That this ancient wisdom of life should be reaffirmed by a practicing analyst, by a “healer,” seems to me altogether logical and just. What greater temptation is there for the healer than to play the role of God—and who knows better than he the nature and the wisdom of God? E. Graham Howe is a man in his prime, healthy, normal in the abnormal sense, successful, as the word goes, and desirous more than anything else of leading his own life. He knows that the healer is primarily an artist, and not a magician or a god. He seeks, by expressing his views publicly, to wean the public of a dependency which is itself an expression of disease. He is not interested in healing, but in being. He does not seek to cure, but to enjoy a life more abundant. He is not struggling to eliminate disease, but to accept it, and by devouring it, incorporate it in the body of light and health which is man’s true heritage. He is not overburdened, because his philosophy of health would not permit him to assume tasks beyond his powers. He takes everything in his stride, with measure and balance, consuming only what he can digest and assimilate of experience. If he is a very capable analyst, as is generally admitted, even by his detractors, it is not because of what he knows, but because of what he is. He is constantly unloading himself of excess baggage, be it in the form of patients, friends, admirers or possessions. His mind is, as the Chinese well say, “alive-and-empty.” He is anchored in the flux, neither drowned in it nor vainly trying to dam it. He is a very wise man who is at peace with himself and the world. One knows that instantly, merely by shaking hands with him.
“There is no need,” he says, in concluding War Dance, “to be morbid about the difficulty in which we find ourselves, for there is no undue difficulty about it, if we will but realise that we bring the difficulty upon ourselves by trying to alter the inevitable. The Little Man is so afraid of being overwhelmed, but the Larger Man hopes for it; the Little Man refuses to swallow so much of his experience, regarding it as evil, but the Larger Man takes it as his everyday diet, keeping open pipe and open house for every enemy to pass through; the Little Man is terrified lest he should slip from light into darkness, from seen into unseen, but the Larger Man realises that it is but sleep or death and either is the very practise of his recreation; the Little Man depends upon ‘goods’ or golf for his well-being, seeking for doctors or other saviours, but the Larger Man knows by the deeper process of his inward conviction that truth is paradox and that he is safest when he is least defended. . . . The war of life is one thing; man’s war is another, being war about war, war against war, in infinite regress of offensive and defensive argument.”
It may seem, from the citations, that I favor War Dance above the other two books, but such is not the case. Perhaps because of the daily threat of war I was led instinctively to make reference to this book, which is really about Peace. The three books are equally valuable and represent different facets of this same homely philosophy, which is not, let me repeat, a system of thought expounded and defended in brilliant fashion, but a wisdom of life that increments life. It has no other purpose than to make life more lifelike, strange as this may sound.
Whoever has dipped into the esoteric lore of the East must recognize that the attitude towards life set forth in these books is but a rediscovery of the Doctrine of the Heart. The element of Time, so fundamental in Howe’s philosophy, is a restatement, in scientific language, of the esoteric view that one cannot travel on the Path before one has become that Path himself. Never, perhaps, in historic times, has man been further off the Path than at this moment. An age of darkness, it has been called—a transitional period, involving disaster and enlightenment. Howe is not alone in thus summarizing our epoch: it is the opinion of earnest men everywhere. It might be regarded as an equinoctial solstice of the soul, the furthest outward reach that can be made without complete disintegration. It is the moment when the earth, to use another analogy, before making the swing back, seems to stand stock still. There is an illusion of “end,” a stasis seemingly like death. But it is only an illusion. Everything, at this crucial point, lies in the attitude which we assume towards the moment. If we accept it as a death we may be reborn and continue on our cyclical journey. If we regard it as an “end” we are doomed. It is no accident that the various death philosophies with which we are familiar should arise at this time. We are at the parting of the ways, able to look forwards and backwards with infinite hope or despair. Nor is it strange either that so many varied expressions of a fourth-dimensional view of life should now make their appearance. The negative view of life, which is really the deathlike view of things, summed up by Howe in the phrase “infinite regress,” is gradually giving way to a positive view, which is multi-dimensional. (Whenever the fourth-dimensional view is grasped multiple dimensions open up. The fourth is the symbolic dimension which opens the horizon in infinite “egress.” With it time-space takes on a wholly new character: every aspect of life is henceforth transmuted.)
