At the deepest level, at the core, the self is unchanging and intact, but not individualized; it is the same self for all of us; the Atman, the One Self. The experience of this self transcends time and space; it is static, yet is also dynamically and somewhat mysteriously present at all times and places, under infinite forms. The waves which differentiate themselves from the ocean are only surface appearances, and the tide never separates itself from the immovable sea. In the realm of space-time, wholeness exists only in the process. Here, we have emanating levels of differentiation and becoming. The transitions between states are subtle and determined by their sympathy. What we call causes and their effects are only the closest, most intimately related sympathies between things. Separateness is, then, a lack of sympathy, or likeness, but it is also largely an illusion, since everything is ultimately related to everything else through these bonds of sympathy. Nothing is entirely separate. Even sworn enemies share friends in common.
The core is the true self, the real deal. It is God, but it is also your true self, my true self, everybody's true self. This is what we mean we say God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. He is the deepest conviction of every heart, of which we yet remain unaware. Referring back to the idea of levels, I believe the archetypes of the unconscious are relatively close to the core, and the egos of individuals are relatively removed from it; just as gods are closer to God than men are. If, like Novalis says, "God wants there to be gods," it is because there are men, and because the chasm between God and men is so great. Between consciousness and super-consciousness, there is an entire ocean of unconsciousness; and, as nature abhors a vacuum, this ocean is filled with all manner of creatures and composite ideas, the significance of which can only be imperfectly known to the conscious mind, but which operate as touchstones, or catalytic go-betweens, relating the self to the Oversoul. They are true in that they are simpler than ourselves, but false in that they can scarcely indicate the simplicity of God.
Monday, November 18, 2013
On Procreation
More primordial and more deeply rooted than the energy called chi, is the energy called jing. It is profoundly related to the creative power which engenders the sexual act, and may be squandered through sex (or even misdirected through abstinence) if one's intentions are impure.
This energy which arouses our sexual centers also inclines us towards procreation and incarnation; just as people have promiscuous sex, so do they breed promiscuously, and incarnate promiscuously, as well.
Anything, even something holy, -- especially something holy, -- will be squandered if we are too casual where it is concerned, and will thereby become cheap and devitalized of meaning. Screams lose their potency when one is always screaming. Tears are disregarded when they flow too freely. How can there be reverence for bodies, when bodies are constantly caressed, or for babies constantly born, or for the earth that is overrun?
Though we celebrate the birth of a child, we do not accord the child, the miracle of birth, nor our godlike power to produce it, anywhere near the respect they deserve. That which God has done alone, man has coupled with woman to do, but not in the sight of God; that is, not with the reverence which is due to the act of creation, nor to the soul which incarnates through its cooperation or complicity with that act.
It is written that souls in the bardo, or in the purgatory which punctuates our incarnations, must incarnate according to the couples to whom they are drawn. If they find only the purest alliances, they will be drawn only by the most wholesome influences, and only in the direction of holiness. Then souls will incarnate under blessed conditions. But when they encounter lesser influences, they may well be tempted in the direction of lower realms. And, for the most part, that is exactly what we see happening on earth today.
When this divine creative power is abused, and the earth is overrun with souls, even the diligence of some cannot balance the liberality of so many. Seeing that there are already too many of us, all ensnared by cultural forces so far beyond our control, how can anyone with a pure intention think of bringing more souls into the world? The presence of a single orphan ought to signal every citizen as to when it is time to stop, and only when the last orphan has been adopted can procreation become, once more, a pure and selfless act.
What righteous man would think of bringing children into the world before he, his partner, and the world itself had been brought into balance? To do so would be to sacrfice the child; something only permissable when the child is divinely conceived; that is, when the child and the father are one! The vast majority of us are not prepared to be sacrifices, nor to sacrifice our young, -- yet, here we are, and here we come.
Do we not see the cliffs over which we run?
Is our momentum too great to restrain, and have we closed our eyes so as not to regard what we fear cannot be stopped? Truly, this world has become, to my mind, a monstrous heap of corpses at the foot of a more monstrous cliff. I believe we have fallen from grace, and fallen into the world, because we have fallen prey to haste, and to lusts untempered by love. I believe the fall was never meant for souls like ours, without wings to help them more softly descend.
Somehow, we ignored or overlooked the warnings of love.
This energy which arouses our sexual centers also inclines us towards procreation and incarnation; just as people have promiscuous sex, so do they breed promiscuously, and incarnate promiscuously, as well.
Anything, even something holy, -- especially something holy, -- will be squandered if we are too casual where it is concerned, and will thereby become cheap and devitalized of meaning. Screams lose their potency when one is always screaming. Tears are disregarded when they flow too freely. How can there be reverence for bodies, when bodies are constantly caressed, or for babies constantly born, or for the earth that is overrun?
Though we celebrate the birth of a child, we do not accord the child, the miracle of birth, nor our godlike power to produce it, anywhere near the respect they deserve. That which God has done alone, man has coupled with woman to do, but not in the sight of God; that is, not with the reverence which is due to the act of creation, nor to the soul which incarnates through its cooperation or complicity with that act.
