Friday, April 27, 2012
Reminders of Relaxation
The only problem is learning to relax.
The only true wealth is relaxation.
Relaxation brings you back to your center.
Relaxation brings you back to yourself.
Relaxation leads to the spring of higher intuition.
Relaxation leads to the pool of divine inspiration.
Relaxation leads to the fountain of noble speech and action.
Relaxation happens only when you stop running.
Relaxation is secure, compassionate, and aware.
Relaxation feels the most delicate sensual pleasure.
Relaxation floats on waves of happiness and love.
Drunk On Mother's Milk
RELAX
Shake off your humanity,
but only for a moment; --
so you can embrace it.
RELAX
We're all on fire.
Sit back and watch us burn.
Who can escape the inferno of Being?
Where would they go to?
Turn it off, go to bed, --
wake up; it's in your head.
My God is playing "hide & seek",
"chutes & ladders", with the vortex of self.
He is plucking the petals off of flowers,
musing, "He loves me, he loves me not."
And you,
who will not play, --
what is your part?
What role do you play?
Oh, my serious soul...
The world draws you into its depths,
and you Spring forth with greater mirth.
It's beauty enchants and draws you in;
it is not a thing to be contemplated.
Confess that you love the world!
There's another heartsick sucker
born every MOMENT.
No, the world cannot hold you,
but how can you shake off its drama?
And why would you? This shit is EPIC.
You love it. You know you love it.
'Physician, heal thyself.'
RELAX
And be in love with the world.
You cannot escape it,
and, even if you could,
you would throw yourself
back into its embrace.
My God, my Self,
how long have we been locked
in this turbulent romance?
How does one slake
the love that cannot be quenched?
My God, my World,
You break my heart,
yet, somehow, then
the love bursts forth.
"OH, THE HUMANITY!!"
Ha ha! What a lover! What a life!
(Now, go see another side.)
I am drunk on Mother's Milk,
but don't patronize me, Goddess.
Your peace cannot resolve
my infinite complexity; --
poets will be poets.
You cannot hold me to Your breast,
but, must release me to the world; --
to die, and die, and be reborn.
OH, MY SOUL!!
You can outlast everyone,
you stubborn son of a bitch,
but you can't outlast
The Everlasting.
Shake off your humanity,
but only for a moment; --
so you can embrace it.
RELAX
We're all on fire.
Sit back and watch us burn.
Who can escape the inferno of Being?
Where would they go to?
Turn it off, go to bed, --
wake up; it's in your head.
My God is playing "hide & seek",
"chutes & ladders", with the vortex of self.
He is plucking the petals off of flowers,
musing, "He loves me, he loves me not."
And you,
who will not play, --
what is your part?
What role do you play?
Oh, my serious soul...
The world draws you into its depths,
and you Spring forth with greater mirth.
It's beauty enchants and draws you in;
it is not a thing to be contemplated.
Confess that you love the world!
There's another heartsick sucker
born every MOMENT.
No, the world cannot hold you,
but how can you shake off its drama?
And why would you? This shit is EPIC.
You love it. You know you love it.
'Physician, heal thyself.'
RELAX
And be in love with the world.
You cannot escape it,
and, even if you could,
you would throw yourself
back into its embrace.
My God, my Self,
how long have we been locked
in this turbulent romance?
How does one slake
the love that cannot be quenched?
My God, my World,
You break my heart,
yet, somehow, then
the love bursts forth.
"OH, THE HUMANITY!!"
Ha ha! What a lover! What a life!
(Now, go see another side.)
I am drunk on Mother's Milk,
but don't patronize me, Goddess.
Your peace cannot resolve
my infinite complexity; --
poets will be poets.
You cannot hold me to Your breast,
but, must release me to the world; --
to die, and die, and be reborn.
OH, MY SOUL!!
You can outlast everyone,
you stubborn son of a bitch,
but you can't outlast
The Everlasting.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Divine Scraps
Even the enlightened are on their way.
The saints always talk about the saints, and say,
"They are no different from us, really."
You cannot inject peace into a situation,
but you can take conflict out of it.
If you do not relax, the mirror will not reflect your face.
The puzzle you have in hand can only be solved by putting it down.
If you can throw it away, it's a keeper.
You might be a Christian... if you shrug off the religion, and it attaches itself to you nonetheless.
I keep giving up, and finding Him!
I tried to pray,
but I broke into song...
Was this the reason for,
and the answer to,
my prayer,
all along?
Who loves Love, loves All.
It is the nature of error to be certain. The very instant you stop pretending to be wise, you have become a holy fool.
Put off your priestly garb, cast aside your unholy airs, and walk in the dust with Our Lord.
A false saint is too proud to receive applause,
while a true saint is too humble to accept rebuke.
"Take up your cross?" How do we take it up? Paradoxically, by putting it down.
There is no adventure but surrender.
What are they fighting over? A clod of dirt. A dry turd. Never anything.
Going into battle is only fleeing in defeat. Put down your sword, and take up your cup; drink with the victors, for whom the contest is done. There is no crusade, no great quest. The Holy Grail is whatever cup lies closest to your hand.
All who live by the sword live by the sword. Does it matter how they die?
We can add, even to God. --
The words of the wise are dead,
if we do not AMENd them.
Bring heaven down to earth -- why search the skies, when God is in the faces of the ones we love?
It doesn't matter, but don't give up.
A man inspired by God is God.
Every line is all I have.
Every exhalation deflates me,
and I must draw on Thee.
Silence speaks endless volumes.
The saints always talk about the saints, and say,
"They are no different from us, really."
You cannot inject peace into a situation,
but you can take conflict out of it.
If you do not relax, the mirror will not reflect your face.
The puzzle you have in hand can only be solved by putting it down.
If you can throw it away, it's a keeper.
You might be a Christian... if you shrug off the religion, and it attaches itself to you nonetheless.
I keep giving up, and finding Him!
I tried to pray,
but I broke into song...
Was this the reason for,
and the answer to,
my prayer,
all along?
Who loves Love, loves All.
It is the nature of error to be certain. The very instant you stop pretending to be wise, you have become a holy fool.
Put off your priestly garb, cast aside your unholy airs, and walk in the dust with Our Lord.
A false saint is too proud to receive applause,
while a true saint is too humble to accept rebuke.
"Take up your cross?" How do we take it up? Paradoxically, by putting it down.
There is no adventure but surrender.
What are they fighting over? A clod of dirt. A dry turd. Never anything.
Going into battle is only fleeing in defeat. Put down your sword, and take up your cup; drink with the victors, for whom the contest is done. There is no crusade, no great quest. The Holy Grail is whatever cup lies closest to your hand.
All who live by the sword live by the sword. Does it matter how they die?
We can add, even to God. --
The words of the wise are dead,
if we do not AMENd them.
Bring heaven down to earth -- why search the skies, when God is in the faces of the ones we love?
It doesn't matter, but don't give up.
A man inspired by God is God.
Every line is all I have.
Every exhalation deflates me,
and I must draw on Thee.
Silence speaks endless volumes.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
The Invisible Church
The Quakers, along with those admirable groups and individuals who inspired them, including the Savior himself, are humble members, neither proud nor ashamed, of what has sometimes been called 'The Invisible Church'.
According to this definition, these religious men and women are considered as one body, because they hold one simple belief in common, or, rather (regardless of what other beliefs they may or may not share), because they hold this one simple idea to be essential ro absolute.
Namely, the belief that within the individual there exists a sacred and mysterious something -- a hidden, invisible, immaterial, ineffable something; -- which, for the sake of convenience, has been called by various names, including "The Light", "The Divine Light" or "The Divine Inner Light".
Also, that this Light, with proper intention and application, may be known, and that, when one has known this light, one naturally will permit it, as a source of intuitive wisdom, to guide and empower one's life in harmony with forces which transcend one's conscious ability and understanding.
Moreover, that the substance (a word which is used here only with the utmost provisionality) of this invisible something may be best described as pure Light and Love, while the individual who allies him or herself to it partakes, in a most blessed way, of the nature of what is contemplated; even going so far, in exemplary instances, as to mysteriously become the object of contemplation; to become Love, Light, God, The Invisible, -- or, at any rate, an incarnation of what all of these can only point to. One might argue, -- and, certainly, many great theological minds have argued, -- that an incarnation, or manifestation, of something formless is, in fact, more real than the abstraction which inspired it, and, in a sense, gave form to it. My own feeling is that there is nothing the least bit unreal about an abstraction, and that, when we have eyes to see it, the world of our imagination will appear at least as real to us as the one we call actual now.