In dying the seed re-experiences the miracle of life, but in a fashion far beyond the comprehension of the individual organism. The terror of death is more than compensated for by the unknown joys of birth. It is precisely the difference, in my opinion, between the Eye and the Heart doctrines. For, as we all know, in expanding the field of knowledge, we but increase the horizon of ignorance. “Life is not in the form, but in the flame,” says Howe. For two thousand years, despite the real wisdom of Christ’s teachings, we have been trying to live in the mold, trying to wrest wisdom from knowledge, instead of wooing it, trying to conquer over Nature instead of accepting and living by her laws. It is not at all strange, therefore, that the analyst, into whose hands the sick and weary are now giving themselves like sheep to the slaughter, finds it necessary to reinstate the metaphysical view of life. (Since Thomas Aquinas there has been no metaphysics.) The cure lies with the patient, not with the analyst. We are chained to one another by invisible links, and it is the weakest in whom our strength is revealed, or registered. “Poetry must be made by all,” said Lautréamont, and so too must all real progress. We must grow wise together, else all is vain and illusory. If we are in a dilemma, it is better that we stand still and face the issue, rather than resort to hasty and heroic action. “To live in truth, which is suspense,” says Howe, “is adventure, growth, uncertainty, risk and danger. Yet there is little opportunity in life today for experiencing that adventure, unless we go to war.” Meaning thereby that by evading our real problems from day to day we have produced a schism, on the one side of which is the illusory life of comfortable security and painlessness, and on the other disease, catastrophe, war, and so forth. We are going through Hell now, but it would be excellent if it really were hell, and if we really go through with it. We cannot possibly hope, unless we are thoroughly neurotic, to escape the consequences of our foolish behavior in the past. Those who are trying to put the onus of responsibility for the dangers which threaten on the shoulders of the “dictators” might well examine their own hearts and see whether their allegiance is really “free” or a mere attachment to some other form of authority, possibly unrecognized. “Attachment to any system, whether psychological or otherwise,” says Howe, “is suggestive of anxious escape from life.” Those who are preaching revolution are also defenders of the status quo—their status quo. Any solution for the world’s ills must embrace all mankind. We have got to relinquish our precious theories, our buttresses and supports, to say nothing of our defenses and possessions. We have got to become more inclusive, not more exclusive. What is not acknowledged and assimilated through experience, piles up in the form of guilt and creates a real Hell, the literal meaning of which is—where the unburnt must be burnt! The doctrine of reincarnation includes this vital truth; we in the West scoff at the idea, but we are none the less victims of the law. Indeed, if one were to try to give a graphic description of this place-condition, what more accurate illustration could be summoned than the picture of the world we now “have on our hands”? The realism of the West, is it not negated by reality? The word has gone over into
its opposite, which is the case with so many of our words. We are trying to live only in the light, with the result that we are enveloped in darkness. We are constantly fighting for the right and the good, but everywhere we see evil and injustice. As Howe rightly says, “if we must have our ideals achieved and gratified, they are not ideals at all, but phantasies.” We need to open up, to relax, to give way, to obey the deeper laws of our being, in order to find a true discipline.
