The speaker in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life” is offering sage advice regarding the notion that each individual must face life with determination to be successful and fill one’s life with achievements. The alternative renders the soul dead or simply slumbering without purpose.
Introduction and Text of “A Psalm of Life”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poetry was enormously popular and influential in his own lifetime. Today, most readers have heard his quotations so often that they have become “part of the culture.”
For example, many readers will recognize the line, “Into each life some rain must fall,” and they will find that line in his poem called “The Rainy Day.” No doubt it is this Longfellow poem that helped spread the use of “rain” as a metaphor for the melancholy times in our lives.
Longfellow was a careful scholar, and his poems reflect an intuition that allowed him to see into the heart and soul of his subject. Critic and editor J. D. McClatchy says that Longfellow was “fluent in many languages,” and the poet translated such works as Dante’s The Divine Comedy.
Other Longfellow translations include “The Good Shepherd” by Lope de Vega, “Santa Teresa’s Book-Mark” by Saint Teresa of Ávila, “The Sea Hath Its Pearls” by Heinrich Heine, and several selections by Michelangelo [1].
The poet also achieved fame as a novelist with his novel Kavanaugh: A Tale. This work was touted by Ralph Waldo Emerson for its contribution to the development of the American novel. Longfellow also excelled as an essayist with such works as “The Literary Spirit of Our Country,” “Table Talk,” and “Address on the Death of Washington Irving.”
The poet’s highly spiritual poem “A Psalm of Life” offers a wise piece of advice regarding the issue of facing life with a proper positive attitude. The alternative is to allow life to defeat one’s spirit which leads to failure and lack of achievement.
Longfellow has said that the poem is “a transcript of my thoughts and feelings at the time I wrote, and of the conviction therein expressed, that Life is something more than an idle dream” [2].
A Psalm of Life
What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.
Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act,— act in the living Present! Heart within, and God o’erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o’er life’s solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.
Sources for the Introduction
[1] J. D. McClatchy, editor. Longfellow: Poems and Other Writings. The Library of America. 2000. Print.
The speaker in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life” presents life as an instrument for striving and achievement; he challenges individuals to think and peer beyond the certainty of death and to tirelessly work toward achieving worthwhile goals.
The poem urges readers to take inspiration from the lives of great men of high accomplishments, to act in the eternal now, and to leave behind a legacy (“footprints in the sands of time” ) that will inspire others to follow their own goals on their personal paths through life.
First Stanza: Confronting and Rebutting Pessimism
Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem.
In one of his most widely anthologized poems “A Psalm of Life,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow creates a speaker who is openly and directly confronting pessimism. The command, “Tell me not, in mournful numbers,” immediately heralds a defiant tone, indicating that the speaker eschews the notion that life remains nothing more than an “empty dream.”
The speaker opines and asserts that a passive, slumbering soul is “dead” and that appearances can be deceiving—life’s true value is not found in relinquishment of duty or rolling over and playing dead.
Second Stanza: A Declaration of Transcendental Life
Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.
In the second stanza, the speaker is declaring that life is real and earnest. He refutes the notion that the graveyard is life’s ultimate destinational goal. By quoting the Biblical injunction, “dust thou art, to dust returnest,” he distinguishes an important, vital difference between the physical encasement and the eternal soul, which confirms that the true purpose of living the life of a human being is to transcend mortality.
Third Stanza: Defeating the Pairs of Opposites
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow Find us farther than to-day.
The third stanza reveals that pleasure, sorrow, and other sense factors involving the pairs of opposites are also not the ultimate aim of existence.
Instead, the speaker calls for active duty and acceptance of responsibilities as the way to progressive evolution. Each day should fulfill some advancement in one’s goal, and not merely remain a repetition of mundane activities or a stagnation of routine.
Fourth Stanza: Time Marches On, but Keep On Keeping On
Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.
The speaker then addresses the struggle between human desires and ambition and the relentless onslaught of time as it ticks on and on. The metaphor of “muffled drums” beating “funeral marches to the grave” emphasizes drearily the inevitability that death continues to approach, yet the speaker continues to urge his fellow human beings to remain “stout and brave” despite these unsavory facts.
Fifth Stanza: Confronting the Battlefield of Life
In the world’s broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife!
The speaker in the fifth stanza then turns to a military metaphor, likening life to a battlefield. He exhorts readers again not to remain passive or herd-like (“dumb, driven cattle”), but to always strive heroically as they meet life’s struggles and set-backs.
Sixth Stanza: The Importance of the Eternal Now
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act,— act in the living Present! Heart within, and God o’erhead!
The speaker now is admonishing his fellows against both relying on the future or on dwelling on the past. The command to “act in the living Present” becomes cardinal to the poem’s message.
The phrase “Heart within, and God o’erhead!” states in no uncertain terms that inner determination and divine protection and guidance are major sources of the necessary strength required to meet all the challenges that life is apt to throw at the human mind and heart.
Seventh Stanza: Emulating the Example of Greatness
Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time;
In the seventh stanza, the speaker is providing the example of great men to inspire the reader. The lives of great men of the past and present clearly and convincingly demonstrate that it is possible for each human being to achieve greatness and to leave a lasting mark in the fields of endeavor to which they have been called.
By keeping in clear sight worthy goals and determining to work assiduously to achieve those goal, any individual can surely succeed and leave “footprints on the sands of time.” Those “footprints” are found in the histories of those great men and women who achieved their goals and gave to humankind tangible tools.
One thinks of such people as the Founding Fathers, who worked tirelessly to bestow on their country a document called the Constitution, which would allow the citizens to live in freedom instead of a monarchy or dictatorship. Or one might bring to mind Thomas Edison with his inventions such as the light bulb that ordinary life uses on a daily basis.
Eighth Stanza: Setting a Positive Example
Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o’er life’s solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again.
The speaker then expands on the idea of a life legacy to all others who may just need a boost to continue marching down their own chosen paths. One need not aim for fame and renown to leave behind those “footprints.”
Whatever good one leaves behind can offer hope and encouragement to others who are struggling. This notion emphasizes the importance of setting a positive example for others because one can never know who might benefit by learning about or seeing how hard we worked for our own goals.
Ninth Stanza: Perfecting a Stalwart Attitude
Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.
The speaker concludes his psalm with a solemn call to action. He urges his readers to remain focused on their goals and duties, and to remain resilient in facing adversity. He wants his fellows to pursue their goal with great determination.
He also wants humanity to nurture perseverance and patience. He admonishes and urges his audience to be industrious and resilient, to pursue goals with determination, and to cultivate a stalwart attitude. Each individual must”Learn to labor and to wait” as they continue to pursue and achieve.
The Power of Longfellow’s Psalm
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “A Psalm of Life” remains a powerful musing on the human condition, as it performs its function through a pleasant meter, sophisticated rime-scheme, and motivating calls for action.
Longfellow’s psalm is not merely an harangue against mortality; it offers instead a set of instructions for deliberate living, as Henry David Thoreau insisted that we went to Walden’s Pond to learn to “live deliberately.”
The psalm’s abiding appeal is that it has the ability to inspire readers to rise above despair and lethargy, to act courageously, and to hopefully leave a meaningful legacy of guideposts for coming generations.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s” Christmas Bells” is a widely anthologized poem that celebrates the winter holiday. It features a phrase associated famously with the Christmas season in its chant, “Of peace on earth / Good-will to men.”
Introduction and Text of “Christmas Bells”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Christmas Bells” is remarkable not only for its tribute to Christmas but also for its commentary regarding the American Civil War, which was in progress at the time the poet composed this poem on Christmas Day 1864. This poem was published in 1865, and by 1872, it was set to music, becoming a world famous Christmas carol, covered by many singers, including Frank Sinatra.
The poem plays out in seven cinquains, each with the riming scheme, AABBC. It repeats the phrase, “peace on earth, good-will to men,” which has become a widely chanted invocation for world peace.
Christmas Bells
I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play, And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom Had rolled along The unbroken song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till ringing, singing on its way, The world revolved from night to day, A voice, a chime, A chant sublime Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth The cannon thundered in the South, And with the sound The carols drowned Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent The hearth-stones of a continent, And made forlorn The households born Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head; “There is no peace on earth,” I said; “For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men.”
Reading with musical accompaniment:
Commentary on “Christmas Bells”
Since its original publication in 1865, the concluding year of the American Civil War, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s” Christmas Bells” has enjoyed widespread distribution and attention.
The poem’s refrain, “Of peace on earth / Good-will to men,” has served as an appeal for a common goal, uplifting the minds and hearts of all people the world over. And while the poem’s association with the Christmas holiday is obvious, the sentiment for peace and world-wide goodwill remain regnant throughout the year.
First Cinquain: Ringing in Christmas
I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play, And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
The speaker reports that upon hearing the church bells pealing and the singing of carols in celebration of Christ’s birth, he is reminded of the purpose of Christmas celebration of peace and harmony among the world’s citizens. He avers that the words and sentiment are very well-known to him.
He also reports that those words hold a special place in his heart. The speaker’s tribute thus reveals the nature of the season that had become and still remain one of the most important celebrations of the year, especially in Western culture.
The line—”Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”—becomes the refrain in this poem that may also serve as a hymn. The refrain allows the poem to function as a chant. It has been invoked many times in many places for that purpose since its composition in 1863.
Those important words have also been employed to remind a warring world of the true goal human endeavor, that peace and harmony are ever more desirable than war and chaos.
Second Cinquain: A Reminder of Peace
And thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom Had rolled along The unbroken song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Hearing the bells and the caroling also reminds the speaker of the “unbroken song” of Christ’s birth that is celebrated in all places where Christians and others of a spiritual nature acknowledge and love Jesus Christ.
Again, the speaker repeats that all important idea, “Of peace on earth, good-will to men!” The chanted line remains an important feature of this poem for its ability to alter even the speaker’s mood as he continues to describe his reaction to hearing the bells.