It is written that souls in the bardo, or in the purgatory which punctuates our incarnations, must incarnate according to the couples to whom they are drawn. If they find only the purest alliances, they will be drawn only by the most wholesome influences, and only in the direction of holiness. Then souls will incarnate under blessed conditions. But when they encounter lesser influences, they may well be tempted in the direction of lower realms. And, for the most part, that is exactly what we see happening on earth today.
When this divine creative power is abused, and the earth is overrun with souls, even the diligence of some cannot balance the liberality of so many. Seeing that there are already too many of us, all ensnared by cultural forces so far beyond our control, how can anyone with a pure intention think of bringing more souls into the world? The presence of a single orphan ought to signal every citizen as to when it is time to stop, and only when the last orphan has been adopted can procreation become, once more, a pure and selfless act.
What righteous man would think of bringing children into the world before he, his partner, and the world itself had been brought into balance? To do so would be to sacrfice the child; something only permissable when the child is divinely conceived; that is, when the child and the father are one! The vast majority of us are not prepared to be sacrifices, nor to sacrifice our young, -- yet, here we are, and here we come.
Do we not see the cliffs over which we run?
Is our momentum too great to restrain, and have we closed our eyes so as not to regard what we fear cannot be stopped? Truly, this world has become, to my mind, a monstrous heap of corpses at the foot of a more monstrous cliff. I believe we have fallen from grace, and fallen into the world, because we have fallen prey to haste, and to lusts untempered by love. I believe the fall was never meant for souls like ours, without wings to help them more softly descend.
Somehow, we ignored or overlooked the warnings of love.
Providence and The Incarnation
We like to exaggerate free will, and say, "Character is fate," but if that were true, then patriarchy would exist on account of the inferiority of women, and every form of slavery would be justifiable on its face. It is essentially a "might makes right" model, which, in rendering all credit to the victors, ignores the complex web of influences which surrounds and ultimately entangles individuals within their fates. Free will, carried too far, would make heroes or villains of us all, but nothing in between.
There is no respect for nuance and fragmentation; the brew of unconscious potentials and drives aligning or cancelling one another out. All of this goes on beneath the surface, and can be seen only by those who look; that is, by those who think and imagine dimensions of possibility. Thinking, by itself, tends to acquaint the mind with connections, relations, and associations between things. Because of this quality, a person who thinks is more and more likely to consider every particular choice or occurrence as intimately connected with all that surrounds it and, only somewhat less directly, with all that is.
No man rises or falls alone. It takes a village to raise a hero. Or a villain. Sometimes it takes an entire nation. Or even an age. Epochs are perhaps required to produce an individual of true genius. And it may very well require the lifespan of history, to bring about an individual of messianic potential, whose character and fate are so perfectly aligned as to set him upon a conspicuous height, and to make him a martyr for all the world.
There may be prophets born from age to age, but it would seem that a messiah can only be born once. What such a man does, no man may do a second time, whatever his character may be. He may follow the way, but he cannot divine it. He can only declare what has been declared, and show what has been shown. And though his imitation might be perfect, it is an imitation still. The world will never be as confounded by him as it was by the first man to speak and live a new truth.
We may never know if Francis would have realized alone the same truths which Christ proclaimed, but we may be certain that, if he had been the first to discover, preach, and live them, then we would be calling Francis, and not Jesus, the messiah. If not his character, clearly his fate was determined in large part by that of another. Francis called himself a Christian, but if Jesus, like Francis, had come only after divine love had been preached and performed in the world, then he, too, would have called himself the disciple of whatever person had first, and most conspicuously, said and done those things which he also felt to be true.
But he was the first, and he understood himself that way. He was not a prophet, for he was neither imparting nor elaborating upon inherited wisdom. Rather, he was delivering the highest revelation and enacting the most perfect sacrificial rite which had ever been, and which would never again be revealed to mankind with the same potency with which it first appeared.
This is why he was the Messiah. Whether or not he was utterly superior and unique, more godly than any other person, is a matter of faith, disputation, and conjecture. What is certain is that he was the right man at the right time. Cultural pressures had gathered to a storm of more than cultural proportions, and a man of a certain temperament was born into a family and culture well-suited to provide the influences which would support his historical mission. Some would help to shape him with their love and others, with their hatred, would give him something to oppose.
Was it character or fate, which compelled him to be born at such a time, to such a Mother, in such a place? Had he really gathered around him an entire universe of accidents, and penetrated time and space at the exact co-ordinance to produce the most cataclysmic transformation of human consciousness? Isn't this the most traditionally romantic vision we have of him; the divine man whose omniscience and omnipotence permits him to orchestrate all things so as to set himself upon the center stage of history, and in the perfect light? Nonetheless, I think there is a more romantic vision yet.