Discipline Howe defines as “the art of the acceptance of the negative.” It is based on the recognition of the duality of life, of the relative rather than the absolute. Discipline permits a free flow of energy; it gives absolute freedom within relative limits. One develops despite circumstances, not because of them. This was a life wisdom known to Eastern peoples, handed down to us in many guises, not least of which is the significant study of symbols, known as astrology. Here time and growth are vital elements to the understanding of reality. Properly understood, there are no good or bad horoscopes, nor good or bad “aspects”; there is no moral or ethical examination of men or things, only a desire to get at the significance of the forces within and without, and their relationship. An attempt, in short, to arrive at a total grasp of the universe, and thus keep man anchored in the moving stream of life, which embraces known and unknown. Any and every moment, from this viewpoint, is therefore good or right, the best for whoever it be, for on how one orients himself to the moment depends the failure or fruitfulness of it. In a very real sense we can see today how man has really dislocated himself from the movement of life; he is somewhere on the periphery, whirling like a whirligig, going faster and faster and blinder and blinder. Unless he can make the gesture of surrender, unless he can let go the iron will which is merely an expression of his negation of life, he will never get back to the center and find his true being. It is not only the “dictators” who are possessed, but the whole world of men everywhere; we are in the grip of demonic forces created by our own fear and ignorance. We say No to everything, instinctively. Our very instincts are perverted, so that the word itself has come to lose all sense. The whole man acts not instinctively, but intuitively, because “his wishes are as much at one with the law as he is himself.” But to act intuitively one must obey the deeper law of love, which is based on absolute tolerance, the law which suffers or permits things to be as they are. Real love is never perplexed, never qualifies, never rejects, never demands. It replenishes, by grace of restoring unlimited circulation. It burns, because it knows the true meaning of sacrifice. It is life illumined.
The idea of “unlimited circulation,” not only of the necessities of life, but of everything, is, if there be such a thing, the magic behind Howe’s philosophy. It is the most practical way of life, though seemingly impractical. Whether it be admitted or not, there are hierarchies of being, as well as of role. The highest types of men have always been those in favor of “unlimited circulation.” They were comparatively fearless and sought neither riches nor security, except in themselves. By abandoning all that they most cherished they found the way to a larger life. Their example still inspires us, though we follow them more with the eye than with the heart, if we follow at all. They never attempted to lead, but only to guide. The real leader has no need to lead—he is content to point the way. Unless we become our own leaders, content to be what we are in process of becoming, we shall always be servitors and idolaters. We have only what we merit; we would have infinitely more if we wanted less. The whole secret of salvation hinges on the conversion of word to deed, with and through the whole being. It is this turning in wholeness and faith, conversion, in the spiritual sense, which is the mystical dynamic of the fourth-dimensional view. I used the word salvation a moment ago, but salvation, like fear or death, when it is accepted and experienced, is no longer “salvation.” There is no salvation, really, only infinite realms of experience providing more and more tests demanding more and more faith. Willy-nilly we are moving towards the Unknown, and the sooner and readier we give ourselves up to the experience, the better it will be for us. This very word which is so frequently on our lips today—transition—indicates increasing awareness, as well as apprehension. To become more aware is to sleep more soundly, to cease twitching and tossing. It is only when we get beyond fantasy, beyond wishing and dreaming, that the real conversion takes place and we awake reborn, the dream re-becomes reality. For reality is the goal, deny it how we will. And we can approach it only by an ever-expanding consciousness, by burning more and more brightly, until even memory itself vanishes.
* I and Me; Time and the Child; War Dance. By E. Graham Howe.
TRIBUTE TO FRANCE
(FROM REMEMBER TO REMEMBER)
It was in the convict’s shack at Anderson Creek (Big Sur)—of which there are now colored post cards!—that this text was written. I don’t think I had yet been informed of the forty thousand dollars that my French publisher was holding for me. I know that France never seemed more remote, more out of reach, than during this brief period.
It was Perlès’s book, The Renegade, sent me from London, which probably inspired my belated tribute. I notice that my friend Durrell, who compiled and edited these selections, eliminated all mention of himself in this text. Dommage! Ever in my mind during these days of isolation were the images of Perlès, Durrell and David Edgar, boon companions of the Paris days. The war scattered us far and wide. I wondered often if I would ever see any of them again.
Perhaps only under such circumstances—cut off, hanging over the edge of a cliff, rations short, troubles with the wife, vultures hovering over the sportive sea otters—can one write with such fervor about a lost mistress.