For the speaker, the continuation of the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ as the savior of humankind has informed his remembrance, even as life has progressed and often descended into the chaos that all of humankind would prefer to avoid.
He is writing during the time of war, and thus he desires to achieve peace, but that desire may be contrasted with outward events that hem him round. As he writes his tribute, motivated by the words of sacredness from the carols, he is reminded of calmness and the nature of life as he would have it.
Third Cinquain: Heavenly Sounds
Till ringing, singing on its way, The world revolved from night to day, A voice, a chime, A chant sublime Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
The sounding of the bells and voices singing Christmas carols continues throughout the day as the day turns into night. The speaker describes the sounds he hears as voices and chimes. He finds those sounds to be heavenly; they remind him of all things sublime. And the chant he has fashioned again closes the cinquain.
The simple chanting of an uncomplicated but seemingly unattainable state of earthly tranquility provides the atmosphere in which a mind may rest, if only for a moment. The necessity of that rest becomes paramount during times of holy day recognition, and the celebration of the birth of Christ offers “Christendom” that opportunity for solemn meditation on the soul.
The speaker throughout his tribute remains intensely focused on the refrain that is chanted, and the peace and goodwill that he is asserting then become part of a prayer. As he asserts that the words of the carols remind him of sacredness, he yearns to bring about that very situation through concentration on the peace and harmony that such chanting is not only describing but also demanding.
Fourth Cinquain: A Moment of Bleak Melancholy
Then from each black, accursed mouth The cannon thundered in the South, And with the sound The carols drowned Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
While the speaker is enjoying of the beautiful peeling of the bells and the singing of carols, he enjoyment is suddenly interrupted by a loud, explosive reminder that war is raging.
Symbolizing the war, cannons are loudly reminding the speaker of the unfortunate events that are being played out, especially in the southern part of his country. Those likely metaphoric sounds have intruded into the speaker’s consciousness at a time when he is musing on beautiful qualities that should exist, specially at this time of year.
The loud cannons that “thunder” become a dark cloud, covering the beauty of the carols that proclaim earthly peace and the lovely fellow feeling that should exist among all citizens.
This interlude of remembrance of war contrasts greatly with the opening emphasis on beauty, tranquility, along with peace and goodwill. The stark image of a cannon’s “black, accursed mouth” startles the mind that has heretofore been soothed by the reminders of celebration of spirituality through peace and goodwill.
Fifth Cinquain: Peace Broken by War
It was as if an earthquake rent The hearth-stones of a continent, And made forlorn The households born Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Continuing the contrasting stark interlude of war that has pushed its way into the speaker’s awareness, this stanza then likens the war to a different calamity. Thus the narrative moves from the cannons of war to the natural phenomenon of an earthquake that breaks up the very ground beneath the feet of the citizens.
The households seem to be suddenly stripped of the serenity that should be aglow with the peace and harmony for each family. This interlude of melancholy and pain, however, still contains the seeds of hope as the cinquain concludes again with the refrain for peace.
The speaker is aware that too many families have been affected by the war as husbands, wives, sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters have gone off to war to defend what they consider their homeland. This “earthquake” of war has caused a melancholy atmosphere to fall over the citizenry, but the speaker still continues to chant his prayer of yearning for peace and goodwill.
Sixth Cinquain: No Peace—Just Despair and Hatred
And in despair I bowed my head; “There is no peace on earth,” I said; “For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Into the third stanza also comes the painful interlude of melancholy, which continues to serve as a reminder that this poem is being composed during a time of war. The speaker looks down, bowing his head, feeling desperate for better times.
He bemoans the fact that currently peace does not reign over the land. His country is engaged in a bloody battle for its soul; it is being pulled apart by differences that reflect strong hatred on both sides.
Political differences have spoiled the peace that should be spreading over the landscape and into the hearts and minds of the citizenry, instead of the suffering and chaos that war and hatred are bringing.
Because there is such strong hatred in the world, the song of peace is mocked by the brutality of war, which contrasts so violently with the notion of peace and harmony. Sadly then, the speaker is experiencing a moment of hopelessness that there is no truth in chanting about peace, love, and goodwill.
The contrast between his earlier feeling regarding peace and harmony reflected by his repeated refrain and this painful realization that peace is lacking must have been excruciating for the speaker as he passes through that dark moment brought on by the reality of war raging in his country.
That the speaker is forced to concede, “There is no peace on earth,” remains a painful reminder of the chaos that hatred brings into the lives all people. The very hope that peace can be achieved on earth becomes difficult to maintain in the midst of all the pain and suffering caused by the destruction of weapons and brute force against citizens.
Seventh Cinquain: The Return to Faith and Joy
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men.”
Just as suddenly as the melancholy had momentarily overtaken him, the speaker’s mind fortunately returns to its faith that all will be well. The bells’ tone now seems to become even deeper and louder, causing the speaker’s musings to be uplifted.
His heart and mind become filled with the notion that the wrong of the world will be defeated by the right, which will win. The speaker assures himself that God is in control, and that God never abandons His children. The sound of the bells continues to peal in the speaker’s consciousness as they deliver his mood from sadness to hope and faith again.
The speaker then is able to assert with strongest faith, “God is not dead.” He also asserts with assurance, “nor doth He sleep.” The speaker’s faith thus returns him to the knowledge that right will overcome wrong because God is still controlling all events.
The speaker can thus continue emphasizing the sentiment of his controlling refrain. He can again with renewed faith place that emphasis on that refrain that had brightened all the preceding stanzas of his discourse. He can chant again his invocation for peace and goodwill for all his earthly brethren.
Thus, because of the return of his faith in his deep heart’s core, he can proclaim the repeated truth that God still fills the world’s faithful “With peace on earth, good-will to men.”
Angela Manalang Gloria’s poem “To the Man I Married” presents an extended metaphor in which the speaker likens her love for her husband to her existential dependence on the earth.
Introduction and Text of “To the Man I Married”
This metaphor functions on both physical and spiritual levels, suggesting that her partner sustains and orients her life in a manner analogous to the natural elements necessary for survival.
To the Man I Married
I
You are my earth and all the earth implies: The gravity that ballasts me in space, The air I breathe, the land that stills my cries For food and shelter against devouring days.
You are the earth whose orbit marks my way And sets my north and south, my east and west, You are the final, elemented clay The driven heart must turn to for its rest.
If in your arms that hold me now so near I lift my keening thoughts to Helicon As trees long rooted to the earth uprear Their quickening leaves and flowers to the sun,
You who are earth, O never doubt that I Need you no less because I need the sky!
II
I cannot love you with a love That outcompares the boundless sea, For that were false, as no such love And no such ocean can ever be. But I can love you with a love As finite as the wave that dies And dying holds from crest to crest The blue of everlasting skies.
Section I
The first section of the poem adheres to the formal structure of the English (or Shakespearean) sonnet, consisting of three quatrains and a concluding couplet.
First Quatrain: The Husband as Life-Sustaining Force
You are my earth and all the earth implies: The gravity that ballasts me in space, The air I breathe, the land that stills my cries For food and shelter against devouring days.
The speaker opens with a striking declaration, asserting her husband’s indispensable role in her existence by comparing him to the earth itself. The metaphor extends through a catalogue of essential elements: gravity, air, land, and sustenance.
These earthly necessities are paralleled with emotional and material support offered by her husband, suggesting that her survival—both physical and emotional—depends as much on him as it does on the natural world.
Second Quatrain: He Provides Orientation and Final Rest
You are the earth whose orbit marks my way And sets my north and south, my east and west, You are the final, elemented clay The driven heart must turn to for its rest.
The second quatrain deepens the metaphor, portraying the husband as the source of direction and purpose in the speaker’s life. The reference to cardinal directions implies that her sense of order and orientation derives from their shared life.
The closing lines evoke mortality and rest, implying that just as the earth will eventually receive her physical body in death, her husband provides emotional and spiritual repose during life.
Third Quatrain: Acknowledging Other Affections
If in your arms that hold me now so near I lift my keening thoughts to Helicon As trees long rooted to the earth uprear Their quickening leaves and flowers to the sun,
Here, the speaker introduces a subtle shift. While affirming her deep attachment to her husband, she also acknowledges her intellectual and spiritual aspirations.
The allusion to Helicon, a mountain sacred to the Muses in Greek mythology, evokes poetic inspiration. Her longing for the transcendent does not diminish her love for her husband; rather, it coexists with it, just as rooted trees still reach toward the sun.
The Couplet: Coexistence of Earthly and Celestial Needs
You who are earth, O never doubt that I Need you no less because I need the sky!
The final couplet affirms the central thesis of the poem: the speaker’s need for transcendence (symbolized by “the sky”) does not negate her need for the grounding, stabilizing presence of her husband (symbolized by “the earth”).
Instead, both are essential, suggesting a balanced view of human experience as encompassing both the corporeal and the aspirational.
Section II
The second part of “To the Man I Married” diverges from the sonnet form and appears in two quatrains, adopting a more reflective tone. Here, the speaker qualifies the grand metaphors of the first section with a more tempered, realistic assessment of love.
First Quatrain: Rejection of Hyperbolic Metaphors
I cannot love you with a love That outcompares the boundless sea, For that were false, as no such love And no such ocean can ever be.
In this stanza, the speaker resists the temptation to describe her love through hyperbole. She dismisses the comparison to the “boundless sea” as false, recognizing the limitations of human emotion and language.
This moment of self-awareness introduces a more grounded view of romantic love.
Second Quatrain: Finite Love Reflecting the Infinite
But I can love you with a love As finite as the wave that dies And dying holds from crest to crest The blue of everlasting skies.
Although she renounces the oceanic metaphor, the speaker reintroduces the image of water through the wave. Unlike the sea, the wave is finite and mortal, yet it captures and reflects the sky’s infinity.
