January 2004 Archives

In philosophy, it has always been the beauty of truth that attracted me. I recommend Plato’s “Symposium” to anyone for a nice read on this.

I also think of beauty as “what you like”, in the sense of beautiful sights, sounds, flavors, experiences. There is even the exalted beauty of a moral life. Without beauty, what would motivate me? I choose God over all other things because He is the Most Beautiful. To worship Him is pure justice.

Worldly things each catch a ray of this Beauty, and reflect it in the plane of material and spiritual attributes. But like the sun, if that light were to go out, all the earthly mirrors would become blank. So when I look at the world and see its various forms of beauty, I am seeing Him – however much filtered by the limitations of this life.

Beauty is to the soul like sun and rain to a flower. No wonder it drove Majnún insane! We are all moths, dancing around the beckoning flame of our Beloved. “For the like of this let the travailers travail!” (Qur’an 37:59)

“The story of Thy beauty reached the hermit’s dell; Crazed, he sought the Tavern where the wine they buy and sell. The love of Thee hath leveled down the fort of patience, The pain of Thee hath firmly barred the gate of hope as well.” (the Persian poet, Sa`dí)

A perfect Creator makes only perfection; but in the world we see around us, it is very hard to appreciate this perfection. An analogy:

I like the play Hamlet very much. Although it has its flaws, for the sake of argument, let’s call it an example of perfection.

As a perfect play, it tries to say something, to tell a story. To this end, it portrays characters of diverse temperments, with various flaws, etc. Because of these flaws, the audience marvels at how they are overcome, and how each character shows his mettle in responding to them.

So the “flaw” of these characters is part of the play’s perfection. If every character were completely virtuous and noble, one might think, “What’s the point?”

God is the Beloved. You might call this life a passion play in which His nature as the Beloved is revealed through the actions of his lovers. These lovers, like characters in a play, have flaws – because those flaws make it possible to manifest the rare qualities of love.

I think the meaning of “perfection” defeats us. I wouldn’t call Hamlet imperfect simply because the main character’s uncle kills his brother; rather, the murder is needed to set the stage for all that comes afterward. It is part of the genius of the play.

If we see this world as not terribly important per se, but inestimably valuable in revealing the qualities of love, then pain and evil take on wholly different aspects.

We are the guests of One Who devours His guests;  
The friends of the One Who slaughters His friends...  
Although by His gaze He brings death to so many lovers,  
Let yourself be killed by Him: Is He not the water of life?

Never, ever, grow bitter: He is the Friend and kills gently.  
Keep your heart noble, for this most noble Love  
kills only kings near God, and men free from passion.

We are the night, Earth's shadow.  
He is the Sun:  
He splits open the night with a sword soaked in dawn...[^1]

I ran across this quote today, which I like very much. It is by `Abdu’l-Bahá, the son of the Founder of the Bahá’í Faith:

… that which is conducive to association and attraction and unity among the sons of men is the means of the life of the world of humanity, and whatever causeth division, repulsion and remoteness leadeth to the death of humankind.

Shooting from the hip, but: Our ego is how define ourselves, which must always be separate from the underlying reality (since definitions, like a map, are unequal to the territory they describe). In the sense of being an idea, it is helpful if it lead us to improve our character – by wanting to act rightly, take care of ourselves, etc.

The idea of self is strongly influenced by what other people say, since definitions are a communal thing, different from immediate perception. For example, if I know something tastes good, I know it intimately, and not because I have said, “It tastes good.” But if I am unsure, inexperienced about something, I will rely much more on what I have learned, and what other people tell me.

Since our ego is not a reality, no store should be set by it. Ultimately, I think, we strive for a direct apprehension of reality such that its own beauty is what motivates us, and not our ideas about it: “… honor us with the love of Thine Essence, that we may be freed from turning toward ourselves and toward all else save Thee, and may become wholly Thine, and know only Thee, and see only Thee, and think of none save Thee.”

Thus, I do not see the ego as evil, or even particularly unhealthy, but rather a first way of starting to understand our nature: a thing we will naturally begin to part with in the course of spiritual education, as long as we do not fall in love with it.

Not many thoughts recently – life has been very full. But at least a couple of poems: letter to the watchman, a reference to a Bahá’í story from The Seven Valleys) (my favorite of all books; and tales I tell myself, just some errant musing.

Since today we commemorate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., here in the United States, I would like to share a thought experiment of mine from a while back, pondered during the long drive from Tucson, Arizona to Los Angeles, California:

For whatever reason, I had been thinking of slavery. In that vein, I tried to imagine that here I am, going about my business, engaged in the everyday activities of my life. Then someone I don’t know comes along out of nowhere, and snatches me into their car and drives off.

My first hope would be that someone had seen us, that they were phoning for help. Then I would think, “My family will try to find me; I can’t just disappear.” I don’t know what these men want, or what they intend. Already, the experience has turned very bad.

We pull up to the harbor, where people are being held in cages, awaiting transport on one of the large ships in the harbor. How can this be? Where are the forces of justice to stop whatever is happening? How can it be happening??

But the hours pass by, then the days. No one comes. No one knows I’m here. They might think I’ve died already, gone in the middle of my ordinary routines. Anxiously I sit in these corrals, praying that someone will discover what has happened. The men around me do not speak my language, and no one I try to talk to will respond. At best I am brutalized for the attempt. They have no respect for me; they do not even treat me as a human, an individual.