What is most paradoxical about those mystics who stand for the Divine Inner Light is that, while they have been called invisible, on account of their lack of affiliation (or their tentative affiliation) with religious organizations, their holiness has often been more visible than most. For what they experienced in their hearts, they poured out in words and deeds, and their message was not hamstrung (as it often is) by superstitious dogmas, choreographed rituals, or outmoded creeds, but was clearly and spontaneously manifested in the patience and compassion they extended even to those who persecuted them.
Unusual singleness of purpose and belief: among spiritual movements claiming to unify mankind, this is precisely what distinguishes the Invisible Church, of which Rumi (ostensibly a Sufi) was one of the most articulate members, and definitely one of the most thorough in articulating the essence of it's doctrine. Rumi understood, foremost, that the doctrine he expressed was a doctrine in name only; that nothing he ever wrote, no matter how purely inspired, could adequately capture the truth; but only imperfectly reflect it, out of love.
The poet sings of God, not because he believes his song is a true utterance of God, but it is only the nature of the poet to sing, and it is only the nature of the best poets to sing mystical songs of God.
The poet sings from a heart overful and desperate to dispense itself, as a convert gives all his earnings to charity. This is why poetry is a vocation for the poor, and, not withstanding certain fortuneate exceptions, poets live in poverty.
Absolute poverty, which is the cheif prerequisite for true humility, is a condition where not beven the identity may be claimed as a possession. It would be a misnomer to speak of "one's identity", or of having a self, or being a consistent entity, whose boundaries are not more fluid and dynamic than they are solid and static. A poet, to the extent that he is even a poet at all, will be up to neck in the subconscious, with only his mouth free, to utter prophecies.
Where the lunatic is mindless, the poet is merely disembodied. A madman is only one who has gone under, over his head, and cannot come up for air. He sinks, where the poet floats, and the mystic swims. But the poet must speak, even as he must breathe; exhaling visions so he may inhale further inspiration; which, for any artist, is life. The sage who tries to hold his tongue chokes on it, just as surely as the saint who tries to save his own life dies by his own hand.
He dies because he ceases to be what he is.
In the case of the poet, he is almost nothing, a cypher, a mist upon which great and strange visions are projected. He is similar to an actor, but the roles he plays he lives, and does not recieve or accept under contract. Anyway, he is no good for work; disabled for anything but inspiration; dependent upon the muses and, like Blanche Dubois, upon the kindness of strangers. And, who, to him, is not a stranger? For he is an alien in his own skin.
Whatsmore, he is fatally wounded by life. Not one day, as others are, when they least expect it. But everyday. He walks with Death on one side, taking jabs at him. He bleeds as he walks, and when he stands it is in a widening pool of his own freshly spilt lifeblood. He cannot live, really, but only bleed out, and sing the sad, strangely striumphant song of all he knows.
An abundance of knowledge, like an abundance of wealth, may become a great burden, if it is not charitably dispensed, through an equal abundance of virtuous words and deeds. There are misers of understanding, hoarders of sense, too proud of their learning or their unlearned insight; too proud to share it freely and, so, part with the distinction of having secret or obscure knowledge. There are some so greedy for facts, they make no discrimination as to ultimate value, but lump all knowledge together, as if no grouping of facts, however arbitrary or far-removed from the pursuit of human perfecton, were too insignificant to devote one's entire carreer to the classification of. Yet, this is what so many of our supposedly best minds are busy, very busy, with. Can there be any doubt that this not only a form of addiction, but a particularly dire and distressing one at that; a manifestation of the pettiest motivations of the species? Admittedly, such people may be admired for the passion of their curiosity (generally, a paradoxically "cool" brand of passion, but all the more fixated and unrelenting than the more impulsive variety), and their keen attention to detail. But their "cool" passion has clearly run away with their curiosity, and their keen attention to detail has overlooked the greatest distinction of all: the distinction between meaningful and meaningless.
'Knowledge is proud that he has learn’d so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.'
~ William Cowper
Others, with a most pure form of discrimination, tend almost singlemindedly to the development of their spiritual faculties. Dilligently, they record the visitations of Mary, Athena, or Kuan Yin, which grace their most blessed meditations. But they scrawl these revelations in private journals, and lock them in drawers as though they were adolescents stashing pornography; ashamed, or merely afraid of being found out. This is a great tragedy, for the light of grace is kindled in this way so rarely, and to waste such measureless blessings, pointlessly and unnecessarily, is to hide crystal candelabras under barrels, which would otherwise give light to the entire house, as well as be admired for their own beauty. While we may admire the humility which surely motivates the best of these "closet visionaries", even humility may be a trap, since one who wishes to conceal oneself must take care not to conceal the divine gifts which one has received, nor be ashamed of them; but proclaim them from the hilltops.
How desperately do our friends, family, neighbors, and enemies need to hear, over and over again, such glorious witnesses and vindications? Whole swarms of lies come buzzing out of their televisions, biting and infecting them where they sit. The streets are lined with madness; bright, obnoxious fonts on all the storefronts, competing for their attention, drawing their attention to what? Pettiness. Materialism. Anything but what enobles and edifies the human spirit. This is our environment; the psychic air we breathe and live on. This is the real smog.
How thirsty is the entire land for a rain of reassurance, and a comforting vision in the mist? How much longer shall those who see shut their eyes, and those who know close their mouths?
Some are fools because they cannot think, most because they will not. Some are lame, and still they walk, even if they have to limp and stumble. But they become strong. Others, with able bodies, lay about as though they were amputees. Ironically, through inaction, they become lame. But it is their will which suffers, and always suffered some ravenous, unnameable disease.
The maladies are varied and often hard to trace, in the body, in the mind, and in the surrounding conditions; wherever they arise. We may presume to diagnose some obvious affliction, and prescribe some equally obvious remedy. In reality, we are only the blind leading the blind.
Those who could see, diagnosed all maladies alike, as sin, and what they prescribed was both obvious and deeply mysterious. What they prescribed was love; an answer simple enough, but the practice of which could be difficult; a lesson often repeated, by one and all, but enacted rarely, by only a few.
We must admire the true mystics of all faiths, who have taken this teaching to heart. They accomplished what was essential, by ridding themselves of the superfluous. Irrespective of the various religions to which they may have belonged, they are all "honorary" members The Invisible Church; -- for, like those who expressly spoke of God as beyond all religions, their life and message was deliberately (indeed, religiously) simple. Their message was almost simplicity itself; regardless of what soil their mystical flower had sprung out of, what they advocated was essentiallly silence, sincerity, and love.
They were, moreover, easily prompted to distill the teaching even further, by saying only love.
According to this definition, these religious men and women are considered as one body, because they hold one simple belief in common, or, rather (regardless of what other beliefs they may or may not share), because they hold this one simple idea to be essential ro absolute.
Namely, the belief that within the individual there exists a sacred and mysterious something -- a hidden, invisible, immaterial, ineffable something; -- which, for the sake of convenience, has been called by various names, including "The Light", "The Divine Light" or "The Divine Inner Light".
Also, that this Light, with proper intention and application, may be known, and that, when one has known this light, one naturally will permit it, as a source of intuitive wisdom, to guide and empower one's life in harmony with forces which transcend one's conscious ability and understanding.
Moreover, that the substance (a word which is used here only with the utmost provisionality) of this invisible something may be best described as pure Light and Love, while the individual who allies him or herself to it partakes, in a most blessed way, of the nature of what is contemplated; even going so far, in exemplary instances, as to mysteriously become the object of contemplation; to become Love, Light, God, The Invisible, -- or, at any rate, an incarnation of what all of these can only point to. One might argue, -- and, certainly, many great theological minds have argued, -- that an incarnation, or manifestation, of something formless is, in fact, more real than the abstraction which inspired it, and, in a sense, gave form to it. My own feeling is that there is nothing the least bit unreal about an abstraction, and that, when we have eyes to see it, the world of our imagination will appear at least as real to us as the one we call actual now.
What is most paradoxical about those mystics who stand for the Divine Inner Light is that, while they have been called invisible, on account of their lack of affiliation (or their tentative affiliation) with religious organizations, their holiness has often been more visible than most. For what they experienced in their hearts, they poured out in words and deeds, and their message was not hamstrung (as it often is) by superstitious dogmas, choreographed rituals, or outmoded creeds, but was clearly and spontaneously manifested in the patience and compassion they extended even to those who persecuted them.
