The Whole on high hath part in our dancing.
Whoso danceth not, knoweth not what cometh to pass.
At times the free man conducts his ritual of thanksgiving silently within himself; at other times he conducts it in churches and temples with other people, giving it every possible embellishment of music, song, and visual beauty. As a religion Buddhism started without a God, but the principle of “Buddha” had to be raised to the level of God simply to offer a focal point for the gratitude which the experience of freedom or Nirvana inspired. It is therefore significant that Zen, philosophically and practically a destroyer of forms and images, has quite an elaborate temple ritual. Although it insists, perhaps more than any other form of Buddhism, on the inwardness of the Buddha principle, nevertheless the physical images of the Buddhas are treated with the greatest reverence. Iconoclasm may be necessary for bringing about the realization of freedom, but thereafter we find a new feeling for all religious symbols of life, of the universe, and of that “Love which moves the sun and other stars.”
But there are those whom symbols can never satisfy, and moreover the gratitude of freedom is so overflowing that the forms of religion can never absorb it. This gratitude therefore demands expression in “works of love,” which is to say morality. It makes possible for the first time a genuine morality, for the free man is moral because he wants to be, not because he thinks he ought to be moral. Without gratitude morality is a mere discipline which keeps human society in a relatively stable condition until such time as men learn the freedom of love. But as a discipline it cannot teach love, and as a religious exercise it is no more than imitation of the free man’s behavior. Freedom as liberty to be all of oneself is amoral, but the gratitude which comes in response to this liberty is moral. Freedom is like a gem which shines with equal brilliance in all surroundings; it gleams as well in mud as on velvet, but those who appreciate it do not let it lie in the mud and so arrange the conduct of their lives that the gem is given the most exquisite setting that can be made. But just as precious stones have to be dug out of the depths of the earth, so man has to realize his freedom in accepting the earthy depths of his own being.
Realization has done its work when one’s very life becomes an expression of gratitude, and this is the greatest happiness, for the meaning of happiness consists in three elements—freedom, gratitude, and the sense of wonder. These three elements can be present in the most ordinary of lives; the free man is not necessarily a magician, a seer, or a “mystic” absorbed in ineffable states of consciousness. So many people make the mistake of looking in the supersensual realms for the happiness which they cannot find here on earth, searching for an occult “cosmic consciousness” to release them from the tedious experiences of everyday life. It can never be said too often that the Great Illumination is not a fantastic, extraordinary state of consciousness remote from normal experience. It is every conceivable state of consciousness and of unconsciousness as well (though in unconsciousness it cannot be seen), but people are misled by the symbolic forms in which it is expressed. The Great Illumination is the state of consciousness you have at this moment, and it is recognized as such only when you cease to run away from it and give it freedom to reveal itself. And having found freedom in so unexpected a place, you will be filled with gratitude and then with wonder. For in its greatest form wonder is reverence for all the forms of life, from the highest to the lowest; it is an appreciation of the mystery that divinity is revealed in the most commonplace of things. For this reason Dimitrije Mitrinović (a too-little-known philosopher of Yugoslavia) once said that gnosis was to be surprised at everything.
The Experience of Mystery
As a rule vast knowledge of the mysteries of the universe increases pride, and to lay bare all mysteries is to be in danger of becoming bored. If you try to discover the secret of beauty by taking a flower to pieces, you will arrive at the somewhat unsatisfactory conclusion of having abolished the flower. For beauty is beauty just because it is a mystery, and when ordinary life is known as a profound mystery then we are somewhere near to wisdom. Here is a new connection between mystery and mysticism, a connection which is sometimes indignantly denied. But are we to cast aside all scientific curiosity and embrace the maxim that where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be wise? Of course, the catch is that every degree of wisdom has its counterpart in folly, and the two are so alike that the wise man is wise simply because he can distinguish between the two. The highest and lowest notes of musical sound are both inaudible, and the ignoramus and the sage are both faced with mystery. The difference between the two is that even if you explained the mystery to the sage, it would still remain mysterious, whereas the fool would simply be disappointed and disillusioned. For the fool would imagine that the explanation, the taking to pieces, the analysis, had spoiled the mystery; the sage would see that it had not even begun to explain it. The fool would think he had thereby become wise; the sage would know that he was still a fool. Therefore if the sage is told, as some “mystics” will tell him, that this everyday world is a mere phantom conjured up by deceptive senses from a formless primordial essence, he is not much impressed. If a doctor explains the transformations undergone by food in his stomach, he does not cease to enjoy his dinner. If a scientist tells him that thunder is not the music of the gods but mere electrical disturbances, the thunder is for him no less wonderful. And if some Philistine tells him that playing a violin is only scraping cats’ entrails with horsehair, he simply marvels that melody can emerge from things so unprepossessing in appearance. For what is especially interesting about explanations is that they do not explain; and what is especially dangerous about them is that if they are taken seriously enough and far enough, they simply explain things away. And even if one does resort to the ultimate madness of explaining all things away, there remains still the impenetrable mystery of who is it that explains and why?
“L’Amor Che Move…”
Thus to the free man there is as much divinity and mystery in a brick as in all the ramifications of occult science, for to him a brick is a magic. There is as much freedom of the spirit in watching sparrows on a city street as in meditating in some mountain solitude under the stars. There is as much expression of that freedom in peeling potatoes as in making a cathedral organ sing out the liquid thunder of a fugue. For the free man has become aware of the mystery that the whole power of the universe is at work in the least of things, the least of thoughts, and the least of deeds. In lifting his finger he uses the same power that hurls the stars through space and causes their fire, that bellows in thunder and whispers in wind, that produces a giant tree from the microscopic germ of a seed, and wears away mountains to thin clouds of dust. In whatever he feels, thinks, or does he cannot cut himself off from that power; he knows that in spite of all mistakes, imaginings, and fears he can never for a moment cease to share in its tremendous freedom. He knows that he expresses it both in living and in dying, in creating and in destroying, in being wise and in being a fool. Even so he is not inflated with the conceit of himself as a spiritual giant who has accepted all life and reconciled all opposites. He knows that because of the love of God life was never in need of being accepted nor the opposites of being reconciled, for in acceptance he has only awakened to see what that love has achieved from the very beginning of time. Worms, fleas, idiots, and drunkards are in fact accepting it as much as he, and even though they do not know it as he knows it, he cannot deny them a particle of the reverence that is given to saints and sages. He sees that if anyone is a fool it is himself for not having discovered his treasure long before. Thus in the moment of illumination he realizes that the universe is a mystery greater than he can ever hope to fathom, for the deepest perplexity of all is that such a creature as himself should be allowed to use the power that moves the stars in the littlest of his deeds. Whereat he will say with Dante,7