text
stringlengths 11
1.23k
|
---|
So there is the puzzle of Christianity. Furthermore, we must remember that it’s a terribly serious religion. There never was—as the Hinduism views the whole world as the play, the sport, the lila of the divine, in the West the world is serious. |
It is a tragic view. If it’s a dramatic view at all, it’s a tragic drama. Whereas the Eastern view is: it’s a comedy. |
Although it’s curious, isn’t it, that Dante could write the Divine Comedy. Because some way, you see, you can’t get ’round it. That if the notation of life, if the meaning of life, is fundamentally tragic, God’s a washout. |
So there is the idea, really, in a kind of esoteric strain of the Christian tradition. Dante brings this out, you see. When he hears the song of the angels, he said it sounded like the laughter of the universe. |
And all those angels in heaven get around the throne of God, and they sing Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia forever. And everybody, every child, goes to church saying, “Oh, what a drag! You mean we’ve got to go up there and, like, a church service forever? |
Sing Alleluia forever?” Well, do you see that the preachers don’t get it across? Because they don’t swing! They don’t realize that this word, “Alleluia,” is a kind of dance word. |
It’s almost like scat singing, where all the meaning goes out of the language and it’s just rhythm. It’s just sheer exuberance. And Dante makes this by saying that these angels surrounding God have found It, they found the point, and there’s no need for anything else, and the point has no point beyond being the point. |
It doesn’t serve any end beyond itself. It’s It! You’re there! |
You’ve arrived! And they just go out of their minds. And so that is really what even the most orthodox Christianity is after if you will press the preacher and get him to follow the logic of his own belief. |
Now, when we put Christianity—as I showed you—inside the context of Hinduism, and if it’s something that is happening simply by virtue of the spread of communications… before we had steam ships, let alone jet aircraft, we thought that the world around the Mediterranean was the only civilized world. Indeed, there were some extremely remote people called the Chinese who were supposed to be highly civilized, but they might as well have been on some other planet. But as our communication system has spread beyond the Mediterranean, it is perfectly inevitable that our culture and our religions have to exist in the context of others. |
And the very fact that this happens automatically changes their meaning whether you like it or not, just as the contexts of words changes the meaning of the individual words. So we then see that Christianity is now operating, it is in fact happening—this is not something I’m discussing as a quaint theory of something that ought to happen; it’s something that is happening—Christianity and Christians with their particular beliefs and their particular points of view are waking up to find themselves surrounded by very different peoples, also civilized, who have rather different points of view. What’s going to happen? |
What difference does it make? So then, I’m putting Christianity in the context of Hinduism to make a special case, to give a specific example of the sort of thing that would happen. I’m not saying that it is going to happen just like this, I’m trying to indicate general directions. |
So then, the Hindu looks at Christianity and he says, “Good heavens! Isn’t that amazing!” For here, in the many, many forms of being which the supreme Self, the Brahman, plays at being, here comes the Christian. The Christian soul. |
This is a new identity which the dancer of the universe is playing. And he’s playing as far out as he can get. He is dancing not dancing, he’s playing that he’s not God at all and never was. |
And that he’s absolutely not that. Don’t you dare claim any kinship with the Father! He created you out of nothing. |
You are not begotten, you are made. The son, the lógos, is begotten, you see? The creature is made, and can be a son of God by adoption only. |
The whole human race is orphaned, and God is the father by adopting them, you see? So the Hindus say: look at that! And what’s more, this orphan is now adopted—but goodness, on what conditions! |
Once you become adopted, you become responsible for making that choice between the good and evil. And if you choose the evil you are lost forever. Absolutely lost. |
And you won’t just be annihilated. You’ll spend all the endless cycles of time in excruciating and ineffable agony. You will exist bodily as well as spiritually. |
You’ll be devoured by ever renewed worms, and consumed by fires that will penetrate to the inmost centers of your nerves. You should hear the theologians describe it! If you will look at my book The Two Hands of God, I have got quotes in there from a great, very sophisticated German theologian, Matthias Scheeben, who is one of the great horror writers of all time. |
Because he describes hell in the most sophisticated philosophical language. That’s something that the ordinary preacher doesn’t do. Like Jonathan Edwards describing a sinner in the hands of an angry God: he used the ordinary, vivid imagery. |
But Scheeben goes into philosophical categories. I mean, he makes this so horrendous because he is obviously such a great intellectual, describing the reality of physical torments as well as spiritual torments in hell. So you see the predicament that the Christian soul is faced with. |