Consider that the mountain does not force the tectonic plates to collide, in order to engender it's towering presence, but is itself forced into existence by that same conflict, and destined to acquire prominence by no power of its own. In my view, Christ did not arise from the ranks of men, but with them; on their shoulders and their backs. Even as the masses scorned, tortured, and brought him low, there were spirits, not merely in the flesh with him, but all through history, supporting him upon their shoulders, and carrying him to his appointed place; an honor and position not decreed by him, but nevertheless reserved for him (and received by him), according to the agreement of the good wills of many, many souls.
How can we doubt this, when he himself inquires of his God whether the crucifixion is a positively necessary culmination of his mission; or if it might still be possible to deliver his message completely without having to perform that gruesome spectacle? He does not want his fate, but prays that the cup be taken from him. Still, he resolves to do what is in accordance with his highest nature; his God. Only subsequent to this submission of personal will, is he convinced that the crucifixion is necessary if he does not want to transgress the ideals he has espoused, and prove himself a hypocrite; a mortal, after all.
Although he gives explicit permission to his disciples to deny him, to fall short, to sin and return in the full expectation of forgiveness and redemption, he knows that his destiny and his character are so well aligned that here, now, in him, and on this day, there is a chance for truth to be declared for all the world to see; not as some abstract ideal, but in the flesh; by perfect, uncompromised example.
Like all of us, he understood himself within a tightly woven context of human experience. Truly, God had become his all, and come to dwell within him, so that he no longer claimed possession of his own will, but moved only in obedience to the will of God. Yet, it was not without the work of countless ancestors, spiritual and biological, -- not without the support, assistance, direction, and encouragement of many good souls, each sympathetic to his purpose and useful to furthering it in some way, -- that he had come to be born with such exceptional proclivities and, finally, to rely upon God for his only strength.
It is natural, and may be supernatural, for all people to share in the atonement; for it was never the accomplishment of one man alone, but of the entire species, which only came to a head in this man. He is the point, but we are all the spear, and though we have not yet penetrated the heart of the mystery (not most of us, anyway), there is still something in every one of us which seeks and surrenders itself to the realization of the truth. How would we be so moved by his words and deeds, unless something were in us which corresponded, by affinity, or spiritual kinship, to something which was in him? Why would we recognize him as a God among men, and feel honored, even blessed, to wear the name of Christian, if something within us did not kick, like John the Baptist in the womb of Elizabeth, at the approach of the Lady pregnant with Our Lord? John was cousin to Jesus, just as our souls are cousins to the soul in Christ. It is the soul within which leaps to hear his name, because it senses the kinship between them. It is the soul which perceives its right to share in his name, by calling itself Christian. Because, in some ultimate sense, we share one blood, one name, one character, and one fate. That which is holy in us has never been of two minds. It has only been stunted and stifled in its growth, and permitted to break the surface here and there, in the lives of good persons. But it has always been one life, coursing through us all, above or below the surface, progressing without pause unto the eternal ocean of God's love.
There is no respect for nuance and fragmentation; the brew of unconscious potentials and drives aligning or cancelling one another out. All of this goes on beneath the surface, and can be seen only by those who look; that is, by those who think and imagine dimensions of possibility. Thinking, by itself, tends to acquaint the mind with connections, relations, and associations between things. Because of this quality, a person who thinks is more and more likely to consider every particular choice or occurrence as intimately connected with all that surrounds it and, only somewhat less directly, with all that is.
No man rises or falls alone. It takes a village to raise a hero. Or a villain. Sometimes it takes an entire nation. Or even an age. Epochs are perhaps required to produce an individual of true genius. And it may very well require the lifespan of history, to bring about an individual of messianic potential, whose character and fate are so perfectly aligned as to set him upon a conspicuous height, and to make him a martyr for all the world.
There may be prophets born from age to age, but it would seem that a messiah can only be born once. What such a man does, no man may do a second time, whatever his character may be. He may follow the way, but he cannot divine it. He can only declare what has been declared, and show what has been shown. And though his imitation might be perfect, it is an imitation still. The world will never be as confounded by him as it was by the first man to speak and live a new truth.
We may never know if Francis would have realized alone the same truths which Christ proclaimed, but we may be certain that, if he had been the first to discover, preach, and live them, then we would be calling Francis, and not Jesus, the messiah. If not his character, clearly his fate was determined in large part by that of another. Francis called himself a Christian, but if Jesus, like Francis, had come only after divine love had been preached and performed in the world, then he, too, would have called himself the disciple of whatever person had first, and most conspicuously, said and done those things which he also felt to be true.
But he was the first, and he understood himself that way. He was not a prophet, for he was neither imparting nor elaborating upon inherited wisdom. Rather, he was delivering the highest revelation and enacting the most perfect sacrificial rite which had ever been, and which would never again be revealed to mankind with the same potency with which it first appeared.
This is why he was the Messiah. Whether or not he was utterly superior and unique, more godly than any other person, is a matter of faith, disputation, and conjecture. What is certain is that he was the right man at the right time. Cultural pressures had gathered to a storm of more than cultural proportions, and a man of a certain temperament was born into a family and culture well-suited to provide the influences which would support his historical mission. Some would help to shape him with their love and others, with their hatred, would give him something to oppose.