In this subtle turn, Gloria suggests that even within human limitations, love can embody and reflect transcendence.
William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming” remains one of the most widely misunderstood poems of the 20th century. Many scholars and critics have failed to criticize the exaggeration in the first stanza and the absurd metaphor in the second stanza, which render a potentially fine poem a critical failure.
Introduction with Text of “The Second Coming”
Poems, in order to communicate, must be as logical as the purpose and content require. For example, if the poet wishes to comment on or criticize an issue, he must adhere to physical facts in his poetic drama. If the poet wishes to emote, equivocate, or demonstrate the chaotic nature of his cosmic thinking, he may legitimately do so without much seeming sense.
For example, Robert Bly’s lines—”Sometimes a man walks by a pond, and a hand / Reaches out and pulls him in” / / “The pond was lonely, or needed / Calcium, bones would do,”—are ludicrous [1] on every level. Even if one explicates the speaker’s personifying the pond, the lines remain absurd, at least in part because if a person needs calcium, grabbing the bones of another human being will not take care of that deficiency.
The absurdity of a lake needing “calcium” should be abundantly clear on its face. Nevertheless, the image of the lake grabbing a man may ultimately be accepted as the funny nonsense that it is. William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming” cannot be dismissed so easily; while the Yeats poem does not depict the universe as totally chaotic, it does bemoan that fact that events seem to be leading society to armageddon.
The absurdity surrounding the metaphor of the “rough beast” in the Yeats poem renders the musing on world events without practical substance.
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Commentary on “The Second Coming”
William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming” remains one of the most widely anthologized poems in world literature. Yet its hyperbole in the first stanza and ludicrous “rough beast” metaphor in the second stanza result in a blur of unworkable speculation.
First Stanza: Sorrowful over Chaos
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
The speaker is sorrowing over the chaos of world events that have left in their wake many dead people. Clashes of groups of ideologues have wreaked havoc, and much blood shed has smeared the tranquil lives of innocent people who wish to live quiet, productive lives.
The speaker likens the seemingly out of control situation of society to a falconer losing control of the falcon as he attempts to tame it. Everyday life has become chaotic as corrupt governments have spurred revolutions. Lack of respect for leadership has left a vacuum which is filled with force and violence.
The overstated claim that “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity” should have alerted the poet that he needed to rinse out the generic hyperbole in favor of more accuracy on the world stage.
Such a blanket, unqualified statement, especially in a poem, lacks the ring of truth: it simply cannot be true that the “best lack all conviction.” Surely, some the best still retain some level of conviction, or else improvement could never be expected.
It also cannot be true that all the worst are passionate; some of the worst are likely not passionate at all but remain sycophantic, indifferent followers. Any reader should be wary of such all-inclusive, absolutist statements in both prose and poetry.
Anytime a writer subsumes an entirety with the terms “all,” “none,” “everything,” “everyone,” “always,” or “never,” the reader should question the statement for its accuracy. All too often such terms are signals for stereotypes, which produce the same inaccuracy as groupthink.
Second Stanza: What Revelation?
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The idea of “some revelation” leads the speaker to the mythological second coming of Christ. So he speculates on what a second coming might entail. However, instead of “Christ,” the speaker conjures the notion that an Egyptian-Sphinx-like character with ill-intent might arrive instead.
Therefore, in place of a second coming of godliness and virtue, as is the purpose of the original second coming, the speaker wonders: what if the actual second coming will be more like an Anti-Christ? What if all this chaos of bloodshed and disarray has been brought on by the opposite of Christian virtue?
Postmodern Absurdity and the “Rough Beast”
The “rough beast” in Yeats’ “The Second Coming” is an aberration of imagination, not a viable symbol for what Yeats’ speaker thought he was achieving in his critique of culture. If, as the postmodernists contend, there is no order [2] in the universe and nothing really makes any sense anyway, then it becomes perfectly fine to write nonsense.
Because this poet is a contemporary of modernism but not postmodernism [3], William Butler Yeats’ poetry and poetics do not quite devolve to the level of postmodern angst that blankets everything with the nonsensical. Yet, his manifesto titled A Vision is, undoubtedly, one of the contributing factors to that line of meretricious ideology.
Hazarding a Guess Can Be Hazardous
The first stanza of Yeats’ “The Second Coming” begins by metaphorically comparing a falconer losing control of the falcon to nations and governments losing control because of the current world disorder, in which “[t]hings fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”
Political factions employ these lines against their opposition during the time in which their opposition is in power, as they spew forth praise for their own order that somehow magically appears with their taking the seat of power.
The poem has been co-opted by the political class so often that Dorian Lynskey, overviewing the poem in his essay, “‘Things fall apart’: the Apocalyptic Appeal of WB Yeats’s The Second Coming,” writes, “There was apparently no geopolitical drama to which it could not be applied” [4].
The second stanza dramatizes the speaker’s musing about a revelation that has popped into his head, and he likens that revelation to the second coming of Christ; however, this time the coming, he speculates, may be something much different.
The speaker does not know what the second coming will herald, but he does not mind hazarding a dramatic guess about the possibility. Thus, he guesses that the entity of a new “second coming” would likely be something that resembles the Egyptian sphinx; it would not be the return of the Christ with the return of virtue but perhaps its opposite—vice.
The speaker concludes his guess with an allusion to the birth of such an entity as he likens the Blessed Virgin Mother to the “rough beast.” The Blessèd Virgin Mother, as a newfangled, postmodern creature, will be “slouching toward Bethlehem” because that is the location to which the first coming came.
The allusion to “Bethlehem” functions solely as a vague juxtaposition to the phrase “second coming” in hopes that the reader will make the connection that the first coming and the second coming may have something in common. The speaker speculates that at this very moment wherein the speaker is doing his speculation some “rough beast” might be pregnant with the creature of the “second coming.”
And as the time arrives for the creature to be born, the rough beast will go “slouching” towards its lair to give birth to this “second coming” creature: “its hour come round at last” refers to the rough beast being in labor.
The Flaw of Yeats’ “The Second Coming”
The speaker then poses the nonsensical question: “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” In order to make the case that the speaker wishes to make, these last two lines should be restructured in one of two ways:
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to give birth?
or
And what rough beast’s babe, its time come at last, Is in transport to Bethlehem to be born?
An unborn being cannot “slouch” toward a destination. The pregnant mother of the unborn being can “slouch” toward a destination. But the speaker is not contemplating the nature of the rough beast’s mother; he is contemplating the nature of the rough beast itself.
The speaker does not suggest that the literal Sphinx will travel to Bethlehem. He is merely implying that a Sphinx-like creature might resemble the creature of the second coming. Once an individual has discounted the return of Jesus the Christ as a literal or even spiritual fact, one might offer personal speculation about just what a second coming would look like.
It is doubtful that anyone would argue that the poem is dramatizing a literal birth, rather than a spiritual or metaphorical one. It is also unreasonable to argue that the speaker of this poem—or Yeats for that matter—thought that the second coming actually referred to the Sphinx. A ridiculous image develops from the fabrication of the Sphinx moving toward Bethlehem. Yeats was more prudent than that.
Exaggerated Importance of Poem
William Butler Yeats composed a manifesto to display his worldview and poetics titled A Vision, in which he set down certain tenets of his thoughts on poetry, creativity, and world history. Although seemingly taken quite seriously by some Yeatsian scholars, A Vision is of little value in understanding either meaning in poetry or the meaning of the world, particularly in terms of historical events.
An important example of Yeats’ misunderstanding of world cycles is his explanation of the cyclical nature of history, exemplified with what he called “gyres” (pronounced with a hard “g.”) Two particular points in the Yeatsian explanation demonstrate the fallacy of his thinking:
In his diagram, Yeats set the position of the gyres inaccurately; they should not be intersecting but instead one should rest one on top of the other: cycles shrink and enlarge in scope; they do not overlap, as they would have to do if the Yeatsian model were accurate.
Image : Gyres – Inaccurate Configuration from A Vision
Image: Gyres – Accurate Configuration
2. In the traditional Second Coming, Christ is figured to come again but as an adult, not as in infant as is implied in Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming.”
Of great significance in Yeats’ poem is the “rough beast,” apparently the Anti-Christ, who has not been born yet. And most problematic is that the rough beast is “slouch[ing] towards Bethlehem to be born.” The question is, how can such a creature be slouching if it has not yet been born? There is no indication the speaker wishes to attribute this second coming fiasco to the mother of the rough beast.
This illogical event is never mentioned by critics who seem to accept the slouching as a possible occurrence. On this score, it seems critics and scholars have lent the poem an unusually wide and encompassing poetic license.
The Accurate Meaning of the Second Coming
Paramahansa Yogananda has explained in depth the original, spiritual meaning of the phrase “the second coming”[5] which does not signify the literal coming again of Jesus the Christ, but the spiritual awakening of each individual soul to its Divine Nature through the Christ Consciousness.
Paramahansa Yogananda summarizes his two volume work The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You:
In titling this work The Second Coming of Christ, I am not referring to a literal return of Jesus to earth . . .
A thousand Christs sent to earth would not redeem its people unless they themselves become Christlike by purifying and expanding their individual consciousness to receive therein the second coming of the Christ Consciousness, as was manifested in Jesus . . .
Contact with this Consciousness, experienced in the ever new joy of meditation, will be the real second coming of Christ—and it will take place right in the devotee’s own consciousness. (my emphasis added)
Interestingly, knowledge of the meaning of that phrase “the second coming” as explained by Paramahansa Yogananda renders unnecessary the musings of Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming”and most other speculation about the subject. Still, the poem as an artifact of 20th century thinking remains an important object for study.
The late Charles James Kirk, Charlie Kirk, is most noted as the founder of the organization Turning Point USA, created to assist young voters in understanding the values and policies that make life in America prosperous, safe, and spiritually satisfying.
