I have omitted a single paragraph, because without the context of the novel it would make no sense, and is the only reference to why this speech is given. For those who are not familiar, Samsara is the concept of the temporal reality around us, that we dwell in and visit for a time in life, and all that is connected to it.
Please, do me the favor of sitting down and taking the time to read these words. I read them first when I was eight, and re-visit them and this novel every few years, and every time I find new value, meaning, and purpose in them. Thank you.
“Names are not important,” he
said. “To speak is to name names, but to
speak is not important. A thing happens
once that has never happened before.
Seeing it, a man looks upon reality.
He cannot tell others what he has seen.
Others wish to know, however, so they question him, saying, ‘What is it
like, this thing you have seen?’ So he
tries to tell them. Perhaps he has seen
the very first fire in the world. He
tells them, ‘It is red, like a poppy, but through it dance other colors. It has no form, like water, flowing
everywhere. It is warm, like the sun of
summer, only warmer. It exists for a time
on a piece of wood, and then the wood is gone, as though it were eaten, leaving
behind that which is black and can be sifted like sand. When the wood is gone, it too is gone’. Therefore the hearers must think that reality
is like a poppy, like water, like the sun, like that which eats and
excretes. They think it is like anything
that they are told it is like by the man who has known it. But they have not looked upon fire. They cannot really know it. They can only know of it. But fire comes again into the world, many
times. More men look upon fire. After a time fire is common as grass and
clouds and the air they breathe. They
see that, while it is like a poppy it is not a poppy, while it is like water,
it is not water, while it is like the sun it is not the sun, and while it is
like that which eats and passes wastes, it is not that which eats and passes
wastes, but something different from each of these apart or all of these
together. So they look upon this new
thing and make a word to call it. They
call it ‘fire’.
“If they come upon one who still
has not seen it, and they speak to him of fire, he does not know what they
mean. So they, in turn, fall back upon
telling him what fire is like. As they
do so, they know from their own experience that what they are telling him is
not the truth, but only a part of it.
They know that this man will never know reality from their words, though
all the words in the world are theirs to use.
He must look upon the fire, smell of it, warm his hands by it, stare
into its heart, or remain forever ignorant.
Therefore ‘fire’ does not matter, ‘earth’, ‘air’, and ‘water’ do not
matter. ‘I’ do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers
words. The more words he remembers, the
cleverer do his fellows esteem him. He
looks upon the great transformations of the world but he does not see them as
they were seen when men looked upon them for the first time. Their names come to his lips, and he smiles
as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming. The great burning blossom squats, flowing,
upon the limb of the world, excreting the ash of the world, and being none of
these things I have named and at the same time all of them, and this is reality – The Nameless.
“Therefore, I charge you – forget the
names you bear, forget the words I speak as soon as they are uttered. Look, rather, upon the Nameless within
yourselves, which arises as I address it.
It hearkens not to my words but to the reality within me, of which it is
a part. This is the atman, which hears me
rather than my words. All else is
unreal. To define is to lose. The essence of all things is the
Nameless. The Nameless is unknowable,
mightier even than Brahma. Things pass,
but the essence remains. You sit,
therefore, in the midst of a dream.
“Essence dreams it a dream of
form. Forms pass, but the essence
remains, dreaming new dreams. Man names
these dreams, and thinks to have captured the essence, not knowing that he
invokes the unreal. These stones, these
walls, these bodies you see seated about you are poppies and water and the
sun. They are the dreams of the
Nameless. They are fire, if you like.
“Occasionally there may come a
dreamer who is aware that he is dreaming.
He may control something of the dream-stuff, bending it to his will, or
he may awaken into greater self-knowledge.
If he chooses the path of self-knowledge, his glory is great and he
shall be for all ages like unto a star.
If he chooses the way of the Tantra, combining Samsara and Nirvana,
comprehending the world and continuing to live in it, this one is mighty among
dreamers. He may be mighty for good or
for ill, as we look upon him – though these terms, too are meaningless, outside
of the namings of Samsara.
“To dwell within Samsara, however,
is to be subject to the works of those who are mighty among dreamers. If they are mighty for good, it is a golden
time. If they are mighty for ill, it is
a time of darkness. The dream may turn
to nightmare.
“It is written that to live is to
suffer. This is so, say the sages, for
man must work off the burden of Karma if he is to achieve enlightenment. For this reason, say the sages, what does it
profit a man to struggle within a dream against that which is his lot, which is
the path he must follow to achieve liberation?
In the light of eternal values, say the sages, the suffering is as
nothing; in the terms of Samsara, say the sages, it leads to that which is
good. What justification, then, has a
man to struggle against those who are mighty for ill?”
He paused for a minute, raised his
head higher.
***
The answer, the justification, is
the same for men as it is for gods. Good
or ill, say the sages, mean nothing for they are of Samsara. Agree with the sages, who have taught our
people for as far as the memory of man may reach. Agree, but consider also a thing of which the
sages do not speak. This thing is ‘beauty’,
which is a word – but look behind the word and consider the Way of the
Nameless. And what is the Way of the
Nameless? It is the way of Dream. And why does the Nameless dream? This thing is not known to any dweller within
Samsara. So ask, rather, what does the Nameless dream.
“The Nameless, of which we are all
a part, does dream form. And what is the
highest attribute any form may possess?
It is beauty. The Nameless, then,
is an artist. The problem, then, is not
one of good or evil but one of aesthetics.
To struggle against those who are mighty among dreamers and mighty for
ill, or ugliness, is not to struggle for that which the sages have taught us to
be meaningless in terms of Samsara or Nirvana, but rather it is to struggle for
the symmetrical dreaming of a dream, in terms of the rhythm and the point, the
balance and the antithesis which will make it a thing of beauty. Of this, the sages say nothing. This truth is so simple that they have
obviously overlooked it. For this
reason, I am bound by the aesthetics of the situation to call it to your attention. To struggle against the dreamers who dream
ugliness, be they men or gods, cannot but be the will of the Nameless. This struggle will also bear suffering; and
so one’s Karmic burden will be lightened thereby, just as it would be by
enduring the ugliness; but this suffering
is productive of a higher end in the light of the eternal values of which the
sages so often speak.
“Therefore I say unto you, the
aesthetics of what you have witnessed this evening were of a high order. You may ask me then, ‘How am I to know that
which is beautiful and that which is ugly, and be moved to act thereby?’ This question, I say, you must answer for
yourself. To do this, first forget what
I have spken, for I have said nothing.
Dwell now upon the Nameless.”
The Phoenix/Dragon at Sirius Rising, 2011.
Thank you for sharing this with me. You now know me far better than you once did, even if you knew me well before.
Love and Beauty,
Laine
