The Seven Days of Wander
Page 24
transform from 'is' to 'was'?
Prosecution: At its death.
Beggar: And where would a man carry his loftiest truths, in his abstract thinking?
Prosecution: At its death.
Beggar: And where would a man carry his loftiest truths, in his abstract thinking?
Prosecution: Yes.
Beggar: Now we must deviate for a moment. What are the gods, an 'is', 'was' or 'to be'?
Prosecution: All of them!
Beggar: Can something that 'is' be something that 'was' where we defined 'was' as no longer 'is', not as some position in time?
Prosecution: Yes, I agree. The Gods continue to be an 'is'.
Beggar: Then they flow with time, not existence?
Prosecution: Yes, true.
Beggar: Moving away from the pool of eternity, though they perpetually exist. Does this suggest a difference between eternity and ceaseless existence?
Prosecution: I can't see how myself.
Beggar: Is not an attribute of the gods absolute truth?
Prosecution: Yes.
Beggar: And if the gods let go of time, descended into the flow of existence and thereby swept to the pool of eternity would not Truth cease to exist when the gods became a 'was'? Since 'was' means an ending to 'is'. So that we would then have to say the truth was and thereby no longer know what the truth is?
Prosecution: Yes but even more relevant is the simple truth that when the gods cease all creation ceases as well.
Beggar: True, true. So by immortal, the gods cannot carry their truth to the pool of eternal 'was' or death. As only man in his abstract thinking is
in the likeness of the gods, can he carry his truth to the pool?
Prosecution: By that comparison, no he cannot. Though the mortal will pass through death, the man of truth, of thinking will not.
Beggar: Where will he go?
Prosecution: Your near logic leaves us little choice. He must follow time and live on forever.
Beggar: I agree and I add that the 'is' in time always has his eyes locked to the vision ahead whether paddling as a mortal or seeking as an immortal.
Judge: A question, young man. This argument leads me to conclude that all past wisdom whether written or verbal is false? All history, all knowledge, all memory as well. Do you believe this?
Beggar: Within this context, Your Honour. Say a great man writes a very wise book. A few hundred years later, 2 or 3 men read the book and discuss its truths. We know, however, that the book has no truths that the man did not have. As the men attempt to interpret the book without the man present to clarify his values they become as the three men before the mirrors. Their different values from the author make them poor judges. They will say things like 'His truth was this; His truth was that'. What they mean to say is: 'This is our truth of what his truth was'. From that, the meaning is truly taken to be: 'His truth no longer 'is'; only ours 'is' built from his'. Here one begins to see the possible accumulation of error in judgement. That we know only truth exists as an 'is'. If truth is thought of as a 'was' someone must speak for the past; speak for the dead. But only the dead at their time of life knew what they said in the mirror. They tried to speak; to write of it but no one now can judge of its truth or falsehood in relation to the man's values.
The man did not leave the total truth of himself behind in the book. He could not. What is thought and understood at the precise moment of what is written is only known to the abstract man. He is not with the book, therefore, he is not now of 'was'.
So you see Your Honour nothing of the past is of its entire truth. And if truth is missing, then something is false. We can make it truth again only by building upon it our own truths in the present state of existence.
Judge: No offence, young man, but why badger this point so much? If scholars wish to be confused over dusty books, why does it matter?
Beggar: It becomes more practical than that, Your Honour. Say a man comes upon a law he has not seen before. Must he not take upon himself his own values and truths and with that judge the law as to its truth? He should not accept the law as truth solely because it was truth; it was the law in the past. For if the man will accept any truth; any law that 'was' then for all purposes the man is dead to any new law; any new truth that is. The man remains in the place of 'was' and cannot think to progress; cannot envision a step to a new destiny. He is lost and journeying backwards as long as he believes the past is of truth. Hence all 'is' becomes 'was' and any creations of the thinking man, though truth, become unlawful to the past laws. Men cannot create and cease to become men.
Prosecution: A good point about the law, young man but how does all this compare to the mirror?
Beggar: Will not a man who looks up river see truth and towards the falls see falsehood?
Prosecution: Yes.
Beggar: What else will he see?
Prosecution: With truth he will see his god, with falsehood he will see his past.
