Sitaram's Literary Discussions
God and Joyce, rejoice! Concealed, revealed, august.
Mon bijou et mon ame, cosmos. Inner beauty ancient and yet fresh!
"Will it be accepted?" The cornerstone of all writer's block.
Accept yourself and acceptance shall not matter.
Fear only the fear of rejection.
Celebrate yourself!
In this university of life, a few publish and perish, but all perish.
Poverty amid riches.
Regret is the best ink and paper. Remorse is the tongue of a quickly writing scribe in sonnets or in psalms.
I tire of the fear to do. But wisdom begins in fear, and beauty in regret. I am god. Poetry is poiesis or creation and what is created is kosmos which may mean world or adornment.
How does one repent for the sin of regret?
Imagination is our microcosm; a world within a word.
O thou beauty, most ancient yet most fresh. far and wide have I sought after thee, alas, and all along thou wast within me.
How I have squandered this so precious time. Each diadem moment merely grains of sand withing my hourglass.
It was through waste that each became a gem
Each grain within the jeweler's gaze, that jeweler named Regret.
Beauty is simplicity of motion,
Envisioned in the eye or in the mind,
Constant and coordinated reflex,
The interplay of matter, force and time,
Stars in step with stars and galaxies,
Birth life death rebirth in cyclic patterns,
Change and evolution from the ocean,
Beginning, metamorphosis and end.
For all we know, there was an infinitude of time before our birth when we did not exist, yet such a thought does not sadden us one bit. Yet, the thought that we shall be dead for an equal eternity saddens and frightens us.
Some live in the future. Most live in the past. Only a few live now.
"Thou art not April unless I make thee so." - Wallace Stevens
Its all up to us. We make our own heaven or hell. We elect to be happy. We make ourselves happen. We make chaos. We make order. The entire message of the Bible is right there, in the first sentence: chaos and order; light and darkness.
God became man so that man might become God.
Light one candle and curse the darkness.
My words must now fork lightening!
Rage, rage against the dying of the light!
Because I shall soon be gone, my words must live on.
But all words die when the world is gone.
Moses Maimonides did not address the world, but only that one person, that one virtuous person, perplexed. Rambam's first chapter forks lightening.
You should not think that these great secrets are fully and completely known to anyone among us. They are not. But sometimes truth flashes out to us so that we think that it is day, and then matter and habit in their various forms conceal it so that we find ourselves again in an obscure night, almost as we were at first. We are like someone in a very dark night over whom lightening flashes time and time again. Among us there is one for whom the lightening flashes time and time again, so that he is always, as it were, in unceasing light. Thus night appears to him as day. ... For others the lightening flashes only once in the whole of his night. There are others between whose lightening flashes there are greater or shorter intervals. Thereafter comes he who does not attain a degree in which his darkness is illumined by any lightening flash. It is illumined, however, by a polished body or something of that kind, stones or something else that give light in the darkness of the night. And even this small light that shines over us is not always there, but flashes and is hidden again, as if it were "the flaming sword which turneth every way."
Oh, do not caste my from this garden of words, for I have tasted of the apples of gold!
Diogenes holds up his lantern in broad daylight, searching for an honest man.
Why this darkness at noonday?
The history of God and creation is the history of art in reverse. The big bang is abstract and postmodern. An absinthe soaked demiurge places a canvas of bare being on the tsimtsum floor of fantasy and savagely splashes disjointed, rabid colors of quantum, driving googles of naked, crazed angels to wallow and slither with barest feet. Drying across burdensome, spanning eons, these frantic antinomies come to symmetrical focus in the mayic vision of nebular consciousness as the classic romanticism of relativity, in procession through the doric, newtonian columns, perfected in indolence to the ideal temple and ark of the mosaic, and finally framed in historical archive of archetypal campfire flicker in dreamtime caverns.
"Tsimtsum" is a Yiddish term from the Kaballa, meaning "contraction/withdrawal;" the notion that God is such a fullness, completeness, that He must first contract or withdraw to make room for creation of the world.
One of the terms in Hebrew for God in the Torah is Makom (place). God is the PLACE of the world. God is not in the world.
There is a painting in the Washington National Gallery (which I have never seen) entitled Tsim Tsum.
There are only a very few who take an interest in these ideas of mine.
I often feel forlorn that there are so few take a genuine interest; forlorn at the thought that perhaps I deceive myself.
But, I have no choice. As Pascal said in the Pensees "I am already embarked."
Could I ever express one original idea which would ignite the world's imagination into a blazing glory? Ink can be highly flammable.
Freedom is the greatest bliss. But the price of freedom is error.
A true savior saves even the unwilling; especially the unwilling. To be saved you must first be damned.