Unusual singleness of purpose and belief: among spiritual movements claiming to unify mankind, this is precisely what distinguishes the Invisible Church, of which Rumi (ostensibly a Sufi) was one of the most articulate members, and definitely one of the most thorough in articulating the essence of it's doctrine. Rumi understood, foremost, that the doctrine he expressed was a doctrine in name only; that nothing he ever wrote, no matter how purely inspired, could adequately capture the truth; but only imperfectly reflect it, out of love.
The poet sings of God, not because he believes his song is a true utterance of God, but it is only the nature of the poet to sing, and it is only the nature of the best poets to sing mystical songs of God.
The poet sings from a heart overful and desperate to dispense itself, as a convert gives all his earnings to charity. This is why poetry is a vocation for the poor, and, not withstanding certain fortuneate exceptions, poets live in poverty.
Absolute poverty, which is the cheif prerequisite for true humility, is a condition where not beven the identity may be claimed as a possession. It would be a misnomer to speak of "one's identity", or of having a self, or being a consistent entity, whose boundaries are not more fluid and dynamic than they are solid and static. A poet, to the extent that he is even a poet at all, will be up to neck in the subconscious, with only his mouth free, to utter prophecies.
Where the lunatic is mindless, the poet is merely disembodied. A madman is only one who has gone under, over his head, and cannot come up for air. He sinks, where the poet floats, and the mystic swims. But the poet must speak, even as he must breathe; exhaling visions so he may inhale further inspiration; which, for any artist, is life. The sage who tries to hold his tongue chokes on it, just as surely as the saint who tries to save his own life dies by his own hand.
He dies because he ceases to be what he is.
In the case of the poet, he is almost nothing, a cypher, a mist upon which great and strange visions are projected. He is similar to an actor, but the roles he plays he lives, and does not recieve or accept under contract. Anyway, he is no good for work; disabled for anything but inspiration; dependent upon the muses and, like Blanche Dubois, upon the kindness of strangers. And, who, to him, is not a stranger? For he is an alien in his own skin.
Whatsmore, he is fatally wounded by life. Not one day, as others are, when they least expect it. But everyday. He walks with Death on one side, taking jabs at him. He bleeds as he walks, and when he stands it is in a widening pool of his own freshly spilt lifeblood. He cannot live, really, but only bleed out, and sing the sad, strangely striumphant song of all he knows.
An abundance of knowledge, like an abundance of wealth, may become a great burden, if it is not charitably dispensed, through an equal abundance of virtuous words and deeds. There are misers of understanding, hoarders of sense, too proud of their learning or their unlearned insight; too proud to share it freely and, so, part with the distinction of having secret or obscure knowledge. There are some so greedy for facts, they make no discrimination as to ultimate value, but lump all knowledge together, as if no grouping of facts, however arbitrary or far-removed from the pursuit of human perfecton, were too insignificant to devote one's entire carreer to the classification of. Yet, this is what so many of our supposedly best minds are busy, very busy, with. Can there be any doubt that this not only a form of addiction, but a particularly dire and distressing one at that; a manifestation of the pettiest motivations of the species? Admittedly, such people may be admired for the passion of their curiosity (generally, a paradoxically "cool" brand of passion, but all the more fixated and unrelenting than the more impulsive variety), and their keen attention to detail. But their "cool" passion has clearly run away with their curiosity, and their keen attention to detail has overlooked the greatest distinction of all: the distinction between meaningful and meaningless.
'Knowledge is proud that he has learn’d so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.'
~ William Cowper
Others, with a most pure form of discrimination, tend almost singlemindedly to the development of their spiritual faculties. Dilligently, they record the visitations of Mary, Athena, or Kuan Yin, which grace their most blessed meditations. But they scrawl these revelations in private journals, and lock them in drawers as though they were adolescents stashing pornography; ashamed, or merely afraid of being found out. This is a great tragedy, for the light of grace is kindled in this way so rarely, and to waste such measureless blessings, pointlessly and unnecessarily, is to hide crystal candelabras under barrels, which would otherwise give light to the entire house, as well as be admired for their own beauty. While we may admire the humility which surely motivates the best of these "closet visionaries", even humility may be a trap, since one who wishes to conceal oneself must take care not to conceal the divine gifts which one has received, nor be ashamed of them; but proclaim them from the hilltops.
How desperately do our friends, family, neighbors, and enemies need to hear, over and over again, such glorious witnesses and vindications? Whole swarms of lies come buzzing out of their televisions, biting and infecting them where they sit. The streets are lined with madness; bright, obnoxious fonts on all the storefronts, competing for their attention, drawing their attention to what? Pettiness. Materialism. Anything but what enobles and edifies the human spirit. This is our environment; the psychic air we breathe and live on. This is the real smog.
How thirsty is the entire land for a rain of reassurance, and a comforting vision in the mist? How much longer shall those who see shut their eyes, and those who know close their mouths?
Some are fools because they cannot think, most because they will not. Some are lame, and still they walk, even if they have to limp and stumble. But they become strong. Others, with able bodies, lay about as though they were amputees. Ironically, through inaction, they become lame. But it is their will which suffers, and always suffered some ravenous, unnameable disease.
The maladies are varied and often hard to trace, in the body, in the mind, and in the surrounding conditions; wherever they arise. We may presume to diagnose some obvious affliction, and prescribe some equally obvious remedy. In reality, we are only the blind leading the blind.
Those who could see, diagnosed all maladies alike, as sin, and what they prescribed was both obvious and deeply mysterious. What they prescribed was love; an answer simple enough, but the practice of which could be difficult; a lesson often repeated, by one and all, but enacted rarely, by only a few.
We must admire the true mystics of all faiths, who have taken this teaching to heart. They accomplished what was essential, by ridding themselves of the superfluous. Irrespective of the various religions to which they may have belonged, they are all "honorary" members The Invisible Church; -- for, like those who expressly spoke of God as beyond all religions, their life and message was deliberately (indeed, religiously) simple. Their message was almost simplicity itself; regardless of what soil their mystical flower had sprung out of, what they advocated was essentiallly silence, sincerity, and love.
They were, moreover, easily prompted to distill the teaching even further, by saying only love.
When Love Is Not Enough
When love is not enough, love more.
'Love is the answer, and you know that for sure.' - John Lennon
Jesus says "Physician, heal thyself." Naturally, we all want to be physicians, -- individuals of such charisma, confidence, and grace that our very presence must provide a healing atmosphere for others-- but, we are all still patients, as well. When someone seems, or is, stubbornly resistant to our love, we must try to resist the temptation to subside into dispondency, or to respond by writing them off. We may have to confess that the sickness is as much ours as it is theirs.
If someone is unreceptive to our love, the problem could have a lot to do with our own inability to administer consistent doses of love, or to administer those doses in a way that the patient's psychic system can assimilate it. This is not something we need to feel inadequate about, but it ought to give us pause, when we are tempted to pass judgement on someone else. They say "It is a poor teacher who blames his pupil." Likewise, it must be a poor doctor who blames his patient, and a poor master who blames his disciple.
We are brought up in our society to think in terms of individual repsonsibility, but the largest problems we face are systemic; pessimistic as it may sound, we are only insects caught in a larger web. It is easier to blame the individual, the little man, and to discard him, than it is to understand and to work together for the reformation of an entire culture, -- and, yet, until reforms of this radical a nature are made, individuals will continue to suffer, and to bear the blame. Some types of people will never find their place, -- at least, not in a society which aggressively denies them one.
Perhaps the best we can offer them is a little sympathy, and if that doesn't raise their spirits, we must learn to release the rest to God. Not everyone will find peace in this life, but we can give them as much peace as possible, by not becoming just one more voice of judgment.
'Love is the answer, and you know that for sure.' - John Lennon
Jesus says "Physician, heal thyself." Naturally, we all want to be physicians, -- individuals of such charisma, confidence, and grace that our very presence must provide a healing atmosphere for others-- but, we are all still patients, as well. When someone seems, or is, stubbornly resistant to our love, we must try to resist the temptation to subside into dispondency, or to respond by writing them off. We may have to confess that the sickness is as much ours as it is theirs.