Was it character or fate, which compelled him to be born at such a time, to such a Mother, in such a place? Had he really gathered around him an entire universe of accidents, and penetrated time and space at the exact co-ordinance to produce the most cataclysmic transformation of human consciousness? Isn't this the most traditionally romantic vision we have of him; the divine man whose omniscience and omnipotence permits him to orchestrate all things so as to set himself upon the center stage of history, and in the perfect light? Nonetheless, I think there is a more romantic vision yet.
Consider that the mountain does not force the tectonic plates to collide, in order to engender it's towering presence, but is itself forced into existence by that same conflict, and destined to acquire prominence by no power of its own. In my view, Christ did not arise from the ranks of men, but with them; on their shoulders and their backs. Even as the masses scorned, tortured, and brought him low, there were spirits, not merely in the flesh with him, but all through history, supporting him upon their shoulders, and carrying him to his appointed place; an honor and position not decreed by him, but nevertheless reserved for him (and received by him), according to the agreement of the good wills of many, many souls.
How can we doubt this, when he himself inquires of his God whether the crucifixion is a positively necessary culmination of his mission; or if it might still be possible to deliver his message completely without having to perform that gruesome spectacle? He does not want his fate, but prays that the cup be taken from him. Still, he resolves to do what is in accordance with his highest nature; his God. Only subsequent to this submission of personal will, is he convinced that the crucifixion is necessary if he does not want to transgress the ideals he has espoused, and prove himself a hypocrite; a mortal, after all.
Although he gives explicit permission to his disciples to deny him, to fall short, to sin and return in the full expectation of forgiveness and redemption, he knows that his destiny and his character are so well aligned that here, now, in him, and on this day, there is a chance for truth to be declared for all the world to see; not as some abstract ideal, but in the flesh; by perfect, uncompromised example.
Like all of us, he understood himself within a tightly woven context of human experience. Truly, God had become his all, and come to dwell within him, so that he no longer claimed possession of his own will, but moved only in obedience to the will of God. Yet, it was not without the work of countless ancestors, spiritual and biological, -- not without the support, assistance, direction, and encouragement of many good souls, each sympathetic to his purpose and useful to furthering it in some way, -- that he had come to be born with such exceptional proclivities and, finally, to rely upon God for his only strength.
It is natural, and may be supernatural, for all people to share in the atonement; for it was never the accomplishment of one man alone, but of the entire species, which only came to a head in this man. He is the point, but we are all the spear, and though we have not yet penetrated the heart of the mystery (not most of us, anyway), there is still something in every one of us which seeks and surrenders itself to the realization of the truth. How would we be so moved by his words and deeds, unless something were in us which corresponded, by affinity, or spiritual kinship, to something which was in him? Why would we recognize him as a God among men, and feel honored, even blessed, to wear the name of Christian, if something within us did not kick, like John the Baptist in the womb of Elizabeth, at the approach of the Lady pregnant with Our Lord? John was cousin to Jesus, just as our souls are cousins to the soul in Christ. It is the soul within which leaps to hear his name, because it senses the kinship between them. It is the soul which perceives its right to share in his name, by calling itself Christian. Because, in some ultimate sense, we share one blood, one name, one character, and one fate. That which is holy in us has never been of two minds. It has only been stunted and stifled in its growth, and permitted to break the surface here and there, in the lives of good persons. But it has always been one life, coursing through us all, above or below the surface, progressing without pause unto the eternal ocean of God's love.
Chiron
Chiron, the wounded-healer, signifies the whistleblower. Orbiting between the conservatism of Saturn and the idealism of Uranus, this cosmic body corresponds to the insider, the infiltrator, or the reformer who seeks the progressive transformation of a system without its immediate overthrow. He is also the repentant man, haunted by a criminal past which, yet, provides personal insight into the minds of criminals; making him a more effective and, at the same time, more sympathetic crime-fighter. Again, this is the man whose proficiency in a particular field has become a liability. Because of his skill, he is able to indicate the flaws in the work of his fellows, and in the craft itself, thus making him an outcast in the very field which he has mastered. Because he has transcended it, it has lost sight of him and considers him lost. Chiron is a teacher recently relieved of his position, or soon to be relieved. Without scorning obedience, he skirts the grey areas, where rules are unclear, and forces them to be defined. He may find the definitions running under his feet, like fault lines. Being forced to choose, he may set out on a middle way of his own. But it is never his intent to innovate. His intent is to honor the prevailing system, yet, in honoring it more than the majority of those who compose it, he is surprised to find himself undermining it altogether. He is neither the Hierophant nor the Hermit, but a kind of Heretic, who bridges the gap between the diocese and the desert. No red-blooded rebel will accept him, yet no traditionalist can take comfort in his claims.
Reflections In November
Idealists make the best cynics.
My romanticism is impractical. My practicality is unromantic.
Every part of me would overstep its place.
We are moths, decoyed by inferior lights, yet nonetheless worshiping the Moon.
