Henri Bergson - liberating the wholeness of my being

For the 19-20^th century French philosopher Henri Bergson, we are usually not in touch with the fullness of our inner life. Our inner life is like a symphony that is made of myriad shades of emotions and thoughts and feelings and sensations. These shades continuously interact with each other and develop in novel ways. The result is a holistic flow, creative and spontaneous, in which every moment is shaped by the past and gives birth to new unexpected combinations and qualities.

However, for the sake of language and communication, we isolate specific fragments in our consciousness and give them generic names: ‘a fear', ‘a hope', ‘a pain'. Consequently, we are like a listener who cannot hear the symphony as a whole but only the separate sounds. These separate qualities are like dead leaves floating on the true river of our life. Thus we come to have fixed opinions and attitudes, rigid tastes and emotions, and we do not live the ever-developing fullness of our inner lives. In this sense we are imprisoned in the rigidity of the dead leaves.

However, it sometimes happens in special moments, when I need to make an important decision, that something inside me revolts. All of a sudden the hidden living river erupts through the dead leaves. I then decide to do something against my familiar opinions, against my fixed preferences, against my age-old fears and ideals. I act not because of any specific reason, but because the action expresses my entire being - my personal history and my present energies and my sense of myself and of life: I did this because this is who I am.

This, for Bergson, is a moment of real freedom, because it expresses the spontaneous and creative flow which is my personality. My previous actions emerged out of dead fragments of my life, but now they emerge from the wholeness of my being.

***

“These theories are almost opposed to each other,” exclaims Sara. “Epictetus wants to free our rationality from the prison of feelings, but Bergson wants to free the flow of feelings from the prison of rational thought. For Dewey, long-term decisions should be freed from momentary experiences, but for Krishnamurti the present moment should be freed from the past. Bergson wants my actions to emerge from my past, but Krishnamurti wants us to be in the present moment. Dewey wants us to use reason in order to achieve our personal desires, but Epictetus wants reason to overcome our desires.”

Linda nods, but John interrupts. “These theories made me think about a recent personal experience. The other day I met a young woman, and immediately I felt attracted to her. I said to myself: ‘No, John, don't fall in love now, you have just ended a relationship, and you need to be alone for a while.' But it didn't help. For the past two weeks I have been fighting against this attraction, but it's stronger than me. I can't get the woman out of my mind, although rationally I'd like to free myself from her.”

“And who is your ‘I' that wants to free itself?” asks Michael. “Are you the rational thought that wants to free itself from the attraction, or are you the attraction that is fighting against the rational thought?”

“Hmm… A good question… I feel that this attraction is a foreign invader, but I don't know why …”

Linda comes to his aid. “I'd like to give all of you a tool that can make it easier to understanding our ‘theories' of freedom. Is it alright with you, John, that I am interrupting you?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“We can call this tool ‘a dictionary of concepts'. To see what I mean, look at the theories we examined. You will see that although they all deal with freedom, each one of them uses very different concepts. For Krishnamurti, for example, the concept of the past versus the concept of the present is central. But for Epictetus these concepts are not important. For him the distinction between what we control and what we don't control is crucial. But not for Bergson. For Bergson the central concept is the holistic flow of consciousness. He even gives it a name: ‘duration'. But for Dewey the flow of consciousness is completely irrelevant.

“So you see, each approach to freedom is based on specific central concepts. Each theory has a different ‘dictionary of concepts'.”

“You are telling us,” Sara interrupts her, “that we should try to find the dictionary of our personal theory.”

“Exactly. Try to see which concepts are relevant to your moments of freedom or un-freedom. Is it the concept of ‘self control'? Or ‘limitation'? Or perhaps ‘self-expression? Try to write down the four or five most central concepts - not too many, otherwise it would be too confusing. This ‘dictionary' will help you formulate your ‘theory' of freedom.”

The participants now break up into small groups. For half an hour they help each other examine the conceptions of freedom that are embedded in their experiences. In a sense, they act as each other's philosophical counselors. Together they note patterns and examine them, formulate ‘dictionaries of concepts', and develop personal theories of freedom.

***

“Have you finished, Michael? So please choose a second experience of freedom, and try to work on it. I am sure you are more complicated than one single theory.”

Finally the participants finish their work. They gather together in a circle to share their insights. John explains the central concept in his experience of attraction: ‘disconnection'. His attraction to the woman was disconnected from the rest of his inner life. It was disconnected from his other emotions, from his plans, from his thoughts. “It felt like a foreign body in my soul. My whole being revolted against it.”

Others, too, share their experiences. Sara found that her experience was centered on the concepts of ‘outside invader' and ‘freedom fighter'. She had been free because she managed to make a decision in spite of her parents' pressure, and against other people's opinions.

For Phillip the central concepts were ‘spontaneity', ‘obstacles', ‘effortless' and ‘deliberation'. His experience was that of flowing spontaneously, without effort, without planning.

“I learned a lot about myself,” Angela says. “But what should I do with my new understanding?”

“This, of course, is a crucial question,” Linda replies. “We are starting to discover some of the ‘theories' that characterize our attitudes to life. These theories can be helpful in everyday life: They help us organize the world and deal with it. They are our guidelines: how to make choices, how to interact with others, how to achieve our goals, how to understand ourselves. The problem is that these personal theories also limit our world. They make our attitude to life mechanic, narrow, one-dimensional. Reality, after all, is much broader, much richer, much more multi-faceted than our little theories.”

“Like the cave in Plato's allegory,” murmurs Annette.

“Yes, in many ways our personal theories are like Plato's cave. They may be convenient and practical, but they give us only shadows of reality.”

“So what do we do?” “How do we get out of our caves?”

“We will have to explore this question in our future meetings.”

Voices of Human Reality