Beggar: And what does his past, what does his 'was' hold in store for him?
Prosecution: Death.
Beggar: Will he fear it?
Prosecution: Most do.
Beggar: If the man stands before a mirror will he see the truth of what he 'is' or 'was' or 'to be'?
Prosecution: What he is.
Beggar: Will he see his God?
Prosecution: Yes as a likeness of himself.
Beggar: And if he looks behind, what is on his back?
Prosecution: A mountain of fear.
Beggar: Fear of what?
Prosecution: Of death.
Beggar: A man stands in the being, the flow of his existence. In the mirror is his God, his truth. Behind him his death and, therefore, falsehood with fear. Would this be his 'is' state?
Prosecution: Yes.
Beggar: When will the 'is' cease to be?
Prosecution: When the man, at least the mortal state dies and slips to 'was'.
Beggar: Will all of the man be gone?
Prosecution: No, the abstract thinking part will remain.
Beggar: Is this not the part that creates the god?
Prosecution: Yes, so one can conclude the presence of a god.
Beggar: The god unceasing to exist?
Prosecution: Yes.
Beggar: Can the god exist without the mirror?
Prosecution: No, he cannot.
Beggar: Then must not the mirror be unceasing to exist as well?
Prosecution: Yes I must agree.
Beggar: Good, sir, good. Only a few paltry questions left.
Prosecution: Sail ahead, my boy? We have crossed the pool of eternity and run the river of existence; the winds of time blow steady! What lies next: the Sea of Flounders or an Ocean of Deliverance?
Beggar: Merely to cross a trickle of truth, sir, which hopefully yields to a stream of salvation! I would...
Judge (interrupting): Gentlemen! The Naval Court is three buildings down. Perhaps you'd care to take your linguistic bombardments down there; after, this court receives a fee and a fine for your contempt?
Beggar: Sorry, Your Honour. My verbal spleen is desperate to erupt amongst these dry questions and answers. I will contain myself.
Now, sire, we defined a god as omni powerful or at least quite close to it, did we not?
Prosecution: Yes, I believe we did.
Beggar: For example, could we call this at least indestructible and impervious to the world?
Prosecution: Why do you say impervious to the world?
Beggar: Mortal man is easily destroyed, beaten, starved, misguided, caged by the world. This changes who he is. Can a world do this to a god?
Prosecution: No.
Beggar: Now say we put the man in front of his mirror. He sees his god. What happens if we turn the man upside down? Is the god/mirror altered?
Prosecution: No ,the god is still there.
Beggar: What if the mirror is turned upside down, or the house, or the wall, or the city, is the god altered so long as the man maintains h
is vision on the god?
Prosecution: No, I agree it is all the same between man, mirror, god regardless of the world.
Beggar: Then is not the mirror impervious to the world as a god and therefore omni powerful to the same extent?
Prosecution: In that matter, perhaps but you have leaped your muzzle, young fellow, before the other ship was sunk! For we have not knocked at the address of indestructible. What if I gave your mirror the swing of a blind hammer. Shattered your dreams, literally! Where is your god, your omni powerful mirror now?
Beggar: Can the man not take up the biggest splinter and still look upon his god?
Prosecution: Yes, you are right but this demon has too much appetite for a single bite. Say he pulverises the mirror to a point where dust has no adherence to dust. Takes the pile and pours it to a earthen pot. Seals the lid. Buries the pot in sand. How does your man see his god now? He cannot, immortality is lost!
Beggar: You are right and woe is the man! He is nothing to himself and little to others. His destitution and hollowness he carries in vacant eyes. He wanders the day and crouches the night. A silent weeping constantly his song. The nights cold and though the man cares not for bleaker light or gestures of warmth, the body begs some mercy. A fire is built. And in time, the coals raise the sand packed below to an oven. The man hears a noise above the ordinary crackles of flame and flights of spark; or rather below it.
The fire he removes. The hot sand dug. A clay pot rolled out with a stick; its surface hissing in the damp night. It cools and the man rolls from the pot a glass glob, reformed from dust by the constant fire of his contemplation. And into the glob he peers, through its distortion of reformed and there, sir, he returns to the vision of a god inside himself.
Prosecution: Our demon is stunned to this unusual man's perseverance but not so stunned,