So the Hindu looks at that, you see, and says: that is something! Here the action, the big act, is so good that the actor himself is totally taken in by his part. It’s as if Hamlet actually slew Polonius on the stage—the actor of Hamlet actually slew the actor of Polonius, you see? |
The drama is out of hand. But the Hindu knows it will recover, because its alright. Don’t worry, you know? |
It’s okay. There’s a doctor in the house. But from his point of view, you see, he sees this as a very remarkable religion. |
But now once we’ve looked at it that way, we’ve let the cat out of the bag. Once you look at it that way, you can never go back to being an ordinary Christian. You know, you’ve seen, that there’s a twinkle in the Father’s eye. |
And when he says, dresses himself up in his official robes, puts on his beard and his canopies of spiritual war, and all the angels gather around, and he says, “Thou shalt love me,” and all these conditions, and you shall this and that and the other—you look him in the eye. Of course, the angels are supposed to veil their faces. Of course they don’t look God in the eye, because that would give the show away. |
But there’s a hymn which ends up with the aspiration: “Prostrate before thy throne to lie and gaze and gaze on thee.” You think what an interesting [???] to do that? Anyway, the thing is, you see: if you look in the eye of God, you notice there’s a twinkle in it. |
Because if he is the God as a true Father, a true father is always like this. The father says to the child: “Look, now: you’ve got to stay in that playpen.” Because the child is getting big enough to get out, and then you don’t know—he’s going to get into the gas stove and the electric light system or something. And eventually the child climbs out of the playpen. |
He’s been told you must stay in it. The father is a little bit angry, but at the same time he’s pleased. Because it means the child is growing up. |
Well, so in the same way, there must be a twinkle in the Father’s eye, just as I explained to you there is always a twinkle in the guru’s eye. Because the guru knows who you are even if you claim that you don’t. The guru knows you are the supreme Brahman in disguise—or Shiva, or whatever aspect you want to assume. |
And you’re in disguise. And you won’t admit it. It’s like in forms of certain psychoanalytical gambits. |
One of the basic gambits in psychoanalysis is that all behavior which the patient describes as involuntary is interpreted to him by the analyst as voluntary. Involuntary behavior is, say, dreams. And the analyst raises the question: what do you mean by those dreams? |
And he switches it. When the patient does certain behavior the patient interprets as voluntary, the analyst brings it back to him and says, “I wonder what compelled you to do that?” The unconscious is brought up, you see, as the source of involuntary behavior. But sometimes, in one context, the unconscious is interpreted as something that happens to you. |
But in another context it’s interpreted as your real and secret intent which you won’t admit. This is beautiful, really. It’s a very interesting technique. |
And you don’t need to use it. You don’t need to believe the Freudian mythology that goes along with it. But as a technique it is very interesting indeed. |
So, in the same way, you must now see God the father in the Christian context as guru—and Jesus Christ also as guru—coming on very seriously about “thou shalt love” and all this business about hell, and so on, and challenging you. Now what is the nature of the challenge? This is the crucial point. |
The nature of the challenge is the famous double bind. You are required and commanded to perform an act which will be acceptable only if you do it voluntarily. And every stratagem is used to bring this home. |
And this essential stratagem is the crucifixion. When I was a boy in England we used to attend the Good Friday services, naturally. And at the door, here, the clergyman would hand each of us a colored picture of Christ on the cross: a very sad, dejected Christ. |
And written underneath in Gothic script the verse: “This have I done for thee, what doest thou for me?” And it wasn’t simply—they weren’t so naïve as that they felt that that would make you put a little bit more in the collection. It poses a very vivid problem, you see. Because they put it this way to you: you really crucified Christ. |
In order—there’s a whole strain of mysticism in Christianity whereby the events of the Gospel are eternal events. The birth of Christ has to become the birth of Christ in man’s heart. The crucifixion is something that you did. |
Were you there when they crucified my Lord? If the crucifixion was a merely historical event, the answer is simply: no. But were you there when they crucified my Lord—obviously, this mystique wants to impress you were; that indeed you were a party to it. |
So, you see, then—you begin to see that the crucified Christ somehow involves and contains all misery inflicted upon the innocent. Are they innocent or not? What are you going to do about it? |
The more you realize this, the more you realize that you cannot escape responsibility—for all the horrors that are going on in the world. After all, you don’t live except by eating dead creatures, even if you’re a vegetarian. The soft, luscious vegetables: the lettuce suffers in its own particular way when you crunch it. |
And so the grapes when you squeeze them to make your wine and the wheat grains when you grind them up to make your bread: they suffer. You bet they suffer! Certainly the pigs and the cows and the sheep do when we slay them for our entrée. |