The Growth of a Movement
Born Charles James Kirk on October 14, 1993, to Robert and Kathryn Kirk in Arlington Heights, Illinois, Charlie Kirk graduated from Wheeling High School in 2012; for one semester, he attended Harper College a community college in Palatine, Illinois [1]. As a junior in high school he applied to West Point and was rejected.
While still in high school at age 18, Kirk and a group of friends began laying the foundation for what later became Turning Point USA (TPUSA) [2]. His main reason for dropping out of college was to use his time and effort in growing Turning Point, whose purpose was the supply the education for young people that felt was lacking.
His semester at Harper College, as well as his observation of the lack of informed young voters, convinced him that in general college did more harm than good in passing on to the coming generation the accurate history and values of America [3].
Kirk’s grassroots organization grew rapidly into a national phenomenon, and by 2025, TPUSA had multiplied into chapters numbering in the thousands, including chapters in universities, high schools, and even online.
“Prove Me Wrong”
Shortly after launching Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk started holding sessions he labeled “Prove Me Wrong” on college campuses [4]. He would invite those students in the crowd who opposed his views to come forward to the microphone to debate issues. These sessions became widely popular, with views on Youtube and TikTok numbering in the billions.
Some of the public universities across the United States, where Kirk spoke and held his “Prove Me Wrong” sessions include Arizona State University (2018), the University of California–Berkeley (2019), and Ohio State University (2019), and many others.
At each session, Kirk first delivered his statement on a hot-button political or cultural issue, including free speech, immigration, abortion, or taxation. He then invited those students in the crowd who disagreed with his positions to come forward, speak into a microphone, and “prove him wrong.”
The verbal duels were recorded and made publicly available through YouTube, TikTok, and other media platforms, becoming widely popular, numbering in the billions by the mid-2020s.
Kirk’s goal was to persuade these young voters; he employed a civil tone, never demeaning them or talking down to them as he relied on verifiable facts and logical analyses to support his claims.
Through he own experience, Kirk became aware that the college/university environment fosters Marxist ideology, which is antithetical to the American way life that values freedom, individuality, and actual diversity of thought.
His “Prove Me Wrong” debates offered a forum for respectful exchange of ideas, something the average college classroom has long abandoned in favor of indoctrinating students on what to think rather than how to think. These sessions always attracted large number of students, most of them Kirk supporters, but many of them detractors, to whom Kirk most directly spoke.
Kirk’s engagement with his opposition always remained civil, respectful, and he even expressed admiration for his challengers for their courage and for their attempts to engage and think critically.
Political analysts have credited Kirk’s “Prove Me Wrong” sessions as playing a key role in assisting in the increasing interest of young people in the political process. These sessions along with other activities of Turning Point, as well as, Kirk’s charismatic performance and personality have had a great uplifting influence on the whole of society both old and young.
Kirk held the conviction that persuasion with facts and logic was more influential than partisan oneupmanship. His engagement with students was often the first opportunity they had been given to think and express their views.
Political Stance
Charlie Kirk’s politics centered on three basic issues: free speech, limited government, and free markets. Thus he advocated for deregulation. Furthermore, he supported school-choice initiatives, pro-life/pro-family commitment, and a strong approach to national defense.
Along with Andrew Breitbart, he believed that politics was downstream form culture. Culturally, Kirk argued against the tenets of what has become known as “woke” orthodoxy.
Kirk’s ultimate strategic purpose was to help win elections, which he believed meant winning the hearts, minds, and habits of the younger generation. Thus he directed his message primarily to young people, especially those who are experiencing the aridity of the college camps.
He also emphasized life-affirming activities such as career choice, marriage and family life, and civic duty. The topics he chose to address could often be associated with his core values.
Religious Faith
Charlie Kirk’s Christian faith was the driving force both for his life and his political activism. He believed in the importance of the role of faith in any strategy for cultural renewal.
He personally maintained a daily routine that not only bolstered his faith but kept his mind centered in spirituality. Daily, he read from the Holy Bible, prayed, examined his inner motives [5]. He also maintained a “Sabbath practice,” which meant observing a day of quiet meditation without worldly engagements such as news reports.
Kirk was raised in a Christian family and as a adult became more intensely dedicated to his faith. He remained aware that his faith enhanced his ability to engage publicly and to lead his organization.
Charlie Kirk did not argue for a state sponsored religion. He well understood that the state is prohibited from establishing a religion in order that individuals could practice and worship their religion as they wished.
Kirk’s rhetoric often expressed political struggles in theological terms. Moral questions about family, gender, and identity were not merely policy items but spiritual battles: he believed that cultural trends were demonstrating spiritual decay and that spirituality need to be revived.
His ideas resonated with conservative Christians who believed that secular elites had diminished the influence of faith in public institutions. His ideas and unique voice made him a prominent presence in American politics.
While some critics have denigrated his stance with the label “Christian nationalist,” he described his purpose in civic, not religious terms. His knew that teaching religion by example not rhetoric was more important and effective for today’s youth [6].
Kirk’s religious faith also shaped his alliances and media platforms. He partnered with Christian media (e.g., Salem Media) and evangelical leaders who amplified his message. His faith remained the central focus for his personal identity and his political strategy.
Death and Legacy
The “Charlie Kirk Effect” is felt in his enduring influence as co-founder and CEO of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) and on mobilizing and educating young conservatives.
After his assassination on September 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University during the launch of his “American Comeback Tour,” the name and influence of Charlie Kirk spread far and wide, as it had never been before. This heinous act was immediately recognized as an event that elevated the once spiritual and political activist to the status of a martyr (7).
Although there is a presence of his organization on at least 3500 campuses, reports have claimed that requests for new chapters all over the world are numbering about 120,000, growing every day.
Charlie Kirk’s work focused on promoting fiscal responsibility, free markets, limited government, and faith-based values among high school and college students. By the time of his death at age 31, TPUSA’s annual revenue had grown to nearly $85 million in 2024, fueled by major donors and events like the 2025 Student Action Summit, which drew 5,000 attendees in Tampa, and the Young Women’s Leadership Summit, which hosted over 3,000 participants in Texas.
As mentioned earlier, Kirk’s approach emphasized grassroots activism, including the establishment of student chapters for leadership training and on-campus debates in his signature “Prove Me Wrong” style.
These efforts reached millions through social media—he attracted 2.8 million followers on X—and initiatives like the “You’re Being Brainwashed” tour, which visited 25 campuses in 2024 to boost Gen Z voter turnout for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
As a close Trump ally, Kirk attended the 2025 inauguration, played golf with the president days before, and served as a personal aide to Donald Trump, Jr. during the 2016 election. Kirk’s media presence extended to hosting The Charlie Kirk Show podcast and a weekday talk show on Trinity Broadcasting Network that began in February 2025.
Kirk’s educational vision went beyond activism. He launched Turning Point Academy in 2025 to counter “woke ideology” by creating Christian schools rooted in biblical principles, with the first brick-and-mortar site at Dream City Christian in Phoenix.
Through Turning Point Faith, Kirk partnered with evangelical leaders for tours framing elections as spiritual battles. These programs trained young leaders, with TPUSA alumni entering roles in conservative politics and media.
The assassination—a targeted shooting by 22-year-old Tyler Robinson from a rooftop 125 meters away—drew widespread condemnation as a “political assassination” from Utah Governor Spencer Cox and President Trump, who announced a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom for Kirk.
The event, attended by about 3,000 people, prompted campus closures and a manhunt that ended with Robinson’s arrest. In its aftermath, TPUSA reported over 32,000 inquiries for new campus chapters within 48 hours, followed by 18,000 more requests after widow Erika Kirk’s address, signaling a surge in engagement.
Erika Kirk was unanimously elected CEO and Chair of the Board on September 18, 2025, fulfilling Charlie’s expressed wishes and vowing to expand TPUSA tenfold. The tour continues, with the next stop at Colorado State University on September 18.
Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen also proposed renaming Loop 202 the “Charlie Kirk Memorial Loop 202” to honor his Arizona roots.
Charlie Kirk Effect
The “Charlie Kirk Effect” is present in this institutional momentum: a network of chapters, donor support, and media infrastructure that equips young conservatives with tools for civic and political involvement.
Kirk’s books, such as Time for a Turning Point (2016), and his emphasis on family (8), faith, and patriotism continue to inspire. Globally, TPUSA’s model has influenced groups in the UK and beyond.
Charlie Kirk’s legacy will be measured by the sustained growth of these efforts and the leaders they produce, ensuring his mission endures.
The following sampling of poems are from Mr. Sedam’s second published collection, The Man in Motion.
1 THE QUICK AND THE DEAD
As friends of the deceased we stood outside the plot and spoke of many things; I said that I was a teacher and it came out he was too, somewhere up North, he said, a good community — good school, no foreigners, Negroes, or Jews in fact, he said, no prejudice of any kind.
2 SAINT GEORGE
He says he has a problem and I say: Tell me about it because he’s going to tell me about it anyway so it seems he was making love with his wife last night or thought he was when right in the middle of it she stopped and remembered he hadn’t put out the trash for the trash man the next morning so he asks: What would you have done? and I say: Get up and put out the trash which of course he did but he still doesn’t know why and I reply: You must slay the dragon before there is peace in the land.
3 FACES
A funny thing happened in the war and you’ll never believe it but there was this Jap Zero at ten o’clock low so I rolled up in a bank and hauled back on the stick too fast and nearly lost control and when I rolled out again there was this other Jap (He must have been the wingman) flying formation with me.
We flew that way for hours (at least four seconds) having nothing else to do but stare each other down, and then as if by signal we both turned hard away and hauled ass out of there.
