The Seven Days of Wander
Page 23
outer stone while ignoring his dying god and equally as useless to ask a man to climb his inner fear when we have no shoulder to lend for his outer stone!
Prosecution: What do we do then? Simply ignore all and let the near-dead bury the near-dead?
Beggar: Perhaps a parable may help in this whole dilemma of inner and outer worlds. Say you wished to roll a large stone up a hill. The assistance of another man is required but even then there is a peril of injury, possibly death. From opposite ends of the street come walking two men, both of equal strength, stature. One however appears to be very rich, the other a warrior. Whom do you ask?
Prosecution: The warrior.
Beggar: Why is that?
Prosecution: Two reasons. Intuitively I would expect the rich man more likely to decline. More importantly, I would also trust the warrior more not to jump out of the way should I slip or some other mishap.
Beggar: But why based only on their occupations would you trust the warrior more?
Prosecution: It is not really their occupations so much as the men found in these occupations. The warrior would honour acts of bravery or of being stead fast as a part of his being. He would prefer death to a life of dishonour. Both men would prefer my death to theirs but honour would prevent the warrior from letting go of the stone. His occupation has asked him to assume or make that choice. When he took up his warrior status. Hopefully, for my sake it is ingrained within the very fibre of his will by now.
Beggar: Now let's say this warrior has been a week in some rough encampment with only a blanket to shelter rain. He has lived on mouldy bread all this time. Has not been with a woman for more weeks then he wishes to say. Security is a haphazard thing barely known between calls to battle. Does all this for you make him a lesser man?
Prosecution: No, providing it has not weakened his physical state, it has no bearing on my decision.
Beggar: Then can it not be said that even to move stones in the outer world it is a man's inner qualities, his inner world that is most important?
Prosecution: Yes I agree but we assumed equality of strength between the rich man and the warrior. If you starved the warrior, then I would choose the rich man as he would be stronger. He's less of honour would not now be as important.
Beggar: Yes, here you speak of each man as unequal to a task in the outer world. That I grant is true. In the inner world what was the task?
Prosecution: to remove the mountain from the spirit's back.
Beggar: And who can remove the mountain from each man's spirit's back?
Prosecution: Only each man. None can help except to point up and ask him look.
Beggar: Then can we not say each man is equal to his inner task as only each man can do the singular task for himself?
Prosecution: Yes I agree. At first I was going to argue that there may be greater mountains but I see it stands to reason that the greater the load; the greater the mule. As we all seem to have a natural or rather unnatural level to our stoop.
Beggar: An astute observation, sir. The weight of fear seems to equal the desire to act. Any more and all semblance of humanity would be crushed; any less and we might walk free.
Now if we said before the only man who can help his neighbour with his stone of destination is the man with no mountain on his back, who is equal now to the task?
Prosecution: Only the man freed of his mountain.
Beggar: Can we not say then that the man greatest in his inner world is greatest for the task in the outer world?
Prosecution: Yes I must now agree.
Beggar: Is this not as we said before that only great men effect history?
Prosecution: Yes it is.
Beggar: And how did the stooped man of the inner world become the greater man?
Prosecution: He shed his mountain of fear.
Beggar: And what is the simplest way of shedding something from a stooped back?
Prosecution: To stand up straight of course.
Beggar: Now all his life a man has stooped and stared at a weak reflection of himself in a mirror placed on the ground. What would he do if you took the mirror and placed it on the wall whereby he lost all sight of himself and his god small though they be?
Prosecution: Either entire despair or fear would conquer fear and he would stand straight to look in the mirror.
Beggar: And his mountain of fear?
Prosecution: Gone.
Beggar: Would there be a greater man in the mirror?
Prosecution: Yes undoubtedly.
Beggar: And in its likeness a greater god?
Prosecution: Yes as the man is greater.
Beggar: The greater man now greater for the tasks in the outer world; the tasks to change history?
Prosecution: Yes.
Beggar: Through the vision of the man the lesser god became greater, spilled the spirit's crush of cowardice?
Prosecution: Yes that is right.
Beggar: All of which happened and happens because of a mirror to a lesser man's eyes. Is not then the mirror an instrument to change history?
Prosecution: Yes.
