The term exterior man designates our visible, objective and exterior part. The inner man refers to our spiritual part in each of us. It is our invisible, but essential part.
This inner part is not recognized by the world, preferring only its outer image. Deprived of any possibility of recognition, of valorization. When the inner man discovers his dimension of depth, he crosses the desert of solitude and incomprehension. He tends to move away from the world and its multiple occupations and purely external interests. From incomprehension to judgment, from isolation to loss of interest in everything that previously gave meaning. Previously he was in the crowd, here he is now walking alone in the meanders of his interior gardens.
Plunged into the depths of his personal abyss, the inner man no longer has the same appetite for the world. Because the latter loses its splendor and its interest. Priorities and passions change. He gradually frees himself from the external world as he descends into himself, an external world with which he shares fewer and fewer things. Freed from his own ego which until then triumphed on the surface of himself, he can finally survey his depths and take a more detached look at the world. He continues to participate in daily life and his duties, but with a new perspective.
This interior dimension is devoid of name, it does not have the easy and objective signs and points of reference of the outside world. Suddenly deprived of any form of map and sign that could indicate and border interior spaces, his state is comparable to a traveler arriving in a foreign country where he understands neither the language nor the customs. Deprived of all the usual lights called certainties, knowledge and beliefs; he must find within himself his own lamps and sources of light.
This inner dimension being unique to each person, its universal path is nevertheless known to mystics and hermits of all times and all traditions. Although he must walk alone, he can nevertheless find help and sources of light from guides who have already gone through their inner nights, and from religious and mystical works.