We flew that way for hours (at least four seconds) and when I looked again he was gone— but I can still see that oriental face right now somewhere In Tokyo standing in a bar there’s this guy who’s saying: a funny thing happened in the war and you’ll never believe it but there was this American. . .
4 EXPERIENCE
Then there was that night in Baton Rouge Jack and I went out on the town looking two looking for two And we saw these two broads at the bar and I said There’s two Jack but yours doesn’t look so good but he was game So we grabbed them and wined them and dined them with champagne and steak I remember forty-four bucks to be exact And when we walked out of that place I slipped my arm around the pretty one an whispered let’s go up And she said whadaya think you’re gonna do And I said not a goddam thing and left her flat And Jack took the dog-face one home And made a two-weeks stand of it and come to think of it I never chose a pretty girl after that.
5 NOSTALGIA
(For Lee Anne)
Call it the wish of the wind flowing from a dream of dawn through the never-to-be forgotten spring of our years running swiftly as a lifetime flying like a vision borne Slim Indian princess wedded in motion dark hair streaming sunlight and freedom floating on the cadence song drifting shadow-down in the distance my daughter riding bareback on a windy April afternoon.
6DESAFINADO
(For Allen Ginsberg, et al)
Through this state and on to Kansas more black than May’s tornadoes showering a debris of art — I saw you coming long before you came in paths of twisted fear and hate and dread, uprooted, despising all judgment which is not to say that the bourgeois should not be judged but by whom and by what, junkies, queers, and rot who sit on their haunches and howl that the race should be free for pot and horny honesty? which I would buy if a crisis were ever solved in grossness and minor resolve but for whom and for what?
I protest your protest its hairy irrelevancy, I, who am more anxious than you more plaintive than you more confused than you having more at stake an investment in humanity.
Some things were never explained even to me, and of course they would tell it his way but I believed in her because I chose to believe and you may be sure of this: A man’s biological role is small but a god’s can be no more that it was I who was always there to feed him, to clothe him to teach him, and nurture his growth— discount those foolish rumors that bred on holy seed for truly I say unto you: I was the father of Christ.
At least part of your message is clear, thou shalt not kill except in certain seasons and thou shalt not commit adultery except in certain regions and thou shalt not lie except on incredible things like carrying five tons of tablet stones down mountains.
9 INDIAN COUNTRY
Can it be enough to wake in the morning to find in a land above all others the generosity of spring a summer’s desire the sky like a psalm unfolding a season for lovers?
Stay, do not be afraid walking hand in hand with me through the gentle wilderness the glorious heart of it I know this country better than I know myself better let me share it with you this immortal scene— how can you close your eyes?
10 REGENERATION
Something in me and the abiding dust Loosed an imprisoned force And I became a man at the age of twelve Proclaiming myself above women I decided to be a trapper up North But tried the near creek first Caught a muskrat that turned me weak Cried boys tears then came back strong Finding maturity was thirteen Growing soft on animals and girls.
11 FOREVER CALVIN
Life had seldom been good to him and the cloth he had always denied but faced with the new theology he stood with his beer and replied: “People been sayn’ God is dead but I know that old sonofabitch is still alive.”
12 MYSTIQUE
My thoughts are on the ring of morning my insight beholding the sun— I will say she is not beautiful or shall I say, no more beautiful than the average of her age an average girl in plain blue sleeveless dress with soft brown sling-back shoes and matching purse but for the silver dragonfly . . . ah yes! the silver dragonfly as delicate as her slender hands her red-gold hair her high born face or the white lace of her brassiere, which brings my focus to the nearer things the rainbow from the window the warm wet sound of rain the clear clear air.
13 CASUALTIES
Admission of reality that time can bend a memory am I a victim of my own credulity or did I see the dark blood flow from such savagery . . . unbelievable that I was even there that I remember and forget so easily the brain is lensed like that protects the image sometimes dims forever unless a matching pattern focuses the scene joins two worlds the then and now . . . and then it was no ordinary war a time some unseen power had set the stage for me an unemployed pilot, I happened along a spectator of the invasion until the airplanes came— Admission . . . they brought the casualties in and laid them on the tables of the ship’s wardroom where only hours before we ate our peaceful fare no white-clad nurses here, no softer graces no operating room decor I would identify but my only experience is a football knee and nothing in the past could conjure this: a casual would brings no trail a shattered arm or leg they amputate of mangled flesh in disarray they sew a captain missing half his face the jawbone almost gone what primal instinct saved his life? they can’t decide he crawled back on his own . . . another with both hands taped down to his arms his wrists nearly severed he says his pistol jammed as he was struck a sword— a more immediate concern he also has a bullet in his chest, they probe the fevered flesh that forms the hole almost lose him Shock! a call for plasma the way that nature saves her own or takes in death if the blood is pooled too long the surgeon quietly explains— Admission . . . the other details I forget or something doesn’t want me to recall it is only the surgeon who comes through clear to me whose raw exposure captured me record the butchery whose eyes knew me as I stood fascinated by his sight— at three A.M. they bring the last one in his back a confusion of shrapnel and blood but almost perfect pattern of designs a gaping hole with radiating lines a mortar shell— his face like the grey dawn precipitates the storm he is barely conscious now moving through another world perhaps the only peace he’ll ever know— the stoic surgeon stares and then starts in deadens down with morphine with speed to equal skill and then in rare expression, he’s feeling with his hands searching for something like fish under a log he has a memory now pulls out a bloody jagged hunk smiles and drops it in the pan I’m holding and for the first time notices me and for the time I’ll do a pilot orderly? why not incredible but then how callous I’ve become beside, I can perform and I am remarkably calm he knows, sustains my balance talks of fishing all the while until the fragments are found later much later our two worlds match again he sews with a feminine stitch hands leading heart compassionate in his touch Surprisingly the human skin is very tough he says cuts easily, punches and tears hard the consistency of leather remembering how my mother sewed my shoe way back there he tugs and pulls, but carefully the sergeant groans from pain I ask? no, reflex action he explains the pain comes later much later more thread! will he ever get their wounds sewed up? how neat the stitches come a patchwork quilt, a Frankenstein design and finally done his genius shows, he’s made another man but what about his kind and if he lives how does he survive? what cursed the learned doctor after time and after twenty-five years what monster roams to haunt the tortured mind? Admission . . . it is unbelievable the punishment the human body can absorb or what the mind can hold at least for awhile until the patterns match the greatest pain comes later . . . much later.
14 SELF ANALYSIS
Often I have wondered from where I came something of motion wind and cloud and wing high unity the sky was my medicine dream an identity, I suspect . . . I never was born at all I fell from another world was found by a savage tribe ran through my Indian youth followed rivers and leas talked with birds climbed ancient trees then beholding all things I found creativity— all my years of learning have taught me only what I knew as a child.
15 INCONGRUITY
Theirs is a house, a show place of antiseptic rooms marked: His and Hers with climb marks on his walls and halls that lead to nowhere (they wouldn’t dare) and yet they have three daughters which their friends assure me came naturally.
16 APRIL
Then from the winter grief and the tree’s last clinging the dead leaf falls to be born in time’s intricate weaving from the sentient sleep it awakes to behold life believing . . . and you thought the spring would never come— Arise My Love, arise for love has performed a miracle.
17 HIGH SIERRA
And try as I would today I could not walk that objective distance away to write a universal poem that symbolized all metaphors of love profoundly beautiful sensitive to wordways, more sensitive to height the clearest view the path ran always toward the sunlight always to you, in lines as free as taking you into my arms feeling the flow of your warmth creation smiling upon me.
18 JURISPRUDENCE
Yes, yes, I know the tree belongs to you but your mistake was planting to close to the line— possession being nine-tenths of the law your branches leaning heavily my way, I have picked the apple on this side and I intend to eat every damned on of them.
19 MIRRORS
And now my daughter what shall I say to you when only yesterday I learned to know myself I cannot tell just where I end where you begin or when it was I loved and lost and won the perfect picture of my ego —
I know the cruelty that reprimands your nature you feel too much you love too much you give too much and I would make you man, like me hardened and warm vulnerable and sound hidden between poems doubting . . . believing . . . no, it is not so I would not rule you and corrupt your beauty, you declare in the desperate desire an intimate loneliness a weakness yet laden with power a possible greatness — then what shall I say to you? you have written me a poem, really, it is almost good . . . really, too much like me.
20 ORIGINAL SIN
“And as life must always contemplate death.”
Now and again in a crowd I’ll see that look in someone’s eye that searing stare of endless pain a desperate longing for the sky . . .
a tremor in the sun, a hurried cry — “This is Blue Four bailing out!”
the convoluting sight, a silver streak the searing flash, a rolling red-orange flame but someone calls: “He’s clear! He’s clear!”
we see him floating free, momentarily safe billowing white against the perfect blue like an angel removed from evil—
God’s merciful arrangement? the decision was never his he is falling into the enemy’s hands and the guilt of war goes with him —
he gathers in his chute, hopelessly alone we circle one more time but none of us can save him, standing on the crest of his years he waves his last goodbye — Paul Williams . . . the loneliest man I ever saw.
21 CREATION
I will allow to my plan one dream of man’s own choosing that he may break his earthly bonds and exist beyond reason and Adam and Eve looked upon each other and behold, they were overjoyed!
22 DOWN TWO AND VULNERABLE
Whose knees these are I think I know her husband’s in the kitchen though he will not see me glancing here to watch her eyes light up and glow;
My partner thinks it’s rather queer to hear me bidding loud and clear between the drinks before the take the coldest bridge night of the year;
She give her head a little shake to ask if there is some mistake five no-trump bid, their diamonds deep and one finesse I cannot make;
Those knees are lovely warm and sleek but I have promises to keep and cards to play before I sleep and cards to play before I sleep.
23 UNTOUCHABLES
If you will ride with me in the warm and velvet rain and stay discreetly on your side I will write for you the most beautiful love poem of your life.