Midas turned all things to gold,
but Shiva even turns them to ash.
The Destroyer has nowhere to sit.
My destiny is nocturnal; my path leads through the night. I cannot tell of the sun, but only speak of moonlight, stars, and lightning bolts; symbols, half-truths, and lies which may point the way to truth, or just as easily be mistaken for it. My fate is somehow to deeply realize and confess my blindness; to stop pretending I can see. I must, in all things, discover my foolishness, and unmask my ignorance of causes and outcomes. Those who live by the spirit know not where the wind comes from, or where it goes. Neither do they pretend to know, but merely speak what is revealed, and are sorry they cannot speak it more perfectly.
Art speaks to the intuition more persuasively than any analysis or argument could ever speak to the intellect. More clearly than by anything a critic could say, the shortcomings of an artist's work are illumined through a simple comparison with the work of a greater artist. While criticism may enumerate a thousand flaws, the truly superior creation speaks for itself, and its eloquence is complete; because it shows (and does not tell) the truth. If, despite this fact, it is still more popular to denounce what is wrong than to exemplify what is right, it must be because criticism, if nothing else, is within the reach of every man. To criticize is the unquestionable right of the many, but to create is the privilege of the few, and to create masterworks is more rare still. An entire library of reviews is not worth so much as a Mona Lisa, a Hamlet, or a David. Quantity merely exhausts us; it never rivals quality.
Men shut themselves in dark buildings, day upon day, for slave wages,
while sunlight drops like gold, and scatters coin over the trees.
All karma is bad. Even what we call "good karma" participates no less in the karmic wheel. Up or down, it's spinning still. But give no witness to the wheel. Your mind provides it momentum. Good and evil cannot be contemplated in terms of reward and punishment, personal merit or personal blame. Whatever the truth, virtue is compromised instantaneously, when consequences to the self are regarded, and the presence of God is ignored. This is why gathering knowledge of the truth is an error. Not because truth is one way or another, but because truth cannot be contemplated; or, rather, it can be contemplated only as one contemplates the life of a corpse; as something complete, and finished. Truth, in order to live, must be lived. And truth is lived by faith.
There is no movement both worthy and wide, whose founder was lately alive. True leaders can only speak clearly to posthumous followers. They are born long after they have died; their immortality begins where mortality ends; formed from the spirit of their works, and not their flesh. The greatest ideas are dropped like seeds into the compost of our times, and do not bear fruit until the ones who introduced them are silent in their graves.
To be an individual is to be an exception, not a rule. Yet, everybody wants to be both an exception AND and rule. It cannot be done. Not in one's lifetime, anyway. It is, rather, a project of considerable ambition, requiring tremendous faith in the future, and accomplished only by the path of martyrdom. To become a true, a conspicuous, creator and friend of the future, one must become a destroyer and enemy of the established order. It is the only way. The man who becomes a legend in his own time is, generally, the last man who should be trusted.
Certainty scares me. There is something so cold, so final, about having a conviction; cold, yet somehow hot enough to ignite the fires of fanaticism. I have a horror. I have a sense that every judgement is premature; that a sincere, heartfelt inventory of the factors involved in any given phenomenon would reveal them to be, if not infinite in scope, well beyond our scope. Every particular occurrence seems utterly predicated and contingent upon every other occurrence, as though there were only one thing happening. Then, to judge any particular thing, is to judge all things. Nonetheless, our judgments of things vary. We must suppose them to be separate, and the seams between them only too thin, too subtle, too buried, too obscure to meet our eyes. We should feel our way, making none but the most tentative, provisional judgments, always prepared to admit the limits of our vision; the broken, tangential lines of sight, which surround our convictions like cilia on paramecium.
Our language is a prison. We say "because", but, really, nothing happens because of anything else. Things happen together on account of their profound sympathy. What we call the effect is only the tail end of what we call the cause. But we like to chop things up somewhere and say, "here's the head, and here's the tail". Nonetheless, it's just one endless orouboros.
This is a small town. This whole planet is a backwater. You're lucky to find a handful of people who can think or talk about anything else. People who aren't blinded by the local prejudices and hampered by the local customs. People who think about leaving.
You can't despise someone who despises himself.
It's bad form. It's redundant -- that's what it is.
Narcissism is adorable. All children are narcissists.
Gabriel's horn is also Michael's sword; whether in the sphere of thought and speech or of faith and will, each divides the false from the true. The lightning bolt of Zeus is a kind of hybrid image, suggesting the clarion call no less than the striking power of God. To know truth, to proclaim truth, to trust truth, and to walk truth -- this is what the items signify. Likewise, Raphael's healing staff and Cupid's arrow represent the capacity to love truth. What distinguishes these symbols and the actions they convey is not as relevant as what unites them. They are different works, to be sure, but the Artist is the same.
There was a greater freedom of ideas in ancient Athens. You could say anything. The more provocative the better. People were hungry for novel perspectives. They took interest, not offense. A man like Diogenes was celebrated. He would not be today.
My romanticism is impractical. My practicality is unromantic.