If someone is unreceptive to our love, the problem could have a lot to do with our own inability to administer consistent doses of love, or to administer those doses in a way that the patient's psychic system can assimilate it. This is not something we need to feel inadequate about, but it ought to give us pause, when we are tempted to pass judgement on someone else. They say "It is a poor teacher who blames his pupil." Likewise, it must be a poor doctor who blames his patient, and a poor master who blames his disciple.
We are brought up in our society to think in terms of individual repsonsibility, but the largest problems we face are systemic; pessimistic as it may sound, we are only insects caught in a larger web. It is easier to blame the individual, the little man, and to discard him, than it is to understand and to work together for the reformation of an entire culture, -- and, yet, until reforms of this radical a nature are made, individuals will continue to suffer, and to bear the blame. Some types of people will never find their place, -- at least, not in a society which aggressively denies them one.
Perhaps the best we can offer them is a little sympathy, and if that doesn't raise their spirits, we must learn to release the rest to God. Not everyone will find peace in this life, but we can give them as much peace as possible, by not becoming just one more voice of judgment.
Challenge With Love
Some readers may be familiar with a funny story concerning the teaching methods of Gurdjieff. Apparently, among his disciples, there was one terribly obnoxious and provocative gentlemen, whom the others, naturally, had difficulty tolerating. But when they complained to the master, he told them, 'I pay that man to be here.'
There is, of course, a beautiful truth in this. We can and must use the difficult situations of our lives, and the "difficult people" whom we encounter, to intensify our practice of virtue. But do we ever require more provocation? Aren't we already overstressed, seemingly confronted by an overabundance of irritations on all sides?
Francois Fenelon wrote that our pride is so tender, we are worse than third-degree burn victims; one can hardly speak to us, let alone touch us, without illiciting some painful or uncomfortable reaction. This is the ego, and the slightest footfall is enough to disturb it.
'It needs no earthquake to open the chasm.' (-Hawthorne)
Buddhism teaches, among other things, that the world already contains suffering by its very nature and we ought to do our best not to add to it. Simply to refrain from harm or evil is even more difficult than to actively do good, because abstaining from vice is itself the earliest, faintest, and most stumbling form of the practice of virtue.
What I propose, and what I believe the highest teachings have always proposed, is that we can (and we should) dissolve people's ego boundaries, and indicate their weaknesses to them, with absolute love. We don't need to exhibit some 'crazy wisdom' in order to disturb people's hang-ups. All we do is provide a bad example, and, yes, this makes some sincere disciples practice all the harder to be good, but how many lost sheep are summarily dismissed?
The Apostle Paul writes, "...if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." There is a way to challenge people without directly provoking them, and to accomplish all of these good things without employing disingenuous severity, as Gurdjieff did. We can accomplish all this, and more, just by loving them.
To practice is only to become aware of the distance between our present state and the ideal state of perfect virtue. We can do this, not by triggering one another's defenses, or by "hooking" them, and not by bringing more attention to our fallen nature, but by placing focus on something infinitely nobler and finer.
Shadows shrink before the light, and all who seek shadows must cower before the shining ones. Nothing alerts us to our sinful nature as poignantly as the presence of goodness, or of God. One who is immersed in sin does not see it, for it is his environment, and must appear to him natural enough; just as one does not so much recognize the water when one is submerged, as when one emerges into the open air, and every particle of exposed flesh is suddenly chilled by the wet. So it is when we are confronted by a vision of holiness; we are lifted up, out of a mire of sins, and feel them as they drip over every pore, and fall away.
There is, of course, a beautiful truth in this. We can and must use the difficult situations of our lives, and the "difficult people" whom we encounter, to intensify our practice of virtue. But do we ever require more provocation? Aren't we already overstressed, seemingly confronted by an overabundance of irritations on all sides?
Francois Fenelon wrote that our pride is so tender, we are worse than third-degree burn victims; one can hardly speak to us, let alone touch us, without illiciting some painful or uncomfortable reaction. This is the ego, and the slightest footfall is enough to disturb it.
'It needs no earthquake to open the chasm.' (-Hawthorne)
Buddhism teaches, among other things, that the world already contains suffering by its very nature and we ought to do our best not to add to it. Simply to refrain from harm or evil is even more difficult than to actively do good, because abstaining from vice is itself the earliest, faintest, and most stumbling form of the practice of virtue.
What I propose, and what I believe the highest teachings have always proposed, is that we can (and we should) dissolve people's ego boundaries, and indicate their weaknesses to them, with absolute love. We don't need to exhibit some 'crazy wisdom' in order to disturb people's hang-ups. All we do is provide a bad example, and, yes, this makes some sincere disciples practice all the harder to be good, but how many lost sheep are summarily dismissed?
The Apostle Paul writes, "...if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." There is a way to challenge people without directly provoking them, and to accomplish all of these good things without employing disingenuous severity, as Gurdjieff did. We can accomplish all this, and more, just by loving them.
To practice is only to become aware of the distance between our present state and the ideal state of perfect virtue. We can do this, not by triggering one another's defenses, or by "hooking" them, and not by bringing more attention to our fallen nature, but by placing focus on something infinitely nobler and finer.
Shadows shrink before the light, and all who seek shadows must cower before the shining ones. Nothing alerts us to our sinful nature as poignantly as the presence of goodness, or of God. One who is immersed in sin does not see it, for it is his environment, and must appear to him natural enough; just as one does not so much recognize the water when one is submerged, as when one emerges into the open air, and every particle of exposed flesh is suddenly chilled by the wet. So it is when we are confronted by a vision of holiness; we are lifted up, out of a mire of sins, and feel them as they drip over every pore, and fall away.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Alternatve Medicine (And Why It Remains Alternative)
I know you're open-minded, and you really do care, so I'm sharing this important information with you. After all, we can't make free will decisions if we are ignorant of the options.
The reason this information remains marginal, and has not been reported on NBC or CNN (besides the fact that people are weak or complicit, and so many of their careers, livelihoods, and reputations are at stake) is precisely because people dismiss it at a glance; because, just as the greatest thinkers and teachers throughout history have proclaimed, the vast majority of people really are too narrow-minded and impressionable to hear; for the most part, -- especially where the big picture and the big questions are concerned, -- people think only what they have been told, and remain deaf to radically new information.
The great thinkers and teachers have all been liberators of the will of mankind, because they shatter the illusions which limit people's choices; they are way-showers, who offer new avenues of inquiry and possibility. But, while we pay them lip-sercive, and may even read and appreciate some of their works in college, we tend to forget or ignore so much of what they have tried to tell us. Very few people remain life-long students of the immortal masters. Most get their views from the evening news, and the morning paper. Thoreau said, "Read not 'The Times', read the eternities." And many men and women of genius have tried to tell us that only a fool believes (automatcally) what he reads in the papers, or hears on the television.
The paradox is that these great minds, who have attended foremost to the eternal principles and lessons of history, are exactly the ones who saw what was really happening in their own times. They understood that the present time is not static, but dynamic; that the prevailing authority always tries to maintain itself, always goes to an extreme, and is always undermined by some radical element which enters from the margins. Thus the penduluum of history swings.
Geniuses have always identified with, and spoken for, outsiders, partly because geniuses have always been the ultimate outsiders; who stood above and beyond their contemporaries, and, yet, embodied the impulses and aspirations of their entire epoch.
I know you will take this lesson, and not remain deaf to the findings and testimonies of every doctor, scientist, researcher, and survivor whose views have not been endorsed by the very people who support, and are supported by, the very ideologies and institutions which the findings and testimonies of those doctors, scientists, researchers, and survivors are contradicting. You will not expect to receive new wine from old bottles.
"And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved." (-Luke 5:37-38)
New wine, in new bottles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGJYQ5E5T7Y
https://signup.netflix.com/movie/Healing-Cancer/70095421
The wine flows freely here, my friends, so, there's plenty more where that came from, if any of you wish to be throroughly intoxicated with this divine madness!
The reason this information remains marginal, and has not been reported on NBC or CNN (besides the fact that people are weak or complicit, and so many of their careers, livelihoods, and reputations are at stake) is precisely because people dismiss it at a glance; because, just as the greatest thinkers and teachers throughout history have proclaimed, the vast majority of people really are too narrow-minded and impressionable to hear; for the most part, -- especially where the big picture and the big questions are concerned, -- people think only what they have been told, and remain deaf to radically new information.