24 THE DEATH OF GOD
Look at me Father beneath the grime and blood a soft-faced boy fading in your sight, severed from the power to make the sign one arm dangles, the other grasps my side; Listen to me Father and hear the red flood rain the morning with low moaning black whispers marching in armies of shadows exposing, exploding the expedient lie, the cold thought crawls pain-studded, shouting cutting the sacred threads from all tomorrows;
Time and the sun are staring sending gods and heroes to their places; while yet I live and slowly shed my robe I witness your death as you witness mine.
25 LETTER
Before all colors fade before you are gone I’ll hold to this memory of you, I see you in that gown like wine two shades of purple pink and purple red of passion drawn, deep down I wandered weak from want of you then knew your warmth and drank my fill and filled the caverns of my mind and sewed the hills with vineyards fine that I each year might touch the spring again — when you are gone, and surely you are I know it now for the words are beginning to come.
26 FORGOTTEN SPRING
And I awake in the veil of morning from shadow dreams unfound unknown there is no sight or sound but the rain in the willows and I have forgotten when it was that came in May with the scent of spring and a trace of the forest bloom — I arise and go to the window and search in the darkness to feel the lifeblood touching the night with my hands recalling the smallest things transformed in rain the linden flowers the redbud lane and I return and I am young in my shadows reflecting a sequined day of warmer years when children walked the emerald springs remembering nothing but dreams nothing but sleep sleep Sleep that come a thousand miles beyond a distant sorrow the forest road and garden flowers dissembled torment settled the terror of unearthly storms from sounding dreams of heartbeats falling falling asleep asleep and I awake to know not to know what lonely river fills the tortured mind a soul’s denial why nether light unveils a ghost of time condemns tomorrow somewhere the dead is watching exists is calling something I have lost has troubled me awakens me calls me to sleep sleep the broken frames of memory close asleep open and I awake to the black veil of mourning painfully conscious of that final hour and one forgotten scene the wringing hands the labored breath a tension crowded room the moral madness of his sight the faded flowers the dreaded tomb, but I am old, have shed my tears — sleep! give me sleep! I want no memory of that time and avalanche of lifeblood fallen drowning in a sea of slime the shadow man more child than man was dying . . . dead and life removed is dead calls to me to silence and sleep sleep sleep that goes a thousand miles beyond perpetual dawn the spring was morning the sun had healing powers I stood at the window beside my mother and Albert walked along the garden flowers and called: come, Marcene, let’s go mushroom hunting.
27 EDELWEISS
Then I will tell you about beauty it is the miracle revealed on a winter day that in a careful moment flowers a barren land and leaves tomorrow wherein we walk from snowy graves reborn seven times over, touch me then for that is beauty the only kind I understand what matters now is that I remember for the longest possible time the longest day when beauty is covered with sorrow . . . this too shall pass away.
28 SUMMER PLACE
Still my awareness can say what happened there — there was such a time and such a woman there was a river flowing a blood so dramatically clear there was a windwalk flowering through the trees an endless stream of light that marked the year — how do I measure your loveliness? I see you again like willow wand summer sun shining and free and unashamed love and the slowly spreading leaves care and the greatest gift we claimed — calmer then we knew our way we gathered life around us like a golden cloak and wore it every day.
29 LONELINESS
On that October afternoon under the maple bordered streets the canopy of memory closed every Godly sound when Billy Lambert died — the rainfall felled and crushed red leaves bled through bitter wine and I drank paralyzed like any man too stunned to reason why too brave to cry, they said, they took my silent grief what sixty pounds could give as proof like theirs, standing for strength — they did not know that I was eleven without faith.
30 FARFALLA
It seems inevitable now that I should find you again at mid-summer, when I came down from the spring I walked along in the rain thinking of you your form and being as warm and secure as nature’s cocoon knowing that someday soon you would arrive with the sun beautiful and alive.
31 ALCHEMIST
From the imagery of the past with the metaphorical present the match is made sometimes obvious but more often than not a sixth sense tells us it is there and apparently without reason we know because we have tried — a poem is not tricked not willed into being, with or without us it comes with a mind of it own a substance of rhythm and tone base metal some unknown alchemy has turned to gold.
32 FOR REASONS UNKNOWN
“The Board after review of the crash that took the lives of fifty-eight people, has ruled, the probable cause: a loss of control, for reasons unknown.”
To one who must review the will of impossible gods this crash leaves in its wake man’s torn identity For Reasons Unknown; the probable cause, an altimeter’s difference, an obvious loss of control but who can comfort oneself on finding death at this expense; here in the residue of grief, a coat, a toy, a case the charred remains of lives the lived before the shrouds, once with a burning intensity, a chemistry sublime now an horrendous blending shattered by time For Reasons Unknown; only a few hours before when there was hope we were intrigued by their heights, sensation of pride and power in that moment of brilliance, a soul’s magnificence then a wall and a new dimension of mind; again we have met in this place, the corridor of death where we are no longer strangers to the hard intelligence: that the dream is impenetrable for them and for us and for them it is all or nothing, and if it is nothing . . . but then, how foolish is forever, For Reasons Unknown, cancel flight fifty-eight.
33 CONCEPTIONS
If I were a woman I would become great with child if only to test my creative power to bring a fertilized egg into being proof positive that my reproductive prowess exists but being a man I can still stare at sperm unbelieving that there is anything great with me having no conception of conception I’m disturbed when she asks me: “Aren’t you proud to be a father?” and I answer yes and no no for the biological act, yes after the fact I fulfilled my responsibilities and earned my right to that to be called Father? no, with no awareness of conception I knew only, still felt only the pleasure, so I would alter the master plan somewhat —
a woman should be wired for light and sound and at the time conception like an exciting pinball machine her body would glow and the lights would come on and bells would ring and out of her navel would pop a card which would say: Big Man with your wondrous sperm this time you the the jackpot! keep this card and in nine months you can collect.
34 PHD
I continued upward ignoring signs of the northern sky until I crossed the subtle circle and arrived at the pole; I sat in frozen silence reflecting an impotent sun and when I left that place my direction was necessarily south.
35 DIVINE RIGHT
“And God saw every thing that he had made and behold, it was very good.” Genesis 1:31
All of God’s creatures have purpose they say, including me and even I may prove it yet and even a mosquito proved it once, Texas breed, Matagorda brand he sat upon my hand and sucked my blood, innocently without checking my rank and mismatched as we were he filled too full to fly and fluttered fitfully flopping like a frog, so heavily wing-loaded I smashed him flat than sat back on my throne and praised my bloody competence.
36 PATHFINDER
Two roads diverged in the yellow woods And I knowing I could not travel both impetuously cried: To Hell with decisions! And struck off through the woods.
37 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
“I thought you were strong for Jenny?” “Well you know how she is— Wears three coats of makeup, Flat chested, legs too short, And without contacts—ugh!”
Which reminded me of the time He introduced me to Jenny— Lavender eyes, satin skin And bosom and legs enough . . .
“Oh yes and another thing You wouldn’t have guessed: We broke up last week.”
38 DISCOVERY
Between the first and the last there is a part of us that lives outside ourselves where we can see held in life’s rhythm our first encounter with immortality, no joy specific could cry that pleasure proclaiming what we are but if we could tell this tale where no one cared to know we would live it again that intimate discovery like Adam and Eve we were the first two people.
39 POEM TO MY FATHER
On His Seventy-fifth Birthday
For as a man stands for love— and now after the gift of our friendship when I am alone to see myself for what I am, how slow was my awakening, and it seemed too many years you had passed us by but then as I became mature and unafraid they made the bond enduring when we discovered we walked the same valley of age and wisdom respectfully different, feeling the same imprints hearing the same footfalls following the same river to the ultimate sea— foreseeing that day of silence I need no tears to purify the past: this was the gift of the gods For as a man stands for love there will remain his legacy an everlasting moment the memory of the nobility of man.
40 YOKOHOMMA MISSION
(After Twenty-fiveYears)
What the years have taken away what I forget to remember and what lasts forever in dreams that burned the imprint on my mind . . .
Flying across that lonely shield of space the interwoven contrails streak the malevolent sun high and clear at twenty thousand feet down a flawless sweep of sky— We have formed to protect the second wave of bombers long-barreled B-29s with huge block letter markings on their tails three hundred in a massive glare but one that stands out over all the letter R Remember How they came the enemy in swarm like magnificent fireflies in black and green with big red suns on their wings confused our aim skywalked our tracers missing four and hitting one he spins away angrier in death then life again the engines strain moving upward climbing to regain ah precious altitude the run is perfectly aligned—
We have broken off momentarily giving way to the black flak highway blanketing the run the first unfolded far behind the second overled the third more accurate scores a bomber falls away, hesitates then dies rolls over slowly explodes the sky churns with debris another in its death throes yet another, and another vectored down the line moving moving onward Here they cone again! scattered, less reckless now they’ll never understand another pass would run our fuel tanks low one almost playfully tags along we clobber him impatiently move on always moving full throttle maximum RPM abuse the trim damn the machine always straining always climbing The name of the game is survive and some are delivered and some luck out and some are determined to die but what is left of skill is gone . . . A Kamikaze! A mid-air! one of theirs and one of ours a final terrible embrace falling falling away unforgiven a cripple falling far behind another going down another R Remember the unbearable emptiness the invisible force of time of sailing, drifting, soaring always moving wind driven by some mysterious mind of wheeling, climbing, floating—
Then suddenly the departure point I turn for one last look at life transfixed in war’s psychotic stare the horrifying tower the hell we made for a million souls in flames that outlast fire the pinpoint accuracy of this day twenty-five years ago, a quarter of a century and Yokohomma is still burning.
