“It achieved little accept loss”
The ‘Road’ to Passchendaele, Basil H.Liddell Hart, Captain KOYLI, 1915-1918
“To know the reality of war is the Pythagorean harmony, the unity of opposites; it is the plenitude of knowledge of the real. That is why you are infinitely privileged, because you have war permanently lodged in your body, waiting for years in patient fidelity until you are ripe to know it.”
Simone Weil[1]
“War is the father of all. All things come into being and pass away through strife.”
Heraclitus
“We are caught in the cosmic war between good and evil.”
Paramahansa Yogananda [2]
I came to Passchendaele in April. It was a mud cold smouldering day. I walked among rows, of nameless ash-white gravestones. A good historian searches between the pain of birth and the loss of death for a name, so that it can be offered silently to the nameless. A fine dancer or receptive singer conveys the impression of this gesture.
A million names is but one name and all the mothers, fathers, sons and daughters of all the earth’s are of The One Father, The One Mother, The One Son, The One Daughter, The Family of The Holy One. I walked on through the brittle light of a coiled veiled sun. In the afternoon I came across the private, and the universal, inscribed simply upon eroding stone, “Please Remember me.”
In ‘The Journey To The East’ Hermann Hesse wrote: -
“I do not think that ten books like it, each one ten times better and more vivid than mine, could convey any real picture of the war to the most serious reader, if he had not himself experienced the war. And there were not so many who had. Even those who had taken part in it did not for a long time experience it. And if many really did so – they forgot about it again. Next to the hunger to experience a thing, men have perhaps no stronger hunger than to forget.” [3]
In various museums around the world there are statues of Luohans. It may be more accurate to say statues of the Luohan representing different stages of life. The younger Luohan is fierce in his intensity. He is sculptured into a fiery moment of intention, almost unapproachable in his lone breath, and place of engagement. The older wiser Luohan has been released from this battle. In the realisation of loss, he is calm, softer, and more accessible. His presence conveys that each battle, each individual life will be lost, indeed must be lost before an entry can be acquired to a inner space. This is the place of Jihad[4], the Holy War, the inner immeasurable content of life reduced by some to the pulls of vengeance. It is only through all being lost that the war can be won.[5]This is not an external war, which is for the most part the contention of forces moving in violent confusion and reaction. It is an internal inner place of weather, oral, silent and written, coded in all traditions through all the ages. We forget as F.M.Alexander wrote to remember. But we are called to remember. But what form of remembrance?
The Greek root of the word loss means to set free, in Latin Luere, solvre, pay, solve. The roots of the word win winnan, gewinnan indicate to earn through the labour of suffering. There is the loss of winning and the winning of loss. In silence one comes to realise that the inner conflict reflects the cosmos, chaos and creation, entropy and life. How do we find and stand in our place amidst the contradictions, absurdities, tensions, and pain?
I gaze across the corrupted fields of Language and cropped Flanders towards Leper (Ypres) and feel the questing question ‘Who am I?’ resonating a little closer. “Each star is a soul”, so an old woman informed me in the wonder of my childhood. This may not be a ‘scientific truth’; nonetheless she accepted the stars as traces of her internal origin.
The light cannot meet the darkness directly neither can the darkness come directly to the light. Through the body and our being lies the meeting place for enormous forces manifesting through time and space. The dragon is within us, tormented. Caved in darkness wishing to come forth to the light. The force of its pain causes it to spit upon that which can salve, shaken by its terrible dark force the light wishes to withdraw.[6] We falter; ask what’s the use? - Yet somehow remain searching, and so doing be received to in-sight. The light and the dark grow. Bearing witness[7]is the revelation in scripture of the meaningful life. Not “my” life, but a life rendered up to the means whereby.
In his ‘Selected Essays and Critical Writings’ A. R. Orage wrote that “no mere record of experience, however novel,” can obtain entry into true realism. “Entry is by divination, not by description. Compare, for instance, the descriptions of battles in Homer and in the Mahabharata with the descriptions of actuality. The latter are accurate, but the former are true. There never was such a battle as Vyasa described in the Mahabharata. Let us hope there never will be. But, as we read it, we feel that Nature has dreamed it, and only not actualised it because she had other plans. By this means, actuality itself becomes transfigured; experience is given a solace; and no mere reporting can accomplish that. What is the satisfaction in knowing that such and such a thing occurred? But there is satisfaction in knowing that it occurred as a consequence of choice among many alternatives! Freedom is given back to us. At each moment we stand at a new crossroads. The road Nature takes will be, in course of time, the actual; the roads she passes will remain the potential. The more of them there are, the richer life has become for us.”
