sdi

ποιμένες ἄγραυλοι, κάκ᾽ ἐλέγχεα, γαστέρες οἶον,
ἴδμεν ψεύδεα πολλὰ λέγειν ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα,
ἴδμεν δ᾽, εὖτ᾽ ἐθέλωμεν, ἀληθέα γηρύσασθαι.

"Boorish shepherds—you disgraceful wretches, nothing but stomachs!—
we know how to say many convincing lies,
but we know also, when we please, how to sing true."

(The Muses of Mount Helikon speaking. Hesiod, Theogony 26–8.)

I have been thinking a lot lately about the spiritual process.

I have studied, and continue to study, a lot—but truth is simplicity itself: ἕν τὸ πᾶν "all is one." The closer one can actualize that notion, the closer to divinity one is. No amount of study can add to that.

And yet the study is not for nothing; one often needs much scaffolding to build a tower, even if it all gets pulled away and torn down thereafter. This was called to mind forcefully today as I began my attempt to reread Hesiod haltingly in Greek and read the above lines. (He's much harder than Homer, since while Homer has an elegance about his speech, Hesiod is coarse and takes, shall we say, tremendous liberties with his grammar to make the verse work. Simonides said that Hesiod was taught by the Muses, while Homer was taught by the Graces, and this seems about right to me.)

Who are Hesiod's Muses? Well, recall our fourfold schemata of consciousness, and note that light is truth. In Air, light is transmitted clearly, so all there is true. In Earth, light is not transmitted and only received, so all there is false. (Indeed, this is why there is no "user manual" for life here in the world of Earth, and why we need to grope about in darkness.) Water is translucent, just as Air is, but unlike Air, the light there can be reflected and refracted: when the Water is calm, the light passes true, but if the Water bends on itself cleverly, it can distort the light in whatever ways it pleases—even seeming true when it is quite false. So the Muses are clearly daimons, beings of Water, shepherding the shepherd—inner-plane initiatrixes, we may say, rather than the guiding angels I am so fond of. (Thus while one may learn from them—and from Hesiod!—great care must be taken, as they can't be trusted to be Good, just as they warn us.)

This identification is very useful, I think, and was effortless to make, but it must be noted that I've studied Empedokles with at least some care for something like six years, ever since I first took up geomancy. It took so much effort and contemplation to finally penetrate the proper simplicity of the model, so that now I can easily use it as a map and identify something from it. Now that I comprehend the model in it's simplicity, a lot of what I studied is now redundant... but it cannot be said to be "wasted," since without the complicated I couldn't have gotten to the simple.

So it is with spirituality. It is perhaps best to just clear the mind and sit in zazen; but without a koan or sutra or some other material for the soul to work on, the leap may never come, just as you may have all the reagent in the world, but without catalyst, the reaction can't occur.

The end may be utter simplicity, but there are long miles of breadcrumbs we must follow that we may appreciate it.

good evening, breeze!—
crooked and meandering
your homeward journey

(Issa.)

in this windy nest
open your hungry mouth in vain
stepchild bird

(Issa.)

Thee, mighty-ruling, Dæmon dread, I call,
Mild Jove, life-giving, and the source of all:
Great Jove, much-wand'ring, terrible and strong,
To whom revenge and tortures dire belong.
Mankind from thee, in plenteous wealth abound,
When in their dwellings joyful thou art found;
Or pass thro' life afflicted and distress'd,
The needful means of bliss by thee supprest.
'Tis thine alone endu'd with boundless might,
To keep the keys of sorrow and delight.
O holy, blessed father, hear my pray'r,
Disperse the seeds of life-consuming care;
With fav'ring mind the sacred rites attend,
And grant my days a glorious, blessed end.

(Orphic Hymn LXXII "To the Dæmon," as translated by Thomas Taylor.)

We sing of holy daimons, who are near to us,
to them and also to the other deathless ones,
for daimons serve quite well the gods who're more divine,
bestow the many benefits on our behalf,
disperse them all, which they receive from Zeus himself,
and which descend to us through all the other gods.
And thus they save us, with some purifying us,
and others elevating or protecting us,
and easily straightening our minds. And so, be kind.

(Plethon, Twelfth Monthly Hymn, to the Daimons, as translated by John Opsopaus.)