What is the most memorable sentence ever uttered? "Workers of the world, unite?" "Know thyself?" "In my fathers house there are many mansions?" "We hold these truths to be self evident?" "Let there be light?"
There are over six billion people in the world at this moment. If we could record every word and every thought for one day, a sampling of human consciousness, what would we find? What would be the greatest thought, the noblest thought, the most selfless thought? What would occur most frequently. What might we find which has never been expressed before in human history?
Well, if I am really going to be the savior of humanity, and create another universe for us to escape into, I am going to need a helper. Actually, come to think of it, one helper will not be enough. What I need are two helpers; a dynamic duo. Joining me, we make three.
Three is enough to handle most situations.
Birds make nice helpers. They are interesting and can fly. There is a parrot I know of by the name of Aristophanes. His assistant is Angelika, custodian of peanuts.
I do want you, the reader, to be comfortable with my choice. Aristophanes happens to have quite an impressive resume. Wait, I have it right here. Let me read you some things about Aristophanes:
“I dwell in the heart of every living creature, all mercy, turning each face inward. My face is everywhere. I am the green bird with red eyes. When you see me, content, then your grief passes away. Two inseparable friends cling to the same tree. One eats, while the other looks on.”
We now bring you a message from someone very important; our reader. The reader is our sponsor:
This reader has written the following:
“After reading the first two pages, I find insight. But I have a question for you. Are you writing this for scholars or the common man? Most will not understand a lot of your terms. Nor will they understand the culture and religious beliefs of the east. You must remember this. That if you are going to write for everyone, then you must put the language as simple as possible, so anyone can understand your point.
You may have the greatest points of wisdom this side of Solomon, but unless those who read understand, then the beauty of truth is lost. Remember, most of humanity only care about what goes on in their world and how the world as a whole, affects them.
I'm looking forward to read this work. Thanks for allowing me to do so.”
I must really take this excellent question to heart. How badly do I want popularity?
I think I may have found the answer in two movies: “Wings of Desire” and its American re-make “City of Angels.” The American version is popular, but the German original is profound.
The German original stresses two key elements: childhood and the storyteller, which are precisely two of the key topics that I have stressed so far.
There is no mention of either in the American remake.
I am reminded just now of a scene from "Wings of Desire" (Himmel Uber Berlin), where Peter Faulk is shooting a movie, and he looks at the "extras", laughs to himself and comments "extra people"
It comes down to Kant's point about treating people as a means to some end, versus treating them as ends in themselves
Sartre points out a "damned if you do and damned if you dont" situation, a young man in France, during the occupation, sole support of his aging mother, who wants to join his friends in the underground resistance
We always make our heros die, if our readers dont die first.
People are telling me to be real by not being the real me, but being the real you (or the real majority at Barnes and Noble.)
People tell me they cannot find my message.
Akira Kurosawa was asked about the message of "The Seven Samurai," and he replied "if there were a message, I would not have made the movie. I would have simply held up a sign with the message on it."
I was a pedophile as a child, but I grew up to be a gerophile.
There are some stories with happy endings.
Popularity at any price is too high a price to pay.
What we need is more churches and more McDonalds: fast food, fast faith, quick fixes, salvation for people "on the go."
Those who take up the axe of reason
And fell the tree of paradox
In the forest of mysticism
Inevitably have chips on their shoulders.
"I figgered about the Holy Sperit and the Jesus
road. I figgered, 'Why do we got to hang it on
God or Jesus? Maybe', I figgered, 'maybe it's all
men an' all women we love; maybe that's the Holy
Sperit- the human sperit- the whole shebang. Maybe
all men got one big soul ever'body's a part of.'
Now I sat there thinkin' it, an' all of a suddent-
I knew it. I knew it so deep down that it was
true, and I still know it."
-John Steinbeck, "The Grapes of Wrath", ch. 4
Here's a little story. A boy lives near a small, quick-flowing river, and every day he takes his canoe and tries to navigate the complex of swirling eddies, smooth-flowing pour-overs, and frothy standing waves. In the boy's first attempts, he paddles frantically, but still bashes against rocks, takes on water, and even sinks his canoe a few times. But as he keeps trying to navigate the river, he begins to learn where all the really nasty spots are, and how to build up momentum prior to entering a rapid, so he can use the momentum to carry him through the standing waves. Eventually he stops capsizing, and only takes on a little water every now and again.
This could be the end of the story, but the boy falls in love with this river that has humbled him many times, and for which the boy has learned great respect. Nothing gives the boy more pleasure than steering his craft down the currents - it is rather meditative. Over many summers, the boy refines his strokes, so that he makes navigating even the trickiest rapids look easy. The boy is still attentive and respectful of the river – he knows it has the power to kill him if he is distracted at the wrong moment – but he also learns to trust the river. One day the boy notices that he no longer worries about whether he'll successfully navigate the rapids; rather, he dances joyfully with the river, pushing gently with his paddle almost unconsciously, letting the river do almost all the work. At the end of the previous paragraph, the boy knew the river in his mind, but now, he knows the river in his heart; the soul of the river and of the boy have touched.