It was in this same place, shortly before or shortly after, that I also began the book on Rimbaud. No doubt I was then living on France much as an explorer, lost in the wilds of Siberia, lives on frozen mastodons.
It began last night when I was lying face down on the floor beside Minerva, showing her on the map of Paris the neighborhoods I once lived in. It was a large Métro map and I became excited merely repeating aloud the names of the stations. Finally, with my index finger I began to walk rapidly from one quarter to another, stopping now and then when I came to a street which I thought I had forgotten, a street like the Rue de Cotentin, for example. The street I had last lived on I couldn’t find; it was an impasse between the Rue de l’Aude and the Rue Ste. Yves. But I found the Place Dupleix and the Place Lucien Herr and the Rue Mouffetard (blessed name!) and the Quai de Jemmapes. There I crossed one of the wooden bridges which span the canal and got lost in the jam at the Gare de l’Est. When I came to my senses I was on the Rue St. Maur. From there I headed due northeast—towards Belleville and Menilmontant. At the Porte des Lilas I suffered a complete trauma.
A little later we were studying the départements of France. Such beautiful evocative names! So many rivers to traverse, so many cheeses to nibble at—and drinks of all kinds. Cheese, wine, birds, rivers, mountains, forests, gulches, chasms, cascades. Think of a region being called the Ile de France. Or the Roussillon. It was in my proofreading days that I first came upon the Roussillon, and always I connected it with rossignol which in English is nightingale. I never heard the nightingale until I came to visit the sleepy village of Louveciennes where Madame du Barry as well as Turgenev once lived. Returning one night to “the house of incest,” it seemed to me that I heard the most miraculous song coming from the honeysuckle vine which draped the garden wall. It was the rossignol, which in English is nightingale. . . .
All this is preliminary to the real trance which came over me when I caught sight of the railway posters in the French restaurant. In the interval I swallowed at one gulp a book called The Renegade by my friend Alfred Perlès. It was like swallowing the river of remembrance. I am not going to speak of the book here except to say that it has a peculiar anthroposophical flavor, thanks to the beloved Edgar Voicy and his master, Rudolf Steiner. There is an interlude of three pages, entirely in French, the gist of which might be divined
from the phrase—“l’orgasme est l’ennemi de l’amour.”
There is however another, more important, phrase which is repeated two or three times: “The mission of man on earth is to remember. . . .” It is one of those phrases like “the end justifies the means.” It speaks only to those who are waiting for the cue. . . .
My gaze turned ever deeper inward; everything was bathed in the golden shaft of memory. Le Roussillon, which I had never visited, became the voice of Alex Small seated at the Brasserie Lipp, Boulevard St. Germain. Like Matisse, he had been to Collioure, and he had brought back with him the feel, the smell, the color of the place. At that time I was about to make my first departure from Paris—by bicycle. Zadkine had drawn on the marble table top a rough sketch of the route which my wife and I were to follow in order to reach the Italian border. There were certain towns he insisted we must not overlook; Vezelay was one, I remember. But had he mentioned Vienne? That I can’t recall. Vienne stands out vividly, shrouded in dusk, the sound of a rushing stream still pounding my ear drums. The Annamites must have been quartered there; they were the first I saw in France. What a strange army the French army was to me in those days! It seemed as though there were only the Colonials. Their uniforms captivated me, particularly those of the officers.
I am following an Annamite down the dark street. We have eaten and are looking for a quiet café. We enter one of those high-ceilinged cafés such as one comes upon in the provinces. There is sawdust on the floor and the sour smell of wine is strong. In the center of the room is a billiard table; two electric bulbs suspended from the ceiling by long strings are shining down on the green cloth. Two soldiers are bent over the table, one in a Colonial outfit. The whole atmosphere of the place is reminiscent of Van Gogh’s work. There is even the pot-bellied stove with the long bent smokestack disappearing through the center of the ceiling. It is France in one of her homeliest aspects, a tiny morsel perhaps, but even if tucked away in an old vest one that never loses its savor.
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