41 DIALOGUE INTELLECTUAL
You call that poetry? That was my intention. Well it’s not good poetry. By whose contention? Mine! Which makes you a critic? Yes, now here’s a good line, Whose is it? Mine. Is it part of a poem? No, it’s only a line. You could never finish it? Yes, that’s true. Well add this pseudo intellectual schmaltzy phrase. What’s that? Up you!
42 UNDERSTANDINGS
I had heard these aunts before damn their fat Victorian souls who gathered in our house those poor depression days for grand reunions with gossip of the years and I the slender one too young too male to hear that day hid behind the door and combed their conversation for tidbits dear for boys too mean to bore and in the painful hour they took my subject sex and tore to bloody shreds all acts of manly fire of passion and desire all aunts but one who would become my favorite in the end she said: “The way I see it girls the way you should it don’t hurt me none and seems to do George a power of good.”
43 REFLECTIONS
What would I keep for beauty’s sake to cherish your presence in me not you but the essence of you even more than the intimate part of me you took with you— I smile at your face in the mirror looking at me my countenance radiant, taut-muscled confident and so sure that I am a man, with you I, too, am beautiful.
44 BLOOD ROOT
Then I becoming I considered then the flower from winter’s spring where I was I who found the trail of God’s creation who could hold beauty walking on touching every bloom of nature — it took me a long time to grow up from winter’s need where I was I like love it was a wind fragile flower and when I pick it it bled.
45 GORDON CHRISTOE
I remember his confident voice his high-flying banter the sound of his chattering guns that echoed his laughter then the Samurai came and shouted his name and Gordon disappeared in a black whisper.
46 DEATH OF A FIGHTER PILOT
Falling through legend and sky his vision a flaming mirror spinning away and away all promise of life lost in the lonely cry: I’m going in.
47 RELATIVITY
And so you are real but how long will you last? I have learned not to ask playing these god games to reconcile the past, yes, we’ll make too much of it our pleasure and crowded lament but why not the sands run low on dreadful wisdom.
48 VERTIGO
The sky was down the clouds had closed the chance a vast and inlaid sleep then magnified the trance, so set in power I saw the phantom dance that sent the brain dials spinning . . . abruptly the earth cut my remembering and I awoke in flames.
49 NIGHT TRAIN
Loneliness and a faraway whistle loneliness stirring the wind loneliness swelling the moonlight a storm swept song callling calling COMMmmee . . .
He’s hard out of Glenwood now trailing his midnight smoke a symphony on steel coming from someplace, somewhere from places of never before from fabulous lands and scenes dreamed in my book of days closer closer He’s rounding the curve downgrade on rambling thundering rods pulse like my heartbeat pounding pounding he whistles our crossing now his hot steam severs the air
COMMmmee . . . COMMmmee . . . A WAY e-e-e Straight through the town, throttle down deafening sound the summer night made aware screaming upgrade exhaust in staccato rhyme telling the world of his climb rolling on Arlington now high on his whirling wheels gaining the crest of the hill going to someplace, somewhere to fabulous lands and scenes pulse like my heart beat calling calling COMMmmee . . . COMMmmee . . . A WAY e-e-e
50 SCARLET TANAGER
I look at him as he looks at me in sly appraisal and I think he must be a discriminating bird to choose my woods for his mating show, but still I know that recently he came North from the land of the Chavante* and could it be that he sees in me only the image of another stage?
I knew that I must laugh before they carried me away and then I was carried away with laughter and now they have carried me away.
52 ZIP CODE
From that red restlessness understanding they would accept no compromise they left without a word between.
53 TIPPECANOE BATTLEFIELD
Walking through legend and tale I thought I saw Indians charging in feathered lines and calm Kentuckians gathering war-scalps— wandering too far I saw Harrison the magnificent riding his white stallion and . . . the thing I remember most about war was its bloody confusion.
54 MOON GLOW
So beautifully she could express desire — we had walked along the woods enamored of nature and ourselves; the moon grass an infinite sky the warm repletion a cry — come, she said, the children will be returning.
55 HARVEST
You will remember this time the love that holds this place born from a season of growing when we bled into each other from long histories and found all our futures foretold;
Now it is clear from our height this time is God’s artistic best, the sun revolves in a velvet line the winnowing need drawn from our childhood — Harvest . . . when the seek of the human heart knows assurance.
56 HOMECOMING
No one seemed to know him but he impressed us as he led the vocabulary parade; obviously he was a college man suave in dress submerged in manners and we could se his class ring when he picked his big nose.
57 PERCEPTIVO
If you’ll remember that day we barely met and yet I know all about you, I listened to your poetry but long before that — there is something in every woman that inevitably gives her away and you, my dear, were wearing exquisite pink shoes.
58 HAPPINESS
The storm cometh, the moment grows pale —
nothing in my memory ever dies, I remember our search for the sun that great straining upward formation flying like exotic birds spreading our wings on the day, and then a sudden flame — a terrible calm . . . happiness like a solitary leaf breaks off and falls away.
59 MARTY
(Who came without an appointment)
Softly she came with a folder under her arm, clutched tightly a countenance between a smile and a frown, she could go quickly either way, and then she spoke her mind in metaphor and rhythm, disgressed* in imagery that give her mood away and finally she told me she wrote poetry which I had already discovered before ever reading a word.
*”Disgressed” is an obvious typographical error. I suggest that the best reading of this line would be “dressed in imagery.”
60 ADAM
For over a week you have appeared in my sleep and I find myself seeking you endlessly — should I deny what I am, alone and awake a shadowless man tomorrow his glory gone like a season? and when you close upon my flesh then leave me naked and afraid should I deny what you are the storm of your coming and from its center the heart of emptiness the blood that cannot touch or give until it commands existence? I feel at this moment of birth the death of all things but let God speak honestly the power was given me to weigh with immortality and rather than let this moment pass away I will awake and create a poem which is woman which is life.
61 NOVEMBER
And you my friend tell me what you will there are some things you will never hold not even their innocent birth or trembling growth or color of life or last breathing;
In the bright façade of June you have said: Time has no end the sun to command has stood still and day and night are one immortal light like this summer I think I know why I hesitate as though I had never known the beauty of which you speak almost as if your voice could alter distance conjure love or call creation’s fire which I cannot believe
When years have hollow eyes I marvel I even remember the flight the scene of desire removed you think I dream what I write but think what you will — I have seen what winter can do.
62 GROUND FOG
Her night’s commitment soft and sultry, I touched the quintessence distilled five times fondled the moon disguised five times filtered the sky diffused five times and caught her mood . . . all this while sitting on my hands.
63 SILENT TREATMENT
I would not speak as a matter of fact I was determined not to give in this time because I was By God Right! and I was, I did not speak though I did smile as I carried her up the stairs.
64 INTERSTATE 75
Believing and I would believe against all possible odds against the inroads of roads against the factory walls against all concrete and steel that nature will always be real when I can write poetry at seventy, driving south and trail two lovers through the slow warm passage of time.
65 V J DAY
Appropriately we were airborne during the lull flying in our time testing out and staying sharp just in case when suddenly and literally out of the blue it came the pronouncement: “Iwo Tower to all planes — it’s all over boys — the War’s over!” a stunned long static unbelief before someone broke the spell — “Yahooo! Yahooo!” then everyone turned on how many times we yelled I can’t recall we firewalled all controls and rocked the sky in rollicking release but then the voice of God himself cut in the Squadron Commander: “All right you guys let’s knock it off — Remedy Red leader to all flights join up with me over the island and fly the tightest formation of your life.” we closed in fast and stacked down on his wing locked inside, reset the trim and leveled for the show — he waved how beautiful that square and hawk-nosed face bright like the Leo sun in terrible relief the pain and anxiety gone, drawn dangerously close to sentimental words — I settled back in throttles and controls chose my new horizon aware of every feeling and desire becoming strangely awed by the sight of my hand the flesh and blood that was in me the hope of tomorrow alive at last believing that a miracle had really happened the War was over, that I was human again.
66 THEN SUDDENLY
Then suddenly as if I had always known I loved you as naturally as breathing.
67 AND I
And I lifted against the burning heart of a woman’s heart and I drunk with your beauty.
68 AND LOVE IS
And love is that joy of giving of finding oneself profoundly acceptable in the sight of another.
69 REPRIEVE
On a day that I had chosen to die I was stopped by a child standing in the doorway.
70 ETERNITY
Flying the terraced night among the stars death-mirrored — is it possible I see the hereafter?
71 MEMORIAL — TEN DAYS AFTER
Silence to silence these faded geraniums tell me that happy people have no history.
71 ID 111
Life: Meets hourly, daily A non-credit course.
72 PERFECTION
Listening to a baby’s laughter — perfection . . . a short poem.
73 DISTILLATION REPORT
God: the neutral spirit with which man blends impossible proofs.
74 WEATHER REPORT
Marriage: that marrow exposure a temperature inversion as we grow older.
Publication Status of The Man in Motion
As with Between Wars, securing copies of Mr. Sedam’s The Man in Motion requires some research. Currently, no copies are available on Amazon, but by checking back from time to time, one might become available.
Roughly in order of origin, the five major world religions are Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Each major religion has many branches or denominations that focus on certain aspects of the main religion. This article features a brief overview of each of the five major religions.
Introduction: What Is the Purpose of Religion?
“If God after making the world puts Himself outside it, He is no longer God. If He separates Himself from the world or wants to separate Himself, He is not God. The world is not the world when it is separated from God. God must be in the world and the world in God.” —D. T. Suzuki
According to Paramahansa Yogananda [1], the purpose of all religions—as well as the purpose of life itself—is to reunite the individual soul with the Supreme Soul or God. The differences that seem to split religions from one another result from the use of different metaphors that portray concepts.
Also use of different names for the Supreme Deity causes confusion; for example, Allah, Divine Mother, Ultimate Reality, Supreme Intelligence, Emptiness, Absolute, and Over-Soul represent some of the terms used to name the Unnameable or the Ineffable [2].