Without respite, only the most megear food and water, we are finally carried off into the holds of the ship. It starts to dawn on me that these people intend to take me away from my life. A panic starts to set in. “Come on!!”, I inwardly yell, to my friends and my family, “Find me!” – before I am taken away; before I become truly hard to find. But nothing happens. The nightmare will not end. I shake my head, but nothing comes clear. How can this be my waking reality?

Then we are on the ship, in conditions I have never suffered before. I feel the steep shore waves crash against the hull change into the calmness of ocean swells. We are actually leaving. Here I am, a few days ago someone, somebody, and now I am carried into the sea as if I were cargo. Still there is no one to represent my interests, or hear my plea that something is wrong. It must be wrong. Everything about it feels as wrong as anything I’ve ever imagined – and yet it is happening. That is what I still cannot grasp.

After great lengths, we land in a country populated by people foreign to me. They look different, talk different, even smell different. Nothing is like what I’m used to. My captors prod me from the ship, and line us up along the shore. How can anyone find me now? Where am I? I cannot ask. My fellow captives do not know. Like an illness taken physical form, I am swept up into a miasma of pain and misery, with no one to apply to for mercy, no one to understand. I am truly alone now.

What happens afterwards I do not fully understand, except that I’ve been sent to a particular place, along with other people from my country. We’re shown a field, implements to work it, and expected to do what this implies. If anyone complains, or resists, the beatings are severe. Those around us – who live in the other houses – see nothing wrong with this. We cannot ask them for help. They even have slaves of their own. So I pick up the hoe and start to work the dirt. It is work I’m not used to, work I have not done before. Still, no one has found me.

As the days pass, I begin to realize something which will not – cannot – take complete form in my mind: No one is ever going to find me. How can I hope in a place without compassion, where I’m not even a person? We are abused without cause, and worked beyond reason. And there is no recourse. This is what I cannot fathom.

The months pass by, the seasons change, and it begins to occur to me that nothing will ever change about this. Not only will I not be found, but nor will I find my way back to the life I had known. What I see now, this misery and injustice, has become my life – and will remain my life. Not for seasons, not for years: but all the rest of my days. My life has been forfeit, without fair exchange. One day I was myself, the next it was worse than being struck dead: I live a ghost life now, of harsh toil and labor, at the whim of people I would otherwise not care to know. And this is just the beginning…

When I try to imagine an experience like this, I cannot bear the pain of it. Even simple acts of injustice cause us anger, who were born to freedom. If someone forbids my will, the impulse is to fight. But what if the opportunity to do so were forcibly denied – forever?? My conclusion is that the reality of slavery is something a free mind cannot bear to comprehend.

Watched a wonderful movie tonight, named “Bread and Tulips” (Pane e Tulipani). It reminded me so much of my days in Italy. More so because the leading actress reminds me of a beautiful friend I made while staying in Florence (or, how she might look in a few decades). The phrases people would speak, the setting, the lyrical sense of life conveyed by the film; all reminded of that time – a moment in my life that lingers still.

heart.is.free

Should the moon settle on the waters  
appearing bright among the waves,  
and lead the mind to tranquil thoughts  
of earlier times, and younger days,

Remind the heart: it's still free yet:  
there's nothing lost that's not been gained;  
it's simply how we look on things  
that sometimes feels restrained.

From early this morning, a simpler thought on duty and love that seems to demonstrate their interrelated importance: Duty is like purpose, and love like meaning. Purpose alone is a fine book that says little; meaning alone is a beautiful thought never written.

I don’t know if there is really a “true” way to look at the world. But there are ways to imagine things that produce different feelings in our hearts, and from those, different actions. What leads to the best outcome for each individual: is that all we can know of the best way to see?

The film is similar in feel to “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”. It is also a Kung Fu epic, with hauntingly surreal landscapes and action sequences. Throughout, it focuses on the spirit and depth of its main characters. It is a film of beauty, with the quality of a dream.

My brother introduced me today to the album “Fallen”, by Evanescence. This is one of the best all-around albums I’ve heard in a long time, which my brother says also. I was already a fan of the song “Bring Me to Life” on that album, but I find I like most of the songs on it. Especially “My Immortal”, which is truly ethereal in its beauty.

I learned this evening that my friend, and companion on the mystical path, Ashley Alvis, passed away from a heart attack in his home in Atlanta, Georgia. Ashley is one of the few souls I’d met who embodied both joy and mystical passion to an extreme degree. I will miss his words of wonder – though on deeper levels I think we are more connected now than before.

I was speaking to a friend about Ash, who made the comment that he now felt “beyond the veil” due to his passing. This caused me to reflect on the nature of this life, and how sometimes it seems that the real veil is not the one between life and death, but the obscuring perceptions that divide us when we seem, outwardly, to be nearest. Like a mystical paradox, those who seem near can be the most far, while those now gone may be the most present of all.

Do the clouds above  
feel emptied when the sun leaves?  
casting pale shadows  
of their pallid selves  
along the moonlit ground...

What shape of sorrow  
steals across their misty brow?  
Loosing one tear  
and then a thousand  
upon a silence too profound.

Whenever I look at the girls of the world,  
every face is a pretty challenge.  
Such beauty, beheld with my outward eyes;  
will I ever see life, inwardly, that way?

What is it  
that hounds me in the dark?  
in the lonely hours,  
in the still and secret places...

My heart is a hunter  
that stalks my mind.

I hide in the daylight --  
but when all is quiet  
it still finds me.

I have heard it said:  
"There is something about  
the dark sanctity of the night  
that beckons me."

I fully agree.

How suddenly life seizes upon one,  
breaking along the shore  
of our sand-castle plans  
like so many dissolving fingers.