Beggar: If great gods create great men through their vision and mirrors create great men through their vision and only great men change history, is not then the mirror able to change history?
Prosecution: Yes, I'm afraid I must agree.
Beggar: Excellent, my good sir, we are making rapid progress.
Judge: If this be rapid, I pray we don't mistake a new trail and bog ourselves down.
Beggar: Have no fear, your Honour, we are not remaking Heaven and Earth here only pointing to their boundaries.
Prosecution: If all this is just Heaven, Hell must be a tedium in words indeed.
Beggar: Ah, sir, you are right. Ponderous indeed that place where truth goes backwards and false sallies forward. The judges deaf, lawyers mad and the prisoner already hung for his look of innocence. Best to remain where reason is given a little less contempt.
Judge: Beware, young man, do you find contempt amongst this court?
Beggar: I beg pardon, your Honour. I meant this world, not this tiny island of logic that you yourself guard well against the surrounding wash of ebbing tides and fickle currents.
Judge: Very well but in future maintain a tight grip before your undertow of a tendency to mock.
Beggar: Done, your Honour, I am secured well. Now, sir, could you be so kind as to define eternity?
Prosecution: The probable length of my testimony!
LAUGHS ALL ABOUT THE COURT
Beggar: Well done, sir and to my liking as it will mean I remain guiltless till the end of time. But can you perhaps try a more logical approach?
Prosecution: As you wish, young man. I would say when time ceases.
Beggar: And what time will that be?
LAUGHS IN THE COURT
Prosecution: I'm afraid at that time we will no longer know what time it is! MORE LAUGHS
Judge: Gentlemen, I warn you. Practise your acts elsewhere. Proceed with the case.
Prosecution: I apologize your Honour. Actually it is not that time ceases as much as the concept of eternity lays at the fringe of logic if not beyond it.
Beggar: The let us go to that fringe, that edge of logic and see what we can find. Can something that 'is', say something mortal remain so forever?
Prosecution: No, it dies and no longer be.
Beggar: And something 'to be', that is of the future can it remain so forever?
Prosecution: No it will eventually become an 'is' and then die, eventually.
Beggar: And something that 'was' will it remain a 'was' forever? For all eternity?
Prosecution: Here, yes. Anything thing that was cannot be less than or more. It cannot be altered or changed, reborn or die. It is eternally as a 'was'.
Beggar: Does not everything, at least mortal, flow from 'to be' towards 'is' towards 'was'.
Prosecution: Yes that seems true.
Beggar: Let us call that flow existence. Now which way does time flow?
Prosecution: From past to present to future.
Beggar: From 'was' towards 'is' towards 'to be'?
Prosecution: Please explain.
Beggar: Say a man is in a boat paddling up river. The river is the place of 'is', the current the flow of existence. It flows towards a falls which descends into the pool of 'was', the pool of eternity. Everything that is 'to be', the man sees as coming towards him, than becomes 'is' than flows past to 'was'. Eventually, too, the man is taken by the flow of existence and spills down to the eternal pool of 'was'. Time is the wind flowing above the river; its direction towards what is 'to be'.
Prosecution: Yes, now I see what you mean. But a question, are you saying nothing will live forever?
Beggar: Only that which remains as an 'is' exists or lives forever, all else becomes eternally 'was'.
Prosecution: But what is the difference whether 'was' or 'is', for perpetuality is in the mind?
Beggar: Is there a difference between a dream and a memory? At the time either is in the mind?
Prosecution: Well yes, a dream is a vague conjecture of some happening; a memory is a concrete image of what truly did happen.
Beggar: Do you mean a memory will be an absolute truth?
Prosecution: No. Given that a man is involved, his senses or his faculties may err. Or he may deliberately twist the truth so the memory suits his own purpose.
Beggar: And the dream? Though often misunderstood or misinterpreted, is it in itself false?
Prosecution: You are right. Though the dream is obscure, by its spontaneous creation and bypass of the man's senses it is far more likely to represent truth.
Beggar: Then is it not more likely that 'is', the present is more truthful then 'was', the past?
Prosecution: But when 'is' becomes 'was' will it not carry the truth with it?
Beggar: For a mortal at what point does it