In trying to comprehend the incomprehensible, to place words upon the wordless, to give some semblance of scale, and in the endeavour to make sense of our mechanical destructiveness, the conflict of 1914-1918 was called the Great War, a war to end war. But it was only in its part a terrible continuum, nonetheless the efforts that we make can deposit within us material necessary to transcend the placement of a material body that must organically dissolve into the time formed chemistry of earth, air, fire and water.[8]
At the point of greatest destructiveness lies the infinite point contained, yet unrestrained of return, the symbol of Ying and Yang.[9] Through the body, which by its nature and for the most part resides in the here and now, we can live in the liberation of the unsullied neck receiving communication of our deepest sympathy. It does not matter then to be in the: “last scene of all,………Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.”[10]
“In this vast night, be the magic power
at your senses’ intersection,
the meaning of their strange encounter.
And if the earthly has forgotten
you, say to the still earth: I flow.
To the rushing water speak: I am.”
Last Sonnet to Orpheus
Rilke
[1] George A. Panichas, ed., The Simone Weil Reader New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1977), p. 87.
René Guénon wote “Accordingly, the end of war is the establishment of peace, for peace, even taken in its most ordinary sense, is ultimately nothing else but order, equilibrium or harmony, these three terms being practically synonymous, and all denoting under somewhat different aspects the reflection of unity in multiplicity. In point of fact, multiplicity is not really destroyed but “transformed”; and when all things are brought back to unity, this unity appears in all things, which, far from ceasing to exist, thereby acquire on the contrary the plenitude of reality. In this way, the two complementary viewpoints of “unity in multiplicity and multiplicity in unity” (El-wahdatu fil-kuthrati wal-kuthratu fil-wahdati) are indivisibly united at the central point of all manifestation, which is the “Divine Abode” or “Divine Station” (El-maqamul-ilahi),..For whoever has reached that point, there are no longer any contraries, and therefore no longer any disorder; it is the seat of order, of equilibrium, and of harmony or peace; outside it for one who is merely striving towards it without having yet reached it, there prevails a state of war……since the oppositions in which disorder resides have not yet been permanently transcended.”Symbolism of the Cross p43.
[2] Paramahansa Yogananda Man’s Eternal Quest Self -Realisation Fellowship, Los Angeles 1988. P.279. Is the good and evil that Yogananda speaks of the same as evoked by Gerorge W. Bush “who has spoken about evil in 319 separate speeches, since the time he took office and June 16, 2003.” Peter Singer The President of Good and Evil Granta Books (London) 2004, p. 2, see also pps 207–209. Jiddhu Krishnamurti stated “Evil exists, but you dont know anything about it.” See Sunaanda Patwardhan A Vision of the Sacred Edwin House Publishing, Inc. (Ojai, California) 1999, P. 78. “The future of mankind very much depends, upon the recognition of the shadow……Evil is—psychologically speaking—terribly real. It is a fatal mistake to diminish its power and reality, even merely metaphysically.” Carl Jung in Jung and the Story of Our Time Penguin Books 1978, P.222. The Zohar describes evil as the by-product of the life process of the sefiroth. For an exploration of this theme see Gershom Gerhard Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Jerusalem 1941). In Caryl Churchill’s play Far Away it is Harper, the ‘decent upstanding’ aunt harping on about good and evil who is the most dangerous character. See interview with Peter Brook in The Wednesday Review, The Independent 30th January 2002. See also George Monbiot’s article Both Saviour and Victim in Comment and Analysis in The Guardian January 29th 2002.
There is a view that it is at best naïve to view universal conflict in terms of good and evil. Milan Kundera wrote “Freeing the great human conflicts from the naïve interpretation of a battle between good and evil, understanding them in the light of tragedy, was an enormous feat of mind; it brought forward the unavoidable relativism of human truths; it made clear to do justice to the enemy. But moral manicheism has an indestructible vitality”. Translated from the French by Linda Asher. First published in Le Monde Diplomatique May 2003and in Guardian Review as part of article entitled The Theatre of memory 17 May 2003.
[3] Hermann Hesse The Journey To The East. Chapter 3, Page 45. Picador edition 1995. In his “All Quiet On The Western Front”, a searing attempt to convey with honesty the violent brutal corruption of mechanical war, Eric Maria Remarque observed, “This habit of getting used to things is the reason that we seem to forget so quickly.” Vintage edition 2003, p.100.