The great thinkers and teachers have all been liberators of the will of mankind, because they shatter the illusions which limit people's choices; they are way-showers, who offer new avenues of inquiry and possibility. But, while we pay them lip-sercive, and may even read and appreciate some of their works in college, we tend to forget or ignore so much of what they have tried to tell us. Very few people remain life-long students of the immortal masters. Most get their views from the evening news, and the morning paper. Thoreau said, "Read not 'The Times', read the eternities." And many men and women of genius have tried to tell us that only a fool believes (automatcally) what he reads in the papers, or hears on the television.
The paradox is that these great minds, who have attended foremost to the eternal principles and lessons of history, are exactly the ones who saw what was really happening in their own times. They understood that the present time is not static, but dynamic; that the prevailing authority always tries to maintain itself, always goes to an extreme, and is always undermined by some radical element which enters from the margins. Thus the penduluum of history swings.
Geniuses have always identified with, and spoken for, outsiders, partly because geniuses have always been the ultimate outsiders; who stood above and beyond their contemporaries, and, yet, embodied the impulses and aspirations of their entire epoch.
I know you will take this lesson, and not remain deaf to the findings and testimonies of every doctor, scientist, researcher, and survivor whose views have not been endorsed by the very people who support, and are supported by, the very ideologies and institutions which the findings and testimonies of those doctors, scientists, researchers, and survivors are contradicting. You will not expect to receive new wine from old bottles.
"And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved." (-Luke 5:37-38)
New wine, in new bottles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGJYQ5E5T7Y
https://signup.netflix.com/movie/Healing-Cancer/70095421
The wine flows freely here, my friends, so, there's plenty more where that came from, if any of you wish to be throroughly intoxicated with this divine madness!
WAY Outside The Box
After sharing some of my views concerning a way of life in which work would not be a central factor, I received the following response:
"What is the alternative to work if you want to eat regularly? You
can't even grow your own food without buying seeds first and that takes
money."
Although I had shared my views with a number of family members, this is the only response I received. Evidently, only one person had the time, energy, and care to ask a single question and present a single view of their own. I cannot thank this person enough for not automatically ignoring or dismissing my contrbution, and for being open-minded enough to even ask a question. I sincerely hope my answer is equal to it:
First, let me say that I agree with you.
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." (- Albert Einstein)
There's no way to accomplish this all at once. Rome wasn't built in a day, and Western Civilization won't be unbuilt, or revamped, in a day. The first step, though, is to change the way people think. We are living in a world where the old boundaries between groups of people are blurring and dissolving, because the real action is taking place on a global level; the internet and the economy are both globalized. Also, the boundaries between present and future are weakening, as we begin to confront the possibility of our own self-extinction. As strange or unnatural as it may be for them, in the beginning, people must begin to think about the big picture, and the root questions, or radical questions (the Latin origin of the word 'radical' is literally translated as 'root').
We have to honor the lessons of the past. Visonary scholar, Terence McKenna, repeatedly said that, when a civilization finds itself going down the wrong path, and wishes to correct itself, the smart thing to do is to return to the place where it went wrong. Otherwise, we just get more and more lost. But, what can you expect from a patriarchal society, which, like many men, refuses to turn back or stop for directions? We could stop for directions by consulting the few outposts of indigenous tribal peoples still left in the world, and especially in the Amazon -- that is, before we rape and pillage their lands, then assimlate them as wage-slaves, all under the banner of progress and free enterprise.
We can also learn from a study of the ancient Egyptian and Indus Valley civilizations, which were both founded in temperate climates, near rivers which flooded predictably, twice every year. They had only to toss seeds on the ground and let the cattle walk over the seeds. Everything they needed grew with hardly any labor. In Egypt, this allowed the people to have enough free time and energy to build pyramids, but I imagine we could find better uses for our time. In the Indus Valley, they built the first apartment buildings, and the first underground sewage system (which would, some 4,000 years later, become the envy of Mideaval Europe). The people of the Indus, some 3,000 years before the birth of Christ, had already "beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks" (Isaiah 2:4) Few weapons have been found. They did not have standing armies, nor practice the art of warfare. The people worked far less than we do. They used their time to reflect on the mysteries of life, to examine themselves, to develop thier higher capacities, to develop relationships with one another, to appreciate nature, to create works of art, etc.
'Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
That slaves, howe’er contented, never know...
How various his employments whom the world calls idle,
and who justly in return esteems that busy world an idler too!''
~ William Cowper
Some of the communities established by early Christians, just after the time of Christ, are especially exemplary. For one thing, they did not believe, as we do, in the concept of private property. Seed was not something you had to buy, or even plant, really. Orchards were not owned, seed was not hoarded. Do you see that we could cover this earth with fruit trees and all manner of useful vegetation, if we were not hung-up on this ideology of greed; of every man for himself? Is it work, to pluck an apple, or peel the husk from an ear of corn?
There is no work in Eden, and there will be none in the Kingdom of Heaven On Earth. Not really. What little labor is required would be undertaken eagerly and voluntarily, not under compulsion, but according to man's natural desire to be productive. That desire would not be perverted, and made to serve destructive ends, as it is now.
What we need is a Resource Based Economy. Much of the thinking and planning has already been done, and many people support this movement. The scientfic branch of this movement is called The Venus Project, and is rooted in the idea of Jacque Fresco, a modern day DaVinci. The activist arm is called The Zeitgeist Movement. At this point, we can begin, at the very least, by changing our thinking, and becoming spokespersons for a new vision. We may not get there, our children may not get there, but if we do our part now, our grandchildren or great-grandchildren might.
There is a lot to say, but thank you for reading this much.
The only questions we can answer are the ones we ask, -- which is why it is so important to keep an open mind; not to close the books, but to allow for the possibility of unforeseen methods and perspectives, and to actively seek them out. Our society is designed precisely to make this sort of independent inquiry difficult, by keeping us busy and stressed. Once, the structures we created were expressions of communal impulses, which served the people; now the structures are extremely hierarchical, designed to serve the few, and be served by the many.
A few quotes from thinkers:
"I came into the world to disagree."
~ Maxim Gorky
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti
"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule, the majority are wrong."
~ Eugene Debs
"A reasonable man conforms to the world around him, but an unreasonable man expects the world to conform to him; therefore, all progress is made by unreasonable men."
~ G.B. Shaw
"What is the alternative to work if you want to eat regularly? You
can't even grow your own food without buying seeds first and that takes
money."
Although I had shared my views with a number of family members, this is the only response I received. Evidently, only one person had the time, energy, and care to ask a single question and present a single view of their own. I cannot thank this person enough for not automatically ignoring or dismissing my contrbution, and for being open-minded enough to even ask a question. I sincerely hope my answer is equal to it:
First, let me say that I agree with you.
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." (- Albert Einstein)
There's no way to accomplish this all at once. Rome wasn't built in a day, and Western Civilization won't be unbuilt, or revamped, in a day. The first step, though, is to change the way people think. We are living in a world where the old boundaries between groups of people are blurring and dissolving, because the real action is taking place on a global level; the internet and the economy are both globalized. Also, the boundaries between present and future are weakening, as we begin to confront the possibility of our own self-extinction. As strange or unnatural as it may be for them, in the beginning, people must begin to think about the big picture, and the root questions, or radical questions (the Latin origin of the word 'radical' is literally translated as 'root').
We have to honor the lessons of the past. Visonary scholar, Terence McKenna, repeatedly said that, when a civilization finds itself going down the wrong path, and wishes to correct itself, the smart thing to do is to return to the place where it went wrong. Otherwise, we just get more and more lost. But, what can you expect from a patriarchal society, which, like many men, refuses to turn back or stop for directions? We could stop for directions by consulting the few outposts of indigenous tribal peoples still left in the world, and especially in the Amazon -- that is, before we rape and pillage their lands, then assimlate them as wage-slaves, all under the banner of progress and free enterprise.
We can also learn from a study of the ancient Egyptian and Indus Valley civilizations, which were both founded in temperate climates, near rivers which flooded predictably, twice every year. They had only to toss seeds on the ground and let the cattle walk over the seeds. Everything they needed grew with hardly any labor. In Egypt, this allowed the people to have enough free time and energy to build pyramids, but I imagine we could find better uses for our time. In the Indus Valley, they built the first apartment buildings, and the first underground sewage system (which would, some 4,000 years later, become the envy of Mideaval Europe). The people of the Indus, some 3,000 years before the birth of Christ, had already "beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks" (Isaiah 2:4) Few weapons have been found. They did not have standing armies, nor practice the art of warfare. The people worked far less than we do. They used their time to reflect on the mysteries of life, to examine themselves, to develop thier higher capacities, to develop relationships with one another, to appreciate nature, to create works of art, etc.
'Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
That slaves, howe’er contented, never know...
How various his employments whom the world calls idle,
and who justly in return esteems that busy world an idler too!''
~ William Cowper
Some of the communities established by early Christians, just after the time of Christ, are especially exemplary. For one thing, they did not believe, as we do, in the concept of private property. Seed was not something you had to buy, or even plant, really. Orchards were not owned, seed was not hoarded. Do you see that we could cover this earth with fruit trees and all manner of useful vegetation, if we were not hung-up on this ideology of greed; of every man for himself? Is it work, to pluck an apple, or peel the husk from an ear of corn?
There is no work in Eden, and there will be none in the Kingdom of Heaven On Earth. Not really. What little labor is required would be undertaken eagerly and voluntarily, not under compulsion, but according to man's natural desire to be productive. That desire would not be perverted, and made to serve destructive ends, as it is now.
What we need is a Resource Based Economy. Much of the thinking and planning has already been done, and many people support this movement. The scientfic branch of this movement is called The Venus Project, and is rooted in the idea of Jacque Fresco, a modern day DaVinci. The activist arm is called The Zeitgeist Movement. At this point, we can begin, at the very least, by changing our thinking, and becoming spokespersons for a new vision. We may not get there, our children may not get there, but if we do our part now, our grandchildren or great-grandchildren might.
There is a lot to say, but thank you for reading this much.
The only questions we can answer are the ones we ask, -- which is why it is so important to keep an open mind; not to close the books, but to allow for the possibility of unforeseen methods and perspectives, and to actively seek them out. Our society is designed precisely to make this sort of independent inquiry difficult, by keeping us busy and stressed. Once, the structures we created were expressions of communal impulses, which served the people; now the structures are extremely hierarchical, designed to serve the few, and be served by the many.
A few quotes from thinkers:
"I came into the world to disagree."
~ Maxim Gorky
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti
"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule, the majority are wrong."
~ Eugene Debs
"A reasonable man conforms to the world around him, but an unreasonable man expects the world to conform to him; therefore, all progress is made by unreasonable men."
~ G.B. Shaw
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Frost's 'Nothing Gold Can Stay' ("the Paradox of the Fortuneate Fall")
by Alfred R. Ferguson:
Perhaps no single poem more fully embodies the ambiguous balance between paradisiac good and the paradoxically more fruitful human good than "Nothing Gold Can Stay," a poem in which the metaphors of Eden and the Fall cohere with the idea of felix culpa. Six versions of the poem exist, the first sent to George R. Elliott in March, 1920, in three eight-line stanzas under the title "Nothing Golden Stays." In this version the poem lacked any Edenic metaphor, reading in the three last lines, "In autumn she achieves / A still more golden blaze / But nothing golden stays." In its first published version, however, in The Yale Review (October 1923), under the present title, the poet caught both the moment of transitory perfection and the sense that the Edenic ideal must give way to earthly dying beauty:
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
The poem begins at once in paradox: "green is gold . . . leaf's a flower." At once, common knowledge, precise observation, and the implications of ancient associations are brought into conflicting play. Green is the first mark of spring, the assurance of life; yet in fact the first flush of vegetation for the New England birch and the willow is not green but the haze of delicate gold. Hence green is a theory or sign of spring; gold is the fact. Gold, precious and permanent as a metal, is here not considered as a metal but as a color. Its hue is described as hard to hold, as evanescent as wealth itself.
In the second couplet of the heavily end-stopped poem, paradox is emphasized again, this time in the terms of leaf and flower instead of green and gold. The earliest leaf unfolds in beauty like a flower; but in spite of its appearance, it is leaf, with all the special function of its being, instead of flower. Yet as apparent flower (the comparison is metaphoric rather than a simile—that is, leaf is flower, not leaf resembles or is like flower), the leaf exists in disguise only a moment and then moves on to its true state as leaf. In terms of the two parallel paradoxes, we find the green which appears as gold becoming the real green of leaf; the leaf which appears to be flower with all the possible color of flower becomes the true green of leaf. Our expectations are borne out: apparent gold shifts to green; apparent flower subsides into leaf. But in each case an emotional loss is involved in the changed conditions. The hue of gold with all its value associations of richness and color cannot be preserved. Nor can flower, delicate and evanescent in its beauty, last long; hence we are touched by melancholy when gold changes to green and flower changes to leaf (actually "subsides" or sinks or falls into leaf). Yet in terms of the poem, the thing which metamorphoses into its true self (gold to green of life and flower into leaf which gives life to the tree or plant) undergoes only an apparent or seeming fall. The subsiding is like the jut of water in "West-Running Brook, " a fall which is a rise into a new value. It is with this movement of paradox that Frost arrives at the final term of his argument, developing the parallel between acts within nature and acts within myth. "So Eden sank to grief" with the same imperceptible movement that transformed gold to green and made flower subside to leaf. By analogy the third term in the poem takes on the character of the first two; gold is green; flower is leaf; Eden is grief. In every case the second element is actually a value, a part of a natural process by which the cycle of fuller life is completed.
Thus by the very movement and order of the poem, we are induced to accept each change as a shift to good rather than as a decrease in value; yet each change involves a seeming diminution, a fall stressed in the verbs "subsides" and "sank" as well as in the implicit loss in color and beauty. The sense of a fall which is actually a part of an inherent order of nature, of the nature of the object, rather than being forced unintelligibly and externally, is reinforced as the final natural metaphor recapitulates the first three movements of the argument: "So dawn goes down to day." The pattern of paradox is assured; the fall is really no fall to be mourned. It is a felix culpa and light-bringing. Our whole human experience makes us aware that dawn is tentative, lovely, but incomplete and evanescent. Our expectation is that dawn does not "go down" to day, but comes up, as in Kipling's famous phrase, "like thunder," into the satisfying warmth of sunlight and full life. The hesitant perfections of gold, of flower, of Eden, and finally of dawn are linked to parallel terms which are set in verbal contexts of diminished value. Yet in each case the parallel term is potentially of larger worth. If the reader accepts green leaf and the full sunlight of day as finally more attractive than the transitory golden flower and the rose flush of a brief dawn, he must also accept the Edenic sinking into grief as a rise into a larger life. In each case the temporary and partial becomes more long-lived and complete; the natural cycle that turns from flower to leaf, from dawn to day, balances each loss by a real gain. Eden's fall is a blessing in the same fashion, an entry into fuller life and greater light. Frost, both through language and through structure, has emphasized in "Nothing Gold Can Stay" not merely the melancholy of transitory beauty—of Paradise—but an affirmation of the fortunate fall.
Here is Frost's most evocative use of the felix culpa metaphor. The subsidence, the sinking, the going down is, by the logic of the poem, a blessed increase if we are to follow the cycle of flower, leaf, bud, fruit, into the full life that includes loss, grief, and change.
from "Frost and the Paradox of the Fortunate Fall." Frost: Centennial Essays. Copyright © 1973 by University Press of Mississippi.
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/gold.htm
Perhaps no single poem more fully embodies the ambiguous balance between paradisiac good and the paradoxically more fruitful human good than "Nothing Gold Can Stay," a poem in which the metaphors of Eden and the Fall cohere with the idea of felix culpa. Six versions of the poem exist, the first sent to George R. Elliott in March, 1920, in three eight-line stanzas under the title "Nothing Golden Stays." In this version the poem lacked any Edenic metaphor, reading in the three last lines, "In autumn she achieves / A still more golden blaze / But nothing golden stays." In its first published version, however, in The Yale Review (October 1923), under the present title, the poet caught both the moment of transitory perfection and the sense that the Edenic ideal must give way to earthly dying beauty:
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
The poem begins at once in paradox: "green is gold . . . leaf's a flower." At once, common knowledge, precise observation, and the implications of ancient associations are brought into conflicting play. Green is the first mark of spring, the assurance of life; yet in fact the first flush of vegetation for the New England birch and the willow is not green but the haze of delicate gold. Hence green is a theory or sign of spring; gold is the fact. Gold, precious and permanent as a metal, is here not considered as a metal but as a color. Its hue is described as hard to hold, as evanescent as wealth itself.