Every part of me would overstep its place.
We are moths, decoyed by inferior lights, yet nonetheless worshiping the Moon.
Midas turned all things to gold,
but Shiva even turns them to ash.
The Destroyer has nowhere to sit.
My destiny is nocturnal; my path leads through the night. I cannot tell of the sun, but only speak of moonlight, stars, and lightning bolts; symbols, half-truths, and lies which may point the way to truth, or just as easily be mistaken for it. My fate is somehow to deeply realize and confess my blindness; to stop pretending I can see. I must, in all things, discover my foolishness, and unmask my ignorance of causes and outcomes. Those who live by the spirit know not where the wind comes from, or where it goes. Neither do they pretend to know, but merely speak what is revealed, and are sorry they cannot speak it more perfectly.
Art speaks to the intuition more persuasively than any analysis or argument could ever speak to the intellect. More clearly than by anything a critic could say, the shortcomings of an artist's work are illumined through a simple comparison with the work of a greater artist. While criticism may enumerate a thousand flaws, the truly superior creation speaks for itself, and its eloquence is complete; because it shows (and does not tell) the truth. If, despite this fact, it is still more popular to denounce what is wrong than to exemplify what is right, it must be because criticism, if nothing else, is within the reach of every man. To criticize is the unquestionable right of the many, but to create is the privilege of the few, and to create masterworks is more rare still. An entire library of reviews is not worth so much as a Mona Lisa, a Hamlet, or a David. Quantity merely exhausts us; it never rivals quality.
Men shut themselves in dark buildings, day upon day, for slave wages,
while sunlight drops like gold, and scatters coin over the trees.
All karma is bad. Even what we call "good karma" participates no less in the karmic wheel. Up or down, it's spinning still. But give no witness to the wheel. Your mind provides it momentum. Good and evil cannot be contemplated in terms of reward and punishment, personal merit or personal blame. Whatever the truth, virtue is compromised instantaneously, when consequences to the self are regarded, and the presence of God is ignored. This is why gathering knowledge of the truth is an error. Not because truth is one way or another, but because truth cannot be contemplated; or, rather, it can be contemplated only as one contemplates the life of a corpse; as something complete, and finished. Truth, in order to live, must be lived. And truth is lived by faith.
There is no movement both worthy and wide, whose founder was lately alive. True leaders can only speak clearly to posthumous followers. They are born long after they have died; their immortality begins where mortality ends; formed from the spirit of their works, and not their flesh. The greatest ideas are dropped like seeds into the compost of our times, and do not bear fruit until the ones who introduced them are silent in their graves.
To be an individual is to be an exception, not a rule. Yet, everybody wants to be both an exception AND and rule. It cannot be done. Not in one's lifetime, anyway. It is, rather, a project of considerable ambition, requiring tremendous faith in the future, and accomplished only by the path of martyrdom. To become a true, a conspicuous, creator and friend of the future, one must become a destroyer and enemy of the established order. It is the only way. The man who becomes a legend in his own time is, generally, the last man who should be trusted.
Certainty scares me. There is something so cold, so final, about having a conviction; cold, yet somehow hot enough to ignite the fires of fanaticism. I have a horror. I have a sense that every judgement is premature; that a sincere, heartfelt inventory of the factors involved in any given phenomenon would reveal them to be, if not infinite in scope, well beyond our scope. Every particular occurrence seems utterly predicated and contingent upon every other occurrence, as though there were only one thing happening. Then, to judge any particular thing, is to judge all things. Nonetheless, our judgments of things vary. We must suppose them to be separate, and the seams between them only too thin, too subtle, too buried, too obscure to meet our eyes. We should feel our way, making none but the most tentative, provisional judgments, always prepared to admit the limits of our vision; the broken, tangential lines of sight, which surround our convictions like cilia on paramecium.
Our language is a prison. We say "because", but, really, nothing happens because of anything else. Things happen together on account of their profound sympathy. What we call the effect is only the tail end of what we call the cause. But we like to chop things up somewhere and say, "here's the head, and here's the tail". Nonetheless, it's just one endless orouboros.
This is a small town. This whole planet is a backwater. You're lucky to find a handful of people who can think or talk about anything else. People who aren't blinded by the local prejudices and hampered by the local customs. People who think about leaving.
You can't despise someone who despises himself.
It's bad form. It's redundant -- that's what it is.
Narcissism is adorable. All children are narcissists.
Gabriel's horn is also Michael's sword; whether in the sphere of thought and speech or of faith and will, each divides the false from the true. The lightning bolt of Zeus is a kind of hybrid image, suggesting the clarion call no less than the striking power of God. To know truth, to proclaim truth, to trust truth, and to walk truth -- this is what the items signify. Likewise, Raphael's healing staff and Cupid's arrow represent the capacity to love truth. What distinguishes these symbols and the actions they convey is not as relevant as what unites them. They are different works, to be sure, but the Artist is the same.