I mentioned Hipparchia's epitaph a while back; it turns out that Diogenes' is preserved for us, too:

εἰπὲ, κύον, τίνος ἀνδρὸς ἐφεστὼς σῆμα φυλάσσεις;
 Τοῦ Κυνός. Ἀλλὰ τίς ἦν οὗτος ἀνὴρ ὁ Κύων;
Διογένης. Γένος εἰπέ. Σινωπεύς. Ὃς πίθον ᾤκει;
 Καὶ μάλα· νῦν δὲ θανὼν ἀστέρας οἶκον ἔχει.

"Whose tomb is this, O Dog, thou watchest here?"
 "The Dog's." "Who's he?" "Diogenes the Seer."
"His town?" "Sinope." "Lived he in a jar?"
 "Yes—but in death, the stars his dwelling are."

(As quoted by the Greek Anthology VII lxiv, and as translated by W. H. D. Rouse. Apologies if I messed up the Greek, the scan I worked from was really bad.)

And if the whirling spindle of the fates
Threats from the starry webs pernicion dire,
Thy sounding shafts with force resistless send,
And vanquish ere it fall th' impending ill.

(Proclus, Hymn to Helios, as translated by Thomas Taylor)

What it all comes down to
 Is that everything's gonna be fine, fine, fine—!
'Cause I've got one hand in my pocket
 And the other one is giving a high five!

(Alanis Morisette, One Hand in my Pocket)

When gods alike and mortals rose to birth,
A golden race th' immortals form'd on earth
Of many-languaged men: they lived of old
When Saturn reign'd in heaven, an age of gold.
Like gods they lived, with calm untroubled mind;
Free from the toils and anguish of our kind:
Nor e'er decrepit age mishaped their frame,
The hand's, the foot's proportion still the same.
Strangers to ill, their lives in feasts flow'd by:
Wealthy in flocks; dear to the blest on high:
Dying they sank in sleep, nor seem'd to die.
Theirs was each good; the life-sustaining soil
Yielded its copious fruts, unbribed by toil:
They with abundant goods midst quiet lands
All willing shared the gatherings of their hands.

When earth's dark womb had closed this race around,
High Jove as dæmons raised them from the ground.
Earth-wandering spirits they their charge began,
The ministers of good, and guards of man.
Mantled with mist of darkling air they glide,
And compass earth, and pass on every side:
And mark with earnest vigilance of eyes
Where just deeds live, or crooked wrongs arise:
Their kingly state; and, delegate from heaven,
By their vicarious hands the wealth of fields is given.

(Hesiod, Works and Days, as translated by Sir Charles Abraham Elton)

By this, Hesiod is simply saying that the beings we call "dæmons" or "angels" are those that never left the Intellectual realm for the sensible; living a blessed, ageless, toil-free existence under Saturn's reign (Saturn being the Intellect, see Enneads III 5 and V 8).

(I guess sometimes you don't need mental gymnastics to find theology in Hesiod.)

The below biography of Porphyry is wrested, like the juice from an orange, from an essay on Greek Oracles by Frederic William Henry Myers. His object was to show how the history of Delphi parallels the history of Hellenic culture, but it is surprising that the end of each is punctuated by a single person, and so the biography of the nation includes the biography of the man.

I felt that it was worth transcribing and excerpting, not only for its literary merit but also for the sketch it draws of a fascinating person. It is, of course, impossible—given the gulf of years—to know whether such a sketch is in any way accurate, but the archetypal story it tells is one worth knowing, I think. ( Read more... )

O God ineffable, eternal Sire,
Throned on the whirling spheres, the astral fire,
Hid in whose heart thy whole creation lies,—
The whole world's wonder mirrored in thine eyes,—
List thou thy children's voice, who draw anear,
Thou hast begotten us, thou too must hear!
Each life thy life her Fount, her Ocean knows,
Fed while it fosters, filling as it flows;
Wrapt in thy light the star-set cycles roll,
And worlds within thee stir into a soul;
But stars and souls shall keep their watch and way,
Nor change the going of thy lonely day.