In the second couplet of the heavily end-stopped poem, paradox is emphasized again, this time in the terms of leaf and flower instead of green and gold. The earliest leaf unfolds in beauty like a flower; but in spite of its appearance, it is leaf, with all the special function of its being, instead of flower. Yet as apparent flower (the comparison is metaphoric rather than a simile—that is, leaf is flower, not leaf resembles or is like flower), the leaf exists in disguise only a moment and then moves on to its true state as leaf. In terms of the two parallel paradoxes, we find the green which appears as gold becoming the real green of leaf; the leaf which appears to be flower with all the possible color of flower becomes the true green of leaf. Our expectations are borne out: apparent gold shifts to green; apparent flower subsides into leaf. But in each case an emotional loss is involved in the changed conditions. The hue of gold with all its value associations of richness and color cannot be preserved. Nor can flower, delicate and evanescent in its beauty, last long; hence we are touched by melancholy when gold changes to green and flower changes to leaf (actually "subsides" or sinks or falls into leaf). Yet in terms of the poem, the thing which metamorphoses into its true self (gold to green of life and flower into leaf which gives life to the tree or plant) undergoes only an apparent or seeming fall. The subsiding is like the jut of water in "West-Running Brook, " a fall which is a rise into a new value. It is with this movement of paradox that Frost arrives at the final term of his argument, developing the parallel between acts within nature and acts within myth. "So Eden sank to grief" with the same imperceptible movement that transformed gold to green and made flower subside to leaf. By analogy the third term in the poem takes on the character of the first two; gold is green; flower is leaf; Eden is grief. In every case the second element is actually a value, a part of a natural process by which the cycle of fuller life is completed.
Thus by the very movement and order of the poem, we are induced to accept each change as a shift to good rather than as a decrease in value; yet each change involves a seeming diminution, a fall stressed in the verbs "subsides" and "sank" as well as in the implicit loss in color and beauty. The sense of a fall which is actually a part of an inherent order of nature, of the nature of the object, rather than being forced unintelligibly and externally, is reinforced as the final natural metaphor recapitulates the first three movements of the argument: "So dawn goes down to day." The pattern of paradox is assured; the fall is really no fall to be mourned. It is a felix culpa and light-bringing. Our whole human experience makes us aware that dawn is tentative, lovely, but incomplete and evanescent. Our expectation is that dawn does not "go down" to day, but comes up, as in Kipling's famous phrase, "like thunder," into the satisfying warmth of sunlight and full life. The hesitant perfections of gold, of flower, of Eden, and finally of dawn are linked to parallel terms which are set in verbal contexts of diminished value. Yet in each case the parallel term is potentially of larger worth. If the reader accepts green leaf and the full sunlight of day as finally more attractive than the transitory golden flower and the rose flush of a brief dawn, he must also accept the Edenic sinking into grief as a rise into a larger life. In each case the temporary and partial becomes more long-lived and complete; the natural cycle that turns from flower to leaf, from dawn to day, balances each loss by a real gain. Eden's fall is a blessing in the same fashion, an entry into fuller life and greater light. Frost, both through language and through structure, has emphasized in "Nothing Gold Can Stay" not merely the melancholy of transitory beauty—of Paradise—but an affirmation of the fortunate fall.
Here is Frost's most evocative use of the felix culpa metaphor. The subsidence, the sinking, the going down is, by the logic of the poem, a blessed increase if we are to follow the cycle of flower, leaf, bud, fruit, into the full life that includes loss, grief, and change.
from "Frost and the Paradox of the Fortunate Fall." Frost: Centennial Essays. Copyright © 1973 by University Press of Mississippi.
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/gold.htm
Famous Commencement Address
Adrian Tan, author of The Teenage Textbook (1988), was the guest-of-honour at a recent NTU convocation ceremony. This was his speech to the graduating class of 2008.
excerpt:
...That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste... you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them...
The most important is this: do not work.
Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.
Work kills. The Japanese have a term “Karoshi”, which means death from overwork. That’s the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there’s nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.
There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are “making a living”. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.
People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan “Arbeit macht frei” was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.
Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.
Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself....
I now say this to you: be hated.
It’s not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.
One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.
http://halfhalf.posterous.com/dont-work-be-hated-love-someone
excerpt:
...That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste... you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them...
The most important is this: do not work.
Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.
Work kills. The Japanese have a term “Karoshi”, which means death from overwork. That’s the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there’s nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.
There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are “making a living”. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.
People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan “Arbeit macht frei” was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.
Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.
Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself....
I now say this to you: be hated.
It’s not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.
One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.
http://halfhalf.posterous.com/dont-work-be-hated-love-someone
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Notes of Higher Instruction
When you go to study, walk proudly, and give your breast to the sun; do not trudge, as if through heavy snow, begrudgingly, with head cast down, and eyes vainly searching the cobbles for escape.
Indeed, how many, in this way, have become cobblers, who spent their days and decades contemplating the surfaces of stones? Had they looked up, stretched their throats, they might have become singers of holy songs.
Silas Marner is a tragic hero, when he fails to look up from his meticulous workmanship, not only because he misses the life of his golden-haired little girl, but because he misses his own golden life, the life of the world, and of God.
When you go to study, go as if to a sumptuous feast, and lick your lips; you shall drink and be warmed by the sweet wine of instruction.
One should look on the books of the wise as upon magical fruits, which cannot be eaten only once, but which provide greater nurishment each time they are consumed.
One should listen to the strong, peaceful words of saints, as though one were hearing celestial harps, at a banquet held by the angels themselves, in honor of the most loving god; the only god we call God.
We do well to imagine such things, for they are true, -- or, rather, by imagining them, they must become true. In a spiritual sense, you are where your mind is.
To transport oneself into the presence of the Lord, it is sufficient only to imagine oneself in the presence of the Lord.
The greater one's concentration, the greater one's vision. "Vision" is when seeing becomes creating, and those who have mastered the art of visualization, or vision, have mastered the art of manifestation, or creation.
But the dense spark of inspiration must be there. The flame of fidelity must burn quick, or it cannot be fanned by the breath of imagination. And where there is no inferno, there is no vision glimpsed in the fire.
His presence would cast no spell, nor his countenance carry the least currency, were one not humbled already by one's deep respect for The King. It is this devotion which makes the vision a reality. So, then, to call such a sovereign to mind, is to kneel before Him in spirit, just as surely as one would kneel before Him on his throne.
Marcel Proust wrote, "Desire engenders belief."
My friends, devotion is desire of a most noble order, and what it engenders is not belief, but the end itself; the thing believed.
Devotion to God creates God, and is God.
Therefore, we must take great care where we place our attention. "We covet what we see," and what we covet, or desire, we may easily become devoted to; yet, in the case of what is detrimental, we cannot properly call this devotion, so much as bondage; for one cannot be devoted to darkness, but only enslaved to it.
Yes, it is best not to look long upon whatever haunt us; for our eyes, staring weakly in the night, will give shape to our shadows in the form of ghosts; and our horror of ghosts may even give them flesh.
Think, rather, of Christ, for he is that blessed vision, that holy ghost of divine love and truth, the contemplation of which has been clothed in flesh!
For, if fear has given shape to demons, so has love, just as surely, given form to God; and as the one is crooked, so is the other straight.
If sins are everpresent, let them be everpresent occassions for remembering God! So shall we pray constantly, as the Apostle exhorts us, exhaling as perfume the same breath we recieved as stench.
Nietzsche tells us,
"When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
And those who do battle with monsters should take care,
lest they themselves become monsters."
What he did not realize is that one does not battle monsters directly, by one's own efforts, but, by relying upon the grace of God, which has already overcome the evil of this world. Violence is unthinkable in the presence of the sacred.
Give your heart to God, that evil may be empty-handed.
That good is good, and evil is evil, -- that good is even superior to evil at all, -- is proof enough of the glory of God; proof that He is God, and He has triumphed.
Those with vision can see this; it is proof to them. But those who are blind remain in darkness, even as the light shines in the darkness. How can you prove the existence of light to one who cannot see? Only faith can bring him sight, but for that, he must learn to see what is not there; that is, to imagine.
We become what we look at, sensory or imaginary; we reflect it, and the more we reflect it, the more it makes a lasting impression upon us.
