three components of man are named here: spirit, soul and body. In the Greek text it is pneuma
- “spirit”,
psiuhé
- “soul” and
soma
- “body”.
Other texts also mention a fourth component - pnea
- “breath”.
This word appears in the ancient Greek translation of the Bible, the Septuagint, as the equivalent of the Hebrew neshamah
, “breath [of life][1].”
According to the Book of Genesis, God “breathed” this “breath of life” into man created from dust. Pnea
- the same root as
pneuma
- spirit.
Let's begin our analysis with the outermost “layer” of a person - with the physical body, called the “mortal body” in the New Testament:
So let sin not reign in your mortal body
End of introductory fragment.
Inner world: 9 ways to get to know yourself
Sometimes we get so caught up in someone else's life that we completely forget about our own. Let's take a few minutes to explore our inner world.
After all, the process of learning about yourself, your desires and hidden capabilities is no less interesting and exciting than surfing other people’s posts and profiles on social networks.
At the request of Dalshe.club, coach Ekaterina Kupcha spoke about how to get to know your inner world.
Self-coaching
Coaching is considered one of the most effective tools. This is a completely new direction in psychology, and every day it is becoming more and more popular.
Self-coaching is working independently with your thoughts and feelings. Independent work can be done by asking yourself questions that help you better understand yourself and the life situation in which you find yourself, as well as analyze your behavior in it. After all, all the answers are within ourselves. We ourselves become the source of all our decisions.
Ask others
A fairly common method and, perhaps, one of the most obvious is a conversation with people close to you.
Look at yourself through the eyes of the people around you. Each of us at least once in our lives has experienced moments when it seems that there is not a single person in this world who can understand you. However, this is not quite true.
As a rule, it is your loved ones who can give you a fairly objective assessment and help you determine your strengths and weaknesses. Of course, you shouldn’t ask such questions to everyone indiscriminately - choose people you trust and whose opinions matter most to you.
It is worth noting that getting to know yourself based solely on the opinions of others is not entirely easy, since people close to us are not indifferent to us and their opinions can be emotionally charged.
Meditation
When we hear the word “meditation,” many of us imagine a Buddhist monk immersed in a deep trance in one of the eastern monasteries. However, meditation is a much more earthly activity, namely a kind of dialogue between a person and himself.
Anyone can meditate and you can do it in any quiet and comfortable place, even your own room. All that is required of you is to take the most comfortable position, relax, try to stop thinking about pressing issues, which may seem like a difficult task for the first time, and ask yourself mentally questions that you would like to have answered and that are important to you in the future. this moment. Try to answer your own questions as clearly as possible and do not move on to the next question until you are completely satisfied with the answer to the previous one.
It might be a good idea to keep a journal in which you write down all the questions and answers after the meditation. This way, you can ask the same questions and see how closer you get to the truth with each meditation.
There are many practices and descriptions of various meditations, which you can get acquainted with both on the Internet and in special centers.
Yoga
With the help of yoga, you can understand yourself better and also get to know your body and soul better. In the modern world, yoga has become a simple form of sports exercise for many, but it is a set of exercises that help you free yourself from unnecessary thoughts and look deeper into your own inner world.
Yoga is to some extent similar to meditation. Detachment from everyday problems and the hustle and bustle in which we find ourselves helps us to understand our inner world and determine our place in this world.
Psychological test
One of the simple ways to get to know yourself better is to take a psychological test. There are a very large number of them: on the Internet, specialized magazines or books. It is worth remembering that not all tests are equally good and not everything you read on the Internet or in a glossy magazine should be unconditionally believed.
We all always strive to look at least a little better, not only in the eyes of others, but also in our own eyes. This means that when taking a test, sometimes we can choose not so much the truthful answer options as the desired ones, and not all tests can recognize our little trick.
So before you evaluate yourself with any test, it's worth at least reading a little about it. For example, an effective tool for self-knowledge is the Myers-Briggs personality typology, also known as the MBTI test. This test will help you better understand yourself and determine which of the 16 personality types you belong to. Each of the 16 types is characterized by individual forms of thinking, decision-making and positioning of oneself in society.
Personal diary
Very often we underestimate the importance of such a familiar thing as a diary. The diary is a reflection of ourselves, with it we share our experiences and thoughts, often those that we do not dare to share even with the closest people.