Do not seek to travel to this and that Holy Place of Pilgrimage.
Make your very heart a Tirth and Sanctuary and Holy Place: then WHEREVER you happen to be shall become a sacred place of pilgrimage.
Do not look to Kashi or Benares or Jerusalem or Mecca for that which is sacred or sanctifying. Do not look for your personal sanctification to your bathing in the Ganges or your Christian Baptism or your Muslim Wudu bathing, or your Jewish Mikvah immersion, or to your prayer beads or mala or to your prayer mat. Instead, make your very heart and mind and thoughts and daily life into something sacred. Do not depend upon external forms and objects or dogma and doctrine for what is sacred. Do not depend upon Prophets and Angels and Holy Books and Gurus and Miracles and Avatars and Mediators. Be your own miracle. Master yourself. Unite your own Self with the Divine. Don't lay around waiting for Muhammad or Jesus or Gabriel or Krishna or anyone else to do this for you. Rather, do it for yourself, with each day of your life, wherever you are, and whatever you are doing.
Name, Form, Self, Context
Context is important. A line or a dot has no meaning until it is in the context of a drawing, in association with other lines and dots, and also in association with a "beholder" who perceives the lines and dots in a certain way in a certain way.
Abraham Lincoln was a great man precisely because he was found in a certain context, in a certain society, in a certain historical period, in a certain culture, faced with certain problems to be overcome. If Abraham Lincoln were to come back to life tomorrow, being the same individual (but unknown to the world as the historical Lincoln), would he be as great? I dare say not, for the times and cultures and problems are different. Would Alexander the Great or Napoleon or MacArthur be the same great military geniuses if taken out of their historical context?
Think of that sci-fi movie, The Matrix. At the end of the movie, when the protagonist realizes that the apparent "selves" of the visible world are merely projections, while the actual selves are in bondage underground in cocoons of a sort. There is a powerful scene towards the end of the movie where the protagonist "sees" other individuals outside of the context of normal illusion; sees those other selves for the projections of energy which they really are.
It is like staring at a pattern which is meant to be an optical illusion; at first we do not understand, but then we suddenly "get it" and now see the hidden figure or face among the mere lines. But such an enlightenment experience may take the reverse direction. We may start out seeing the figure or face, but then suddenly awaken to that other reality of disjointed lines and dots which give the illusion of the figure or face in the drawing.
The universe is born of passion (rajas), sustained by purity (sattva) and ends in gloom (tamas). But the course of the sentient being who inhabits the world is just the reverse: leaving the gloom of material existence, journeying through realms of purity, and arriving at that passionless passion called compassion.
I met an interesting, philosophical fellow in a bookstore once, who posed the following question:
He said, "Imagine taking a large glass jar, filling it with flies (insects), and sealing the lid. After a few hours, you place the glass jar in a furnace, and everything is incinerated. What remains of all those events which took place in that jar, those creatures which lived in there for a few hours, did things, experienced things,...fought perhaps, mated perhaps,...ate, slept? Is all that now, simply NOTHING, as if it had never been? Or did it make some difference? Is there anything that now remains?"
Obviously, by analogy, one might pose the same question regarding all of human life on earth, should the earth suddenly be destroyed.
A rough estimate was made, by mathematicians and biologists... that the total number of humans ever to walk the earth is in the neighborhood of 155 billion... The day may likely come when human life ceases on earth ... through some catastrophe perhaps,...or simply with the end of our sun. So, when it is all over, like those flies in the glass jar, then, what remains? Did the drama of human existence make any difference in the Universe or in the overall scheme of things?
I thought the question of "flies in a jar" interesting.
Ah, but to play man number one,
To drive the dagger in his heart,
To lay his brain upon the board
And pick the acrid colors out,
To nail his thought across the door,
Its wings spread wide to rain and snow,
To strike his living hi and ho,
To tick it, tock it, turn it true,
To bang it from a savage blue,
Jangling the metal of the strings...- Wallace Stevens, "Man with a Blue Guitar"
Welcome to the rag-and-bone shop of my heart: these cut-and-pasted odds and ends of experience.
Those masterful images because complete
Grew in pure mind, but out of what began?
A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,
Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut
Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder's gone,
I must lie down where all the ladders start,
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.- William Butler Yeats
How may I weave all these scattered fibers of reality into a narrative fiction? How may I tell you what it was to be me, there, then?
The world is transformed with words, one person at a time.
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