[4] “The Arabic term jihad, usually translated into European languages as “holy war,” more on the basis of its juridical usage in Islam rather than on its much more universal meaning in the Quran and Hadith, is derived from the root jhd whose primary meaning is to “strive to exert oneself.” There is the lesser jihad and the greater jihad. See The Spiritual Significance of Jihad by Seyyed Hossein Nasr in Parabola Magazine Volume VII, NO. 4. October 1982. The “lesser holy war” (El-jihâdul-asghar) has an outward application but the “greater holy war” (El-jihâdul-akbar) concerns itself entirely with the inward order. The remarkable Sufi ’Abd al-Qadir al Jilani regarded jihad as a personal holy struggle which took place within. To state as Shohei Imamura did in his contribution to the film entitled September 11 “there is no such thing as a Holy War” is a fundamental though understandable error. See review by Alexander Walker, Evening Standard, The Arts, (London) September 10, 2002. For an outer interpretation of the Jihad see Bernard Lewis The Crisis of Islam particularly Chapter II, The House of War, Phoenix edition 2004.
[5] A critique has been made of F. M. Alexander’s use of “masculinist, militarist themes” in his writings. See Terry Fitzgerald Invisible women: Another look at ‘The Evolution of a Technique’ Alexander Journal 17 Summer 2001 London.
[6] In the older icons of St. George and the dragon the saint does not destroy the dragon. Instead the dragon gazes upon the point of the lance which represents the light. The seeing compassionate point of the lance is carried within to transform the violent destructive forces in oneself. Later images show the lance or sword penetrating the chaos of throat or the dark heart. “The icon of St George is a commentary on the cosmic meaning of the spiritual warrior. We understand this if we grasp fully what is spiritual warfare.” Richard Temple, Icons (Element books 1990), p, 125. In a scene with supernatural overtones, the iconic image of St. George is evoked by Clint Eastwood in his archetypal film Pale Rider, (Malpaso, USA, 1985) which is based on the novel Pale Rider by Alan Dean Foster, Arrow Books 1985. Drawing from Revalations 6.8. read by the widows daughter (Sydney Penny), “.. and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.” One views the image inaccurately, though hauntingly presented, when the avenging preacher played by Eastwood is glimpsed astride a pale horse on the edge of town, and later when he arrives at the mining camp. “In ancient times, the term “icon” a word of Greek origin was intended to mean painted tablets (portraits) before it finally referred to the Christian religious paintings.” Nabil Selim AtallaOrbis Terrae Aegyptiae, Coptic Icons Part I Lehnert & Landrock Cairo-Egypt, p.6. “Icon: In a generic sense it means any religious picture, especially the one placed above altars. But current use reserves the term for sacred pictures of Eastern art, representing Christ, the Virgin or saints.” Sing The Joys of Mary, Hymns from the first millennium of the Eastern and Western Churches Edited by Costante Berselli and Georges Gharib, Morehouse-Barlow Co., Inc. p.132. In Chinese mythology the dragon is associated with the sun and the power of Heaven (spirit). For a further view of the dragon see Coomaraswamy Traditional Art and Sybolism Bollingen series LXXXIX, Princeton University Press especially chapter entitled On the Loathly Bride, “Hero and Heroine are our two selves— duo sunt in homine— immanent Spirit (“Soul of the soul,” “this self’s immortal self) and individual soul or self: Eros and Psyche. These two, cohabitant Inner and Outer Man, are at war with each other, and there can be no peace between them until the victory has been won and the soul, our self, this “I,” submits. It is not without reason that the Heroine is often described as haughty, disdainful, “Orgelleuse.” Philo and Rumi repeatedly equate this soul, our self, with the Dragon,….” Pps 366–367.
[7] “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.” St. John 18.37. “ …Know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” St. John 8.32. “Disillusion me with truth,” A request from St.Teresa of Avila to García de Toledo.
[8] Empedocles (c490–430BC) was of the view that this elemental quaternary was the composition of all things in creation including the human form and psyche. The elemental is itself infused (Latin infundere, to pour) with two great forces or principles Eros and Strife (Harmony and Discord). The Zohar states that “At the moment of creation, the four cardinal points unite with the four constituent elements of the world here below: fire, water, earth, and air. It was by mixing these four elements that the Holy One, blessed be He, created a body in the image of that above. The body is thus composed of the elements of both worlds, those of the world below and those of the world above.”
[9] “The old form of yang represents the sun with its rays: of yin a coiled cloud. To each was added the character fu (mound). Thus according to the definition in theErh Ya, a dictionary of the Chou period, yang describes “the sunny side of a mountain” and yin “the side in shadow.” Mai-mai Sze The Way of Chinese Painting,P.43.
[10] W. Shakespeare As You Like It Act II Scene 7