And so you can’t live at all without crucifying something; without sticking nails into it and spikes. And go on to that: what about other people. We’re all living by mutual exploitation. |
Those of us who belong to the middle class in the United States (which is fairly prosperous) are managing collectively more or less to exploit each other only minimally. but we are living off heaven only knows what kinds of depressed Indians, Mexicans, Africans, Negroes in this country, and so on and so on. See? |
It’s exploitation through and through. You cannot get, say, to the top in business without putting somebody else down. And so you begin to realize this, and you start feeling awfully guilty. |
And so this is the meaning, this is the idea, of the man hanging on the cross: what are you going to do about that? That’s the question. And you think: well, oh dear! |
What can I do about it? Maybe I’d just better abandon everything and become a medical missionary, like Albert Schweitzer. Do something heroic. |
Go down to the south and be crucified by the people in Mississippi because you’re helping the Negroes. Well, alright, what about the medical missionary thing? Will you be able to go down and give medicines to those people that don’t come from drug firms which use some pretty questionable practices? |
Of course you’ll have to stop paying at least that part of your income tax that goes to the armaments race. But then, what about sales tax? That indirectly gets there too, doesn’t it? |
Where do you stop? See? Then, suddenly, the more you think about these things, you realize you are completely involved. |
And there is no way out. You are a bastard. You did it! |
You know that poem of Kenneth Rexroth about the death of Dylan Thomas, and “You did it! You, in your gray flannel suit!” So this is what one comes to see. Now, before we explore that critical point further, let’s look at various other considerations. |
First of all, a lot of people, when they get there, think: oh dear! Well, there is one way I know I can be spiritually secure: to be sure that I hurt. So long as I really enjoy myself, I’m frightfully guilty and obviously sinful. |
But if I hurt it isn’t quite so bad. At least I’m doing something in the direction of making payment for this frightful affront which my life consists in. You find this in many, many forms in Christian piety and devotional literature. |
It’s not only the Calvinistic attitude, not only the Puritan attitude, but it’s also the Catholic attitude, which is expressed in, let’s say, the cult of suffering in Spanish and Mexican Christianity. The idea of the Flagellantes, the Penitentes, the wearing of a hare shirt, of the frightful rules of convents and the practices to make things uncomfortable. Always make yourself a little bit uncomfortable. |
You see? That’s a very, very important principle of piety. Let’s look at another aspect of it. |
Another great feature of Christianity—traditional Christianity—is the mass. The central act of Christian worship which somehow begins at the last supper. A very curious rite. |
Almost cannibalistic. Salvation through eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ. I wonder if it’s occurred to you that blood, the drinking of blood, from a Jewish point of view is outrageous. |
Because one of the fundamental rules of Jewish ritual law is: blood is prohibited. When an animal is killed in a kosher way, the blood is (in as far as possible) drained out. Because blood is the life, and it belongs only to God. |
So in a typical sacrifice—the story of the great sacrifice in which the covenant was originally made between the Hebrews and Yahweh—the blood is poured out on the altar for Yahweh, but sprinkled over the people. Not consumed by them, but sprinkled over them, to show that they have now formed a family with the Lord. But you mustn’t eat it! |
That is absolutely taboo. So a situation where suddenly, to Hebrew people, Jesus says: “Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” That is almost if, in our culture, that would be equivalent to recommending incest. I mean, it would be as shocking as that to them. |
So then what happens, you see, at this last supper? He takes the bread—which is, of course, ground wheat—and the bread is the staff of life. It is for those cultures the main ingredient of the meal. |
Meat and vegetables are a garnishing. Like a tortilla, for a Mexican, is something; you wrap it up. Or rice for a Chinese is the staple. |
But bread for these people. So he says, “This is my body. And all of you eat it.” And he breaks it and hands it ’round. |
Then he takes the cup and says, “This is my blood.” And, you see, even in simile, even in metaphor, this is a terrible thing to say. “This is my blood of the new arrangement”—between God and man, known in Elizabethan English as the New Testament—“This is my blood of the new arrangement, which is poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in remembrance of me.” And look at that! |
This is to say: look, you live by shedding blood. You live by taking life. Please don’t feel guilty about it anymore. |
It’s for the remission of sins. Because in all the animals which contribute to your nourishment it is I who am giving myself to you. So this is in re-membrance, of me—the me being the Self in all of you, the “I am” who was before Abraham was, or rather the “I am” who is before Abraham was; “I am the way,” see? |
All these things contain this subtle meaning underneath them. And in re-membrance—as I pointed out to you, the beginning of the creation is dismembering, the fulfillment of it is remembering: finding out again who you are, ceasing to be lost. So, you see, here stands the thing that comes absolutely at you in the whole symbolism of the Christian mass. |