There was a greater freedom of ideas in ancient Athens. You could say anything. The more provocative the better. People were hungry for novel perspectives. They took interest, not offense. A man like Diogenes was celebrated. He would not be today.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Bits of Burnt Letters Written From the 12th House
Everyone has ghosts. Some of us spend time with them.
Being spiritual on earth is like being vegan at a barbecue.
I am never more free, nor more captive, than in my own mind. It is as if, in order to survive, I have had to erect an entire, alternate vision upon the clouds, -- which accords not with the world as men have shaped it, but with the blueprint of God's kingdom; inviolable, and imprinted, once and for all, upon my soul. This alone has preserved me, while it has, simultaneously, insulated and divided me from my contemporaries and the world. It has made me a universe unto myself; a navel-gazing god. It is a wonder if I can still communicate, at all, with the outside.
Being spiritual on earth is like being vegan at a barbecue.
I am never more free, nor more captive, than in my own mind. It is as if, in order to survive, I have had to erect an entire, alternate vision upon the clouds, -- which accords not with the world as men have shaped it, but with the blueprint of God's kingdom; inviolable, and imprinted, once and for all, upon my soul. This alone has preserved me, while it has, simultaneously, insulated and divided me from my contemporaries and the world. It has made me a universe unto myself; a navel-gazing god. It is a wonder if I can still communicate, at all, with the outside.
Nature knows nothing of Heaven and Hell. These moral poles exist quite outside of the natural order. Nonetheless, they enter in by the breast of man; who is not a natural, but a spiritual creature. The soul of man is wider than the world. He imagines heights and depths which the entire cosmos cannot conceive, nor contain. He carries them within himself. In an indifferent universe, he turns all things to good or ill.
Whence comes evil? And why is there so much good left undone? We who are wicked have the luxury of asking these questions, and demanding a coherent response from God; while the righteous person is too busy with his Father's work -- healing the sick, visiting the prisoner, caring for the poor. The question of evil does not even occur in the mind of a righteous person, and it is only from the perspective of a righteous person that we may endeavor to understand God. Such a one has married ends and means, faith and works. He lives by faith because he lives by works; not asking with his mind, but answering with his deeds, and his life. Because his actions have become his words, he "says" much that is good, but on evil he is silent. God forbid, that he should cease to accomplish what is right, in order to speculate on the origins of what is wrong; or descend from blessedness, to participate in controversy.
I don't believe this world is worth fighting for,
but I do believe it is worth leaving in peace.
but I do believe it is worth leaving in peace.
We take for granted whatever we have words for. I want to seek those things for which we have no words, and when I find them, to leave them unexpressed.
History is the Tower of Babel. It is not waiting to collapse, but only to be abandoned. Scripture says the Lord confused the language of the people, so that they abandoned the work and dispersed throughout the earth of their own accord. This monument to human pride, which alone had served to unify the wills of men in a single, unprecedented undertaking, had suddenly become nothing to them. They could no longer make sense of it, or communicate it to one another. The power of God had made them mute. What He had shown them was beyond anything they possessed common words for, and every man, retreating into himself, to commune with himself in thoughts beyond words, was separated from every other man. What had brought them together had also made them ants in a colony. It had robbed them of humanity for the sake of erecting a mere idol to industry. It had to be undone.
Would it be going too far, to suggest that the human body is the Tower of Babel? That the city is incarnation itself. And the earth is more than the earth. Then, we will abandon this city, this planet, this entire corporeal realm of manifestation, and disperse ourselves as spirits over a multi-dimensional cosmos. No longer breeding ourselves into captivity.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Fragments
It is the nature of spiritual terms to require interpretation. In this area, everything is symbolic, everything is a sign. The spiritual meaning of a thing is never direct, but always suggestive of some hidden significance. It's function is to present an image to the mind, while implying deeper layers of exploration. The implications of great visions are endless. They stretch out in every direction, like light from a star.
The doctrine of Christ's Atonement may have been best articulated by astronaut Neil Armstrong, when he took his first steps on the moon: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." It carries a double affirmation. First, that all mankind shares in the accomplishment of any one man. Second, that when a man attains to a higher level of perfection, the entire species is raised to another level of evolution. Where hangs the first fruit, hangs the promise of spring.
Christ, who is a finite manifestation of an infinite truth, naturally conceals or leaves unopened much more than he discloses of the reality of God. Even the highest mountain peak in the world can only provide the most partial and uncertain inkling of the landscape of the globe. Nonetheless, there is much to be said in favor of the peak, which may well be the fruit and flower of the world. Is it not the form which most powerfully commands and raises up the eye, to a terrible, awesome height?
Whence comes evil? And why is there so much good left undone? We who are wicked have the luxury of asking these questions, and demanding a coherent response from God; while the righteous person is too busy with his Father's work -- healing the sick, visiting the prisoner, caring for the poor. The question of evil does not even occur in the mind of a righteous person, and it is only from the perspective of a righteous person that we may endeavor to understand God. Such a one has married ends and means, faith and works. He lives by faith because he lives by works; not asking with his mind, but answering with his deeds, and his life. Because his actions have become his words, he "says" much that is good, but on evil he is silent. God forbid, that he should cease to accomplish what is right, in order to speculate on the origins of what is wrong; or descend from blessedness, to participate in controversy.
"Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight...," meaning that flesh itself, even stone, would rise up and stand unambiguously for God, if this material realm were ruled by a heavenly spirit. But it is not. This world has laws of its own, which are not God's laws. People will say, "This is dualism," but dualism is not an exotic concoction of Gnostics and metaphysical cranks; it is plainly evident through much of scripture. While we tend to forget this, and interpret the Christian God as having created our world of struggle, suffering, and illusion, the only truly God-created world is Paradise. The rest is our adventure. Our foolish, egocentric tryst with everything. And while we belly-ache about the horrors of this world, not one of us gives up his will to God. We're attached to ourselves and all things. We all prefer the dream. We may blame God for the atrocities our children face, but, ultimately, we cannot deny the fact that they are here, not by His will, but by our own. We keep this world going. I think, against the will of God, we're "putting on the earth", and putting Heaven off.
You don't have to be everything to everyone. You don't have to be 10% of yourself to anyone. You can be all of yourself, to everyone, all of the time. You can be yourself. If somebody doesn't like all of you, they can go. Let them go. Why compromise yourself for their company?
I mustn't be so quick to write people off. Not every cause is lost. Who am I, to decide what a person is capable of; where their potential begins and ends? Who am I, to decide who they are; or when they are finished becoming who they are? Is anybody ever finished? Please, don't let me finish with myself! Offend me, provoke and unsettle me! I would never learn who I am without others to oppose me. It is through them that I become who I am. Yielding in some places, and holding fast in others, I learn what is essential to myself. Only the ego is threatened, and only the ego dies.
Only a dog sits still for a bone;
a man is good for goodness' sake.
It is a kind of insult to one's honor,
to be thanked, or rewarded,
for doing what is right.
The doctrine of Christ's Atonement may have been best articulated by astronaut Neil Armstrong, when he took his first steps on the moon: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." It carries a double affirmation. First, that all mankind shares in the accomplishment of any one man. Second, that when a man attains to a higher level of perfection, the entire species is raised to another level of evolution. Where hangs the first fruit, hangs the promise of spring.
Christ, who is a finite manifestation of an infinite truth, naturally conceals or leaves unopened much more than he discloses of the reality of God. Even the highest mountain peak in the world can only provide the most partial and uncertain inkling of the landscape of the globe. Nonetheless, there is much to be said in favor of the peak, which may well be the fruit and flower of the world. Is it not the form which most powerfully commands and raises up the eye, to a terrible, awesome height?
Whence comes evil? And why is there so much good left undone? We who are wicked have the luxury of asking these questions, and demanding a coherent response from God; while the righteous person is too busy with his Father's work -- healing the sick, visiting the prisoner, caring for the poor. The question of evil does not even occur in the mind of a righteous person, and it is only from the perspective of a righteous person that we may endeavor to understand God. Such a one has married ends and means, faith and works. He lives by faith because he lives by works; not asking with his mind, but answering with his deeds, and his life. Because his actions have become his words, he "says" much that is good, but on evil he is silent. God forbid, that he should cease to accomplish what is right, in order to speculate on the origins of what is wrong; or descend from blessedness, to participate in controversy.
"Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight...," meaning that flesh itself, even stone, would rise up and stand unambiguously for God, if this material realm were ruled by a heavenly spirit. But it is not. This world has laws of its own, which are not God's laws. People will say, "This is dualism," but dualism is not an exotic concoction of Gnostics and metaphysical cranks; it is plainly evident through much of scripture. While we tend to forget this, and interpret the Christian God as having created our world of struggle, suffering, and illusion, the only truly God-created world is Paradise. The rest is our adventure. Our foolish, egocentric tryst with everything. And while we belly-ache about the horrors of this world, not one of us gives up his will to God. We're attached to ourselves and all things. We all prefer the dream. We may blame God for the atrocities our children face, but, ultimately, we cannot deny the fact that they are here, not by His will, but by our own. We keep this world going. I think, against the will of God, we're "putting on the earth", and putting Heaven off.
You don't have to be everything to everyone. You don't have to be 10% of yourself to anyone. You can be all of yourself, to everyone, all of the time. You can be yourself. If somebody doesn't like all of you, they can go. Let them go. Why compromise yourself for their company?
I mustn't be so quick to write people off. Not every cause is lost. Who am I, to decide what a person is capable of; where their potential begins and ends? Who am I, to decide who they are; or when they are finished becoming who they are? Is anybody ever finished? Please, don't let me finish with myself! Offend me, provoke and unsettle me! I would never learn who I am without others to oppose me. It is through them that I become who I am. Yielding in some places, and holding fast in others, I learn what is essential to myself. Only the ego is threatened, and only the ego dies.
Only a dog sits still for a bone;
a man is good for goodness' sake.
It is a kind of insult to one's honor,
to be thanked, or rewarded,
for doing what is right.
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