Into this impression, all our spirit passes, like silver poured into a mold, and hardens as it cools. When the alchemical process is complete, the mold of the former self is shattered and discarded, but we incarnate into that which we have poured our spirit into.
My friends, make of yourselves ornaments to the highest good, and not trinkets of little worth; "for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also"; and where your love is, there will your soul be allied.
Wisdom is craving what is good; cleaving to one's protector.
We need only to relax, -- to become as infants, -- in order to discover ourselves at ease upon the lap of God.
We must put ourselves, and our senses, to bed; tuck them in, tell them a story, kiss them goodnight, softly bid them sweet dreams, and shut the door. Every infant whines at first, but learns to take pleasure in rest.
For too long, the very thing we called freedom has forged the bonds of our captivity. With carelessness, we prepared our gravest concerns. Now, with tears, we may sow the harvest of our highest joy.
Peace is not slack, nor weak; it is poise, dominion, sovereignty, life.
Any fool can learn how to work, but only a sage can learn to relax.
And to look up.
Indeed, how many, in this way, have become cobblers, who spent their days and decades contemplating the surfaces of stones? Had they looked up, stretched their throats, they might have become singers of holy songs.
Silas Marner is a tragic hero, when he fails to look up from his meticulous workmanship, not only because he misses the life of his golden-haired little girl, but because he misses his own golden life, the life of the world, and of God.
When you go to study, go as if to a sumptuous feast, and lick your lips; you shall drink and be warmed by the sweet wine of instruction.
One should look on the books of the wise as upon magical fruits, which cannot be eaten only once, but which provide greater nurishment each time they are consumed.
One should listen to the strong, peaceful words of saints, as though one were hearing celestial harps, at a banquet held by the angels themselves, in honor of the most loving god; the only god we call God.
We do well to imagine such things, for they are true, -- or, rather, by imagining them, they must become true. In a spiritual sense, you are where your mind is.
To transport oneself into the presence of the Lord, it is sufficient only to imagine oneself in the presence of the Lord.
The greater one's concentration, the greater one's vision. "Vision" is when seeing becomes creating, and those who have mastered the art of visualization, or vision, have mastered the art of manifestation, or creation.
But the dense spark of inspiration must be there. The flame of fidelity must burn quick, or it cannot be fanned by the breath of imagination. And where there is no inferno, there is no vision glimpsed in the fire.
His presence would cast no spell, nor his countenance carry the least currency, were one not humbled already by one's deep respect for The King. It is this devotion which makes the vision a reality. So, then, to call such a sovereign to mind, is to kneel before Him in spirit, just as surely as one would kneel before Him on his throne.
Marcel Proust wrote, "Desire engenders belief."
My friends, devotion is desire of a most noble order, and what it engenders is not belief, but the end itself; the thing believed.
Devotion to God creates God, and is God.
Therefore, we must take great care where we place our attention. "We covet what we see," and what we covet, or desire, we may easily become devoted to; yet, in the case of what is detrimental, we cannot properly call this devotion, so much as bondage; for one cannot be devoted to darkness, but only enslaved to it.
Yes, it is best not to look long upon whatever haunt us; for our eyes, staring weakly in the night, will give shape to our shadows in the form of ghosts; and our horror of ghosts may even give them flesh.
Think, rather, of Christ, for he is that blessed vision, that holy ghost of divine love and truth, the contemplation of which has been clothed in flesh!
For, if fear has given shape to demons, so has love, just as surely, given form to God; and as the one is crooked, so is the other straight.
If sins are everpresent, let them be everpresent occassions for remembering God! So shall we pray constantly, as the Apostle exhorts us, exhaling as perfume the same breath we recieved as stench.
Nietzsche tells us,
"When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
And those who do battle with monsters should take care,
lest they themselves become monsters."
What he did not realize is that one does not battle monsters directly, by one's own efforts, but, by relying upon the grace of God, which has already overcome the evil of this world. Violence is unthinkable in the presence of the sacred.
Give your heart to God, that evil may be empty-handed.
That good is good, and evil is evil, -- that good is even superior to evil at all, -- is proof enough of the glory of God; proof that He is God, and He has triumphed.
Those with vision can see this; it is proof to them. But those who are blind remain in darkness, even as the light shines in the darkness. How can you prove the existence of light to one who cannot see? Only faith can bring him sight, but for that, he must learn to see what is not there; that is, to imagine.
We become what we look at, sensory or imaginary; we reflect it, and the more we reflect it, the more it makes a lasting impression upon us.
Into this impression, all our spirit passes, like silver poured into a mold, and hardens as it cools. When the alchemical process is complete, the mold of the former self is shattered and discarded, but we incarnate into that which we have poured our spirit into.
My friends, make of yourselves ornaments to the highest good, and not trinkets of little worth; "for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also"; and where your love is, there will your soul be allied.
Wisdom is craving what is good; cleaving to one's protector.
We need only to relax, -- to become as infants, -- in order to discover ourselves at ease upon the lap of God.
We must put ourselves, and our senses, to bed; tuck them in, tell them a story, kiss them goodnight, softly bid them sweet dreams, and shut the door. Every infant whines at first, but learns to take pleasure in rest.
For too long, the very thing we called freedom has forged the bonds of our captivity. With carelessness, we prepared our gravest concerns. Now, with tears, we may sow the harvest of our highest joy.
Peace is not slack, nor weak; it is poise, dominion, sovereignty, life.
Any fool can learn how to work, but only a sage can learn to relax.
And to look up.
Friday, April 6, 2012
Good Friday and Easter Sunday
God does not reward us for our goodness, as others do;
God rewards us with our goodness, and for nothing we have done.
He does not love because you are worthy,
He loves because He is love.
How shall the world contain Him?
My greatest sin, perhaps my only sin,
is to have focused too much on my own sin,
and not enough on the Love of God,
which makes all things new.
Lord, roll the stone from my breast,
and resurrect Yourself from the tomb of my heart,
where You were buried as a seed of Divine Love.
Let me take no pride in riches, nor in poverty.
Lord, come into my life;
fill my heart, mind, words, and deeds
with significance and light.
Make me an instrument of divine song.
I give myself to You in rapture!
Jesus, I speak to my heart, when I speak to You.
You are my brother, my teacher, my doctor and guide.
Help me to know You as my truest friend.
You are mercy, charity, goodness,
mildness, tenderness, and strength.
Your name is a healing herb upon my tongue.
Lord, wash me of my iniquities.
Let me rise from this decaying flesh!
Reshape my soul in perfect light,
according to the plans You have laid down
(even as You laid down your life) for me.
Teach me to love as You love.
Open my eyes to the lessons You have given,
and the lessons You continue to give.
Have mercy on me, O Lord!
How desperately I need Your Grace
to draw me up from this abyss!
Lord, my very will is an abyss.
In Your Will is the only ground.
All my labors amount to so much waste;
at Your Word, Eternity came into being.
Calm my spirit, Lord,
that I may be a smooth rock
for the weary to rest upon.
God rewards us with our goodness, and for nothing we have done.
He does not love because you are worthy,
He loves because He is love.
How shall the world contain Him?
My greatest sin, perhaps my only sin,
is to have focused too much on my own sin,
and not enough on the Love of God,
which makes all things new.
Lord, roll the stone from my breast,
and resurrect Yourself from the tomb of my heart,
where You were buried as a seed of Divine Love.
Let me take no pride in riches, nor in poverty.
Lord, come into my life;
fill my heart, mind, words, and deeds
with significance and light.
Make me an instrument of divine song.
I give myself to You in rapture!
Jesus, I speak to my heart, when I speak to You.
You are my brother, my teacher, my doctor and guide.
Help me to know You as my truest friend.
You are mercy, charity, goodness,
mildness, tenderness, and strength.
Your name is a healing herb upon my tongue.
Lord, wash me of my iniquities.
Let me rise from this decaying flesh!
Reshape my soul in perfect light,
according to the plans You have laid down
(even as You laid down your life) for me.
Teach me to love as You love.
Open my eyes to the lessons You have given,
and the lessons You continue to give.
Have mercy on me, O Lord!
How desperately I need Your Grace
to draw me up from this abyss!
Lord, my very will is an abyss.
In Your Will is the only ground.
All my labors amount to so much waste;
at Your Word, Eternity came into being.
Calm my spirit, Lord,
that I may be a smooth rock
for the weary to rest upon.
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