"The secret voices of the innermost truth"

The title of this post, which comes from the quote from Siddhartha in my last posting, is an intentional pushing on the boundary of what I think I should try to write about. In other words, "who am I to write about the "secret voices of the innermost truth?"  and. who am I not to write about it?.  How far should I go in a public forum trying to sort out the mysteries of life and my role in the drama?  I suppose it comes back to goals.  I am not doing this to teach or influence.  I am writing as a process of seeking clarity.  To find out, as Hesse says, what is necessary. For some inexplicable reason I'm finding it easier to examine these things by writing this blog.

But the question of how much I should expose myself to other souls is a significant one.  I have to admit, I love getting comments.  They make me feel less isolated and alone.  But there is always a feeling that I'm dropping my pants in public. That embarrassing feeling probably helps me to not get too personal but I don't like it and wonder how much it is limiting what I could be discovering.

In the last section of Siddhartha, Govinda asks Siddhartha, "Haven't you found certain thoughts, certain insights, which are your own and which help you live?  If you would like to tell me some of these, you would delight my heart."   Siddhartha's replies, "...There have been many thoughts, but it would be hard for me to convey them to you....I have found: wisdom cannot be passed on.  Wisdom which a wise man tries to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness....knowledge can be conveyed but not wisdom.  It can be found, it can be lived, it is possible to be carried by it, miracles can be performed with it,  but it cannot be expressed in words and thought."   Despite this statement Siddhartha presses on, perhaps trying to explain why words of wisdom become foolishness.

"The opposite of every truth is just as true! That's like this: any truth can only be expressed and put into words when it is one-sided.  Everything is one-sided which can be thought with thoughts and said with words, it's all one-sided, all just one half , all lacks completeness, roundness, oneness....But the world itself, what exists around us and inside of us, is never one-sided....a person is never entirely holy or entirely sinful.  It does really seem like this because we are subject to deception, as if time were something real.  Time is not real, Govinda, I have experienced this often and often again.  And if time is not real, then the gap which seems to be between the world and eternity, between suffering and blissfulness, between evil and good, is also a deception."

So when does foolishness end and truth begin.  The answer becomes,  at the same time.   The fool and the sage are the same.

Vision of faith

I was on  a retreat in a lodge nestled in Ponderosa pine trees outside of  Prescott Arizona in about 1988.  The priest leading the retreat asked us all to lay down on the floor, on our back, and get into a comfortable position using pillows and blankets. He then started a guided meditation asking us to imagine a restful place, etc.  I eventually stopped hearing his words and found myself lost in a corn field.  It must have been late summer because the stalks seemed twice as tall as me.  Initially I felt fairly calm. Isn't this interesting.  Nothing but cornstalks everywhere I looked.  Then I realized I had no idea where I was and no idea what direction to move.  This grew into sheer panic.  Pure fear.  Then it happened. An event which is in many ways beyond words but still fills my heart.  I looked up and exactly the same moment I was looking down at myself. Zap! I was floating above the cornfield and my eyes locked with the eyes of the small lost boy I saw below. A boy who was me at about the age of eight. At the same time I was the boy below looking up at the floating boy in the air.  We were the same but separated.  There was instant peace, tranquility, calmness, joy.  From above I could see the way I needed to walk.  I also could see a path beyond the cornfield that led up a mountain with a setting sun behind it.  The boy took a deep breath and walked confidently forward.

This vision remains important to me. It strengthens me. It reminds me that the answer to "what is necessary?" is always waiting inside as long as I don't let fear block out the signal.  It is the inner light of the Quakers, the secret voice of Hesse.  It is real and it is good.

Siddhartha, Hesse and What's Necessary

Herman Hesse was my guru when I was twenty years old.  Maybe he'll be my guru again.

I was standing behind the library at Union College in late 1968 when I met up with Neil Gordan.  We were both seniors but had not really talked since we were freshmen.  He asked me how I was doing and I said not very well.  The Vietnam War  was was raging and leaders were being killed and I was afraid of being drafted and I was depressed and I hadn't been going to classes and hadn't washed or shaved and generally felt lost. He smiled and said read Demian and walked away with a smile on his face.  I'm not sure what the smile meant but perhaps he had an inkling of what I was in for.

I ended up reading the book and not going to class for a week in its aftermath. It had a profound effect on me. It's difficult to understand it's power this far down the road.  I recently tried to reread it and it didn't click at all.  Back in '68 it was a different story. I think it's because gave me a new frame of reference to hang my confused craziness on. His novel depicting Abraxas, a divinity of both good and evil, gave me a rudimentary foundation for looking, again, at spirituality.

 I entered Union as a serious Catholic who vowed not to "lose my faith" among the liberal secularists.  It took about three months. Reading The Martyred by Richard Kim put the biggest nail in the coffin.   It asked a simple question.  How can an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God allow the slaughter of millions of innocents in war? Hmmm. So I ended up in this dead end alley and Herman Hesse helped me begin to find my way out.

As I was saying, maybe he will again.

I'm rereading Siddhartha which appears to be based on Hindu's first three stages of life. (the Wikipedia link is very interesting)  At one point shortly after Siddhartha had met the Buddha and decided not to become a follower he had the following thoughts.

"Both, the thoughts as well as the senses were pretty things, the ultimate meaning was hidden behind both of them, both had to be listened to, both had to be played with, neither had to be scorned nor overestimated, from both the secret voices of the innermost truth had to be attentively perceived.  He wanted to strive for nothing , except for what the voice commanded him to strive for, dwell on nothing, except where the voice would advise him to do so. ...to obey like this, not to an external command, only to the voice, to be ready like this, this was good, this was necessary, nothing else was necessary."


Next post - "Locus of Salvation" or "what I hope works for me when the shit hits the fan."