By re-reading the entries in the diaries, we can, as it were, look at ourselves from the outside. No matter how great the temptation is in the modern world to keep a diary electronically, the most effective way is to do everything the old-fashioned way, by hand.
When you describe some unpleasant incident or problem on a piece of paper, ideas come to mind more often, and the ability to find unexpected solutions to seemingly insoluble problems awakens.
Analysis of the situation
You can get to know yourself by analyzing situations. When a significant event happens to you, both positive and negative, it can be dissected and analyzed in detail.
If you analyze different situations in which you found yourself over a certain period of time and carefully note down all your thoughts, you will be able to find cause-and-effect relationships between them. This in turn will help you change your attitude towards many things.
Go game
The game Go is the most ancient and complex game on the planet. It appeared in Ancient China 4-5 thousand years ago. Go is played by completely different people: philosophers, managers, creative people, politicians and even children - everyone who has a desire to learn to control themselves, their emotions and learn the strategic and philosophical meaning of life.
Your actions in this game completely reflect your inner world. This allows you to get to know yourself and your opponent well, to understand your and his position in life. With the help of the game Go, you will be able to study the strategy of your life, and also come to an understanding of the laws of the world around you. Not for nothing, this game was popular with emperors.
Socionics
Turn to socionics for help. This direction in psychology, as well as MBTI testing, is based on the works of Carl Jung.
Socionic research will allow you to get to know yourself again, tell you how to build relationships with the people around you, what areas of activity you should pay attention to, and give you the right course for self-realization.
Option 2
(506 words) The inner world is a set of moral, ethical, intellectual and emotional manifestations of a person, closely interconnected with his life experience. What shapes our individuality depends on what we have experienced, changed our minds and felt. Therefore, uniqueness is most clearly expressed among those people who have a large store of knowledge, impressions and emotions. This pattern is confirmed by numerous examples from the literature.
Thus, M. Gorky in the play “At the Lower Depths” described a hero who, despite a marginal lifestyle, can boast of a rich inner world. Satin surprises the reader with his overflowing personality. He talks very interestingly and uses a lot of atypical words. In his remarks, a deep knowledge of the surrounding world and human psychology comes to the fore. How did a sharper and a convict manage to develop himself like this? “I read a lot of books,” says the hero. Satin “was an educated man” and expanded his vocabulary. His experience was also enriched by a severe trial - four years in hard labor for murder. A prosperous and promising telegraph operator found himself at the very bottom of his life because he defended his sister’s honor. Such injustice sharpened Constantine's mind. He became more categorical and critically thinking. But behind the feigned cynicism there is still hidden an ideology gained through suffering in dungeons and forced labor: “Man sounds proud.” Despite everything, Satin does not cease to believe in the strength and will of people, and therefore does not need pity. Therefore, his path, unlike the other destinies of the inhabitants of the shelter, inspires optimism: Konstantin can still find a use for himself and break out of the “bottom”, his intellectual and moral baggage will help him in this. It is obvious that his original inner world is a consequence of his rich life experience.
A no less interesting example was described by A.I. Kuprin in the story "Olesya". The main character spent her entire life in the forest alone with nature. A long time ago, she and her grandmother were expelled from the village for “witchcraft.” The fact is that both women had unusual abilities and could have been healers for the peasants, but superstitious people were afraid of what they did not understand. The outstanding gift was declared diabolical, so “witches” were blamed for all the misfortunes that sowers encountered due to the fault of the elements. But in forced isolation, Olesya gained more than she lost. She developed not only her hereditary talents, but also a rare individuality. She did not have the prejudices of the peasant environment. In her actions, she was guided not by ancient traditions, but by common sense. Thus, Olesya condemned hunting and consumerism towards the world around her. From nature she drew wisdom and the ability to heal wounds. She also had her own views on the relationship between a man and a woman. She did not see the need for marriage and was ready to live with her beloved without appropriating him for herself. Moreover, the heroine did not want to impose herself on her chosen one and would have left after he cooled off towards her. Olesya developed such an original view of things under the influence of an interesting life experience: she lived in harmony with the natural world and derived her morality not from communication with people, but from close contact with animals, birds and plants.
Thus, a person’s inner world is influenced by his life experience, namely the totality of impressions, feelings and thoughts after the trials and joys he has experienced. People with an interesting destiny are original and unique, and those who live monotonously and stereotypically cannot go beyond the narrowness of their understanding of the world.