Some sons of thine, our Father, King of kings,
Rest in the sheen and shelter of thy wings,—
Some to strange hearts the unspoken message bear,
Sped on thy strength through the haunts and homes of air,—
Some where thine honour dwelleth hope and wait,
Sigh for thy courts and gather at thy gate;
These from afar to thee their praises bring,
Of thee, albeit they have not seen thee, sing;
Of thee the Father wise, the Mother mild,
Thee in all children the eternal Child,
Thee the first Number and harmonious Whole,
Form in all forms, and of all souls the Soul.

(An anonymous hymn, simply titled "an oracle concerning the Eternal God" and suggestively quoted in the same manuscript as Porphyry to Marcella, translated by Frederic William Henry Myers)

Mnesarchos the Samian was in Delphi on a business trip, with his wife, who was already pregnant but did not know it. He consulted the Pythia about his voyage to Syria. The oracle replied that his voyage would be most satisfying and profitable, and that his wife was already pregnant and would give birth to a child surpassing all others in beauty and wisdom, who would be of the greatest benefit to the human race in all aspects of life. Mnesarchos reckoned that the god would not have told him, unasked, about a child, unless there was indeed to be some exceptional and god-given superiority in him. So he promptly changed his wife's name from Parthenis to Pythais, because of the birth and the prophetess. When she gave birth, at Sidon in Phœnicia, he called his son Pythagoras ["Pythia speaks"], because the child had been foretold by the Pythia.

(Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Life, as translated by Gillian Clark)

Well, Chærephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether [...] there was anyone wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered that there was no man wiser. [...]

When I heard the answer, I said to myself, "What can the god mean? and what is the interpretation of this riddle? for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What can he mean when he says that I am the wisest of men? And yet he is a god and cannot lie; that would be against his nature." [...]

The truth is [...] that God only is wise; and in this oracle he means to say that the wisdom of men is little or nothing; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name as an illustration, as if he said, "He [...] is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing."

(Socrates, as quoted by Plato, and as translated by Benjamin Jowett)

Apollo was consulted by Amelius, who desired to learn where Plotinus' soul had gone. [...]

Celestial! Man at first but now nearing the diviner ranks! the bonds of human necessity are loosed for you and, strong of heart, you beat your eager way from out the roaring tumult of the fleshly life to the shores of that wave-washed coast free from the thronging of the guilty, thence to take the grateful path of the sinless soul: where glows the splendour of God, where Right is throned in the stainless place, far from the wrong that mocks at law.

Oft-times as you strove to rise above the bitter waves of this blood-drenched life, above the sickening whirl, toiling in the mid-most of the rushing flood and the unimaginable turmoil, oft-times, from the Ever-Blessed, there was shown to you the Term still close at hand:

Oft-times, when your mind thrust out awry and was like to be rapt down unsanctioned paths, the Immortals themselves prevented, guiding you on the straightgoing way to the celestial spheres, pouring down before you a dense shaft of light that your eyes might see from amid the mournful gloom.

Sleep never closed those eyes: high above the heavy murk of the mist you held them; tossed in the welter, you still had vision; still you saw sights many and fair not granted to all that labour in wisdom's quest.

But now that you have cast the screen aside, quitted the tomb that held your lofty soul, you enter at once the heavenly consort: where fragrant breezes play, where all is unison and winning tenderness and guileless joy, and the place is lavish of the nectar-streams the unfailing Gods bestow, with the blandishments of the Loves, and delicious airs, and tranquil sky: where Minos and Rhadamanthus dwell, great brethren of the golden race of mighty Zeus; where dwell the just Æacus, and Plato, consecrated power, and stately Pythagoras and all else that form the Choir of Immortal Love, that share their parentage with the most blessed spirits, there where the heart is ever lifted in joyous festival.

O Blessed One, you have fought your many fights; now, crowned with unfading life, your days are with the Ever-Holy.

(Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, as translated by Stephen MacKenna)

[Julian] sent Oribasius, physician and quæstor, to rebuild the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Arriving there and taking the task in hand, he received an oracle from the dæmon:

Tell the emperor that the Daidalic hall has fallen.
No longer does Phœbus have his chamber, nor mantic laurel,
Nor prophetic spring, and the speaking water has been silenced.

(George Kedrenos, as translated by Timothy E. Gregory)