Only, the Christians never knew what to do with it. So they said: this is kind of dangerous stuff, this bread and wine. It’s God. |
Once it’s consecrated we put it up the end of church there. Don’t get too close to it. And put it on top of steps. |
And then the people can have the bread, alright. But when they saw in western Europe all those men coming up to receive the chalices with long, drooping mustaches, they said: “Nuh-uh, there’ll be a desecration of it.” You know? They’ll go out and they’ll kiss some girl, and they want to wipe their mustaches, and they’ll drool it in the soup. |
And our Lord can’t be submitted to that! So the priest who was clean-shaven, usually, he could have the chalice. People could have the bread, but there’s a perfect panic in Catholic ritual that no crumb of that bread, or no tiny droplet of that wine, should get control. |
They lock what remains of the bread in the tabernacle on the altar, which is a safe. And it’s been a safe ever since people started the black mass, and they went and stole it and they defiled it, and had a rite for Satan instead. And they drink every drop of the wine. |
When the priest finishes the chalice, he takes it in his hands like this, and he puts his fingers together, and his acolyte pours water over, and he rubs so that no fragment of bread shall be left on his fingers. And then he drinks the whole thing. And then it’s washed out once again, and he drinks that. |
See? None of that precious stuff must be defiled. Now, read the latest things that are happening in the Vatican. |
What they’re doing now is: they’ve altered all that. No longer is the mass to be celebrated at the far east end of the church, it’s come right down to the center. And everybody is to gather ’round. |
And in as far as possible, everybody is to join in. In other words, it’s not just something that the priest mumbles in a corner by himself, but the responses that are said, everybody’s supposed to join. But you see what’s happened: the thing has become radial instead of addressed to a throne. |
The picture is: the deity—in other words, the divine point—is moving into the center. Where is that? “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” You see? |
Instead of being something “out there.” Now, why is this glimmer occurring? This glimmer occurs because the challenge… “This have I done for thee, what doest thou for me?” And, you know, really, it’s very bad scene. You’re really guilty. |
You’re really awfully responsible. No way you can pay for it. You know, like sometimes people say to their children: “Well, there’s no point to feel sorry about it. |
It’s done. And of course I can’t forgive you now, because you may be sorry today, but we’ll have to see how your [???] is over a period of weeks before we’ll know whether you’ve really decided to reform.” Ew! |
Can you make a [???] feel terrible, you see? And this is much worse than that. |
What are you to do? See? And you can’t expiate by doing that medical missionary bit, or by suicide. |
There’s no way out. And yet, you must love God, and you know you don’t. The only reason you attend church is because you’re afraid. |
I mean, you may like the minister, and maybe sort of [???] that and see around that the hymns are pleasant and the ritual is rather lovely. But when it really comes down to that confession thing, well, you say: “For these and all my other sins which I do not now remember I am heartily sorry, firmly purpose amendment.” Do you? |
You know you don’t. You’re going to do it again. And that makes you feel all the more guilty. |
Makes you wonder whether you really are forgiven. So you get to a point of impasse. The point at which you realize there is nothing you can do to get the grace of God. |
Nothing. Because it’s all phony. And incidentally, there’s nothing you can not do. |
You can’t be passive, either. Because that would be phony also. Activism is wrong and quietism is equally wrong. |
So you say: “What am I to do?” And you suddenly realize that’s the wrong question. The point is: what does it mean that I am at this predicament? What does it mean? |
What it means is that your conception and sense of yourself as a separate ego is phony. That this self that you have imagined yourself to be is a māyā, an illusion, and you found out that it is because you found out that it’s impotent. It can’t do something. |
There’s really something that has to be done, but you can’t do it. Also, you can’t help by not doing it. The ego is incapable of either because it is a hoax. |
It’s a very interesting hoax, and it’s been worthwhile having this drama, but drama it was. Now you might say, “Well, then that’s a pretty bad state of affairs,” because what you’ve come to realize is a kind of fatalism. You’re a Calvinist after all. |
Here is man, then: nothing but a puppet. But that won’t do. Because when you talk about a puppet you look upon it as something pushed around by somebody else. |
When you see, for example, a marionette in this little theater, you think of the marionette as being just a dead thing which is being influenced by the player behind the scenes. Alright, what about your fingers? Are they puppets? |
To whom? Are you your fingers? Are you not your fingers? |
Surely your fingers are integrally you. They’re not parts of you, they are as much you as your head is. It’s true, you can survive with your fingers or your arm chopped off, but human beings ordinarily don’t come that way. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.