Next, someone might ask: “Did Jesus Christ also have a motionless detachment when he said: “My soul is sorrowful unto death”? And Mary, when She stood at the cross? And they talk a lot about Her complaint. How is all this compatible with motionless detachment?
Here! You must learn here what the teachers say, that in every person there are two people. First, the outer man, the sensual; this person is served by five senses, but they receive their strength from the soul; secondly, the inner man, this is the innermost of man. Know that a person who loves God uses no more mental strength on the outer man than is required by the five senses: the inner man turns to the outer only because he is a leader and mentor who will not allow them to use their powers in a bestial manner, as Many people do this, living for the sake of carnal lust, like foolish cattle; these people are actually more worthy of the name of beasts than of people.
But the soul gives its excess of strength entirely to the inner man; and even if a higher and nobler goal appears to him, the soul also draws to itself those forces that it gave to the five senses, and then such a person is delighted and unconscious, for his goal is an insane and yet meaningful image or something reasonable without image.
Know that God expects from every spiritual person that he love Him with all the strength of his soul; therefore He says, “Thou shalt love thy Lord with all thy heart.” But there are people who waste their energies entirely on the external man. These are the people who direct all their thoughts and aspirations to temporary good. They know nothing about the inner man!
Just as a good person takes away the powers of the soul from the outer man when it is absorbed in a high task, so these people steal all the powers of the soul from the inner man and turn them to the outer. Know this: the outer man can be immersed in activity while the inner man remains free and motionless.
Also in Christ there was an external and an internal man, and in the Mother of God, and everything that they expressed in relation to external things, they did on behalf of the external man, and the internal man remained at that time in motionless detachment. In this sense, Christ said: “My soul is mortally sorrowful.” Her inner man was all the time in motionless detachment. Here's a comparison: the door moves on a hook; I compare the door leaf to an external person, and the hook to an internal person. When the door opens and closes, the leaf moves, but the hook remains motionless in its place and does not change at all due to movement. So it is here.
Option 1
(429 words) Has a person always been curious to know what influences his inner world? Why is he like this? How was his personality formed? The answers to these questions must be sought in the origin and upbringing of the individual. Being, as we know, determines consciousness, which means living conditions, environment, family, everyday life and morals - all this is reflected in our “I”. We find confirmation of this in the literature.
For example, A.N. Ostrovsky in the play “The Thunderstorm” portrayed a heroine who had a very rich inner world. Katerina was an exalted and dreamy girl, striving for freedom and love, possessing honesty, conscientiousness and willpower. She was very different from all the residents of Kalinov; neither her husband nor his relatives understood her. Why? What influenced its internal content? The answer is given to us already in the first act, when Katerina remembers her past. She was born into a family where it was customary to respect each other, where each person received personal space and had freedom of thought. The heroine's mother was a believer; her piety and high morality were passed on to her daughter. Katerina often went to church and spent a lot of time in the lap of nature. All members of her family lived peacefully, no one put pressure on anyone. That’s why Katerina was so painfully worried about the contrast between what was and what became. So, we can conclude that her unique inner world was formed under the influence of a prosperous environment and proper upbringing.
Origin and family are of decisive importance in shaping the inner world. This is proven by an example from the novel by I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons". Arkady Kirsanov became interested in the fashionable youth trend - nihilism. But from the very first pages the reader understands that denial and struggle are alien to the hero. He only imitates Bazarov in an attempt to find himself, but only loses his “I” against the background of Evgeny’s bright, but distant personality. The real Arkady is completely and completely like his father: he loves nature, art, quiet family joys. As befits a master, he “sybarizes” while Bazarov works. He is fascinated by scientific progress at the level of theory in the book, that is, again in the refraction of art. In practice, Kirsanov Jr. does not strive to carry out experiments and master the exact sciences. Gradually he becomes closer and closer to the ground, to the roots, to the family nest. In the finale, he exactly follows his father’s path: he marries for love, takes charge of the household and devotes himself to his family. He didn’t even think about nihilism, nor about his friend-mentor, because he found himself in a completely different direction. His inner world was formed under the influence of noble origin and his father's example.
Thus, our inner content is determined by upbringing, social environment and origin. Everything that surrounds us influences what feelings, thoughts and aspirations fill the soul. The world inside us closely interacts with the world around us; they are inseparable from each other.