A common misunderstanding of Hinduism emerges from the many Hindu names for God or the Supreme Soul. But instead of actually signifying different “gods,” the names merely signify different aspects of of the one God. Hinduism is monotheistic, just as Christianity and all other religions are.
All of the five major world religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—have in common a basic faith, even though each religion describes the nature of their faith differently. They each have a prophet, or prophets, who interpret God’s ways, and scripture in which the interpretation resides.
Hinduism
Hinduism’s scripture is the Bhagavad-Gita, and major prophet is Krishna. However, Hinduism is probably the world’s oldest religion, [3] and, therefore, it also has other ancient scripture that was not written down for many centuries or perhaps millennia. These are called the Vedas.
In more recent history the important scripture that contains the explanation for existence and the guide back to God is the Bhagavad-Gita, whose central narrator is Bhagavan Krishna.
Buddhism
Buddhism’s scripture is the Dhammapada, and its major prophet is Siddhartha Gautama or the Buddha [4]. Buddhism began around 500 B.C. in India, when the prince Gautama abandoned his young wife and child and took up the life of an ascetic. It is said that he positioned himself under a banyan tree and determined to remain there until he had attained enlightenment.
Buddhism is very similar to Hinduism in that they both focus on meditation to achieve “enlightenment,” which is called “nirvana” in Buddhism and “samadhi” in Hinduism. Also both religions describe the nature of God, or the Absolute, pantheistically.
Judaism
Judaism’s major prophets are the Old Testament prophets, especially Moses [5]; thus, its scripture is the Old Testament or Torah consisting of the Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Because Judaism does not recognize the New Testament, it does not recognize the “old” testament as such, but simply as the Torah. The name “Judaism” originates from the fourth son of Jacob, who was the father of the tribe of “Judah.” The name “Judah” means gratitude in Hebrew.
It was the tribe of Judah that resided in Jerusalem during the reign of both David and Solomon. Later the Judaic kingdom included all of the southern tribes of Israel.
Thus, the religion of the Jews is called “Judaism.
Christianity
Christianity’s major prophet is Jesus Christ, whose major scripture is the Sermon on the Mount [6] which is part of the New Testament. Like most prophets, Christ appeared at a time of history when there was great turmoil and strife. Human kind had lost its knowledge of its divinity within the soul, and the Christ appeared to remind people that “the kingdom of God is with you.”
Islam
Islam’s prophet is Muhammad, and its scripture is the Quran (Koran). In addition to the Quran, the devout Muslim studies the Sunnah, which is an account of the prophet’s life and the activities and traditions he approved.
The prophet Muhammad was born April 20, 571, to a wealthy family of the tribe of Mecca. His father had died a few days before his son was born, and his mother died when he was six-years-old.
His grandfather, who was caring for the boy, then died when Muhammad turned nine, at which time he was cared for by an uncle. The world in which the young boy lived was a chaotic one, sometimes described a “barbaric.” It is said that Muhammad was a gentle boy, sensitive and compassionate in his dealings with others.
At the age of twenty-five he entered the caravan business owned by a wealthy widow, Khadija; their relationship grew from deep respect to admiration and love, and they married. Their union proved successful. Fifteen years later the man Muhammad transformed into the Prophet, but such a transformation did not happen overnight. According to Huston Smith [7],
There was a huge, barren rock on the outskirts of Mecca known as Mount Hira, torn by cleft and ravine, erupting unshadowed and flowerless from the desert sands. In this rock was a cave which Muhammad, in need of deep solitude, began to frequent. Peering into the mysteries of good and evil, unable to accept the crudeness, superstition, and fratricide that were accepted as normal, “this great fiery heart, seething, simmering like a great furnace of thoughts,” was reaching out for God.
Religious Distortion
All of the great religions have suffered distortion at the hands ignorant interpreters. In the name of Christianity large scale devastation was visited upon the world during in the Middle Ages during the Crusades [8], then later in the Spanish Inquisition [9] , and even in the colonial America during the Salem Witch Trials [10].
Hindu zealots have misappropriated and turned the Caste system into an oppressive ordering of society [11] that was not part of Hindu scripture. Many adherents to Buddhism in the West are attracted to that religion based on the misunderstanding that Buddhism is an atheistic religion.
Again, the misunderstanding results from failure to grasp the basic metaphors used to make sensible the Ineffable. And, of course, the extremist Islamists who distort the meaning of jihad [12] demonstrate the horror that can be fostered from erroneous understanding of the metaphor of scripture.
Much fantasy has grown out of the facts of religions, and much mayhem and destruction has been and continues to be carried out in the name of religion. But all of the great religions teach compassion and love, and even though certain misguided zealots try to conquer others immorally in so-called holy wars, they do not represent the vast majority of the devout who understand and practice their religions as they are meant to be practiced.
Sources
[1] Paramahansa Yogananda. The Science of Religion. Self-Realization Fellowship. 1953. Print. [2] Linda Sue Grimes. “Names for the Ineffable God.” Linda’s Literary Home. October 7, 2025.
[3] Joshua J. Mark. “Hinduism.” World History Encyclopedia. June 8, 2020.
According the renowned spiritual leader, Paramahansa Yogananda, when an individual develops an intense yearning for God, then God sends that individual tangible evidence of His love: “When you have convinced the Lord of your desire for Him, He will send someone — your guru — to teach you how to know Him.”
Also Yogananda has explained that when evil seems to be overcoming good in the world,
God sends a prophet (guru or spiritual leader) to help people turn back toward God. Muhammad, being a gentle, compassionate soul, developed his latent soul qualities and by intense meditation in the cave at Mount Mira touched God’s heart and God spoke to him, not only to satisfy the individual soul of Muhammad, but God also used Muhammad to inform those crude, superstitious, fratricidal brothers of a better way of life.
Unfortunately, just as Hindu zealots have misappropriated and turned the Caste system into an oppressive ordering of society, many Islamists have turned the teachings of Muhammad into the opposite of the prophet’s instructions for peace, and instead of leading to a “better way of life,” many ignorant followers of that faith have returned to “crude, superstitious, fratricidal” behavior.
God is one Being, but God has many aspects; thus God has many names. All religious scriptures point to God as the only Creator. As the ineffable Spirit, God remains only the essence of Bliss, but as Creation, He is able to function through various bodies and powers for differing motives.
The Many Names of God, the Ineffable
The term “ineffable” applies to anything that is indescribable, something that is so beyond human concepts that there are actually no words that can do it justice. The term God is such a concept. If humankind wanted to proscribe all terms hitherto naming God, it would do well to employ only the term the “Ineffable.”
Despite the fact that there are things, beings, even events that humanity finds ineffable, the confluence of the human mind and heart seeks to name and describe those entities anyway. But the naming and describing must always come with the caveat that anything said naming and describing are mere approximations.
For example, on the purely material, physical plane, the taste of an orange remains ineffable. One may say the orange tastes sweet, but so do apples, cookies, and ethylene glycol—none of which tastes like an orange. The only way to know the taste of an orange is to taste it—no description will ever reveal that actual taste.
The same situation exists facing the issue of knowing who or what God is. Humanity from time immemorial has described God, given God names and descriptions, but to know God is like to know the taste of an orange—it has to be experienced for oneself.
That is where the practice of religion enters: the purpose of religion is to assist the individual in discovering the method for knowing God. Because most human knowledge is acquired through the five senses, one would think that knowing God would also be acquired the same way.
But that does not work, because the senses can detect only phenomena on the physical, material level of being. The five senses cannot detect noumena which exists on a different plane of existence.
As the Absolute Spirit, God is an ineffable concept because the term God includes everything in creation and also everything that exists outside of creation. God is both creation and the originator of creation. This fact means that there is no way to understand such a being with the limited human mind.
Thus, the concept of God has come to be thought of in many manifestations or aspects, such as God as Father, God as Son, as God as Holy Spirit, which will be immediately recognized as the Trinity of Christianity, the religion of the West. And the “Holy Spirit” aspect is the only aspect of God within creation. Paramahansa Yogananda explains the nature of the trinity [1]:
When Spirit manifests creation, It becomes the Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Ghost, or Sat, Tat, Aum. The Father (Sat) is God as the Creator existing beyond creation (Cosmic Consciousness).
The Son (Tat) is God’s omnipresent intelligence existing in creation (Christ Consciousness or KutasthaChaitanya). The Holy Ghost (Aum) is the vibratory power of God that objectifies and becomes creation.
Many cycles of cosmic creation and dissolution have come and gone in Eternity. At the time of cosmic dissolution, the Trinity and all other relativities of creation resolve into the Absolute Spirit.
The principal religion of the East is Hinduism, which is often mistakenly thought to be a polytheistic religion. The term “polytheism” signifies a misleading concept. There could never be two or more ultimate creators [2]:
Spirit, being the only existing Substance, had naught but Itself with which to create.
Spirit and Its universal creation could not be essentially different, for two ever-existing Infinite Forces would consequently each be absolute, which is by definition an impossibility. An orderly creation requires the duality of Creator and created.
That mistake of assuming Hinduism to be polytheistic arises because in Hinduism, especially as interpreted through yogic philosophy, God is expressed through many aspects.
Some of those aspects include such terms as Father, Mother, Friend, Love, Light, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Sat-Chit-Ananda, Kali, Prakriti, Sat-Tat-Aum, and many others. Dr. David Frawley’s explanation [3] includes the lowercase use of the term “god” which actually refers only to an aspect of the Supreme God, as the context will reveal:
Spirit, being the only existing Substance, had naught but Itself with which to create.
Spirit and Its universal creation could not be essentially different, for two ever-existing Infinite Forces would consequently each be absolute, which is by definition an impossibility. An orderly creation requires the duality of Creator and created.
If Hinduism is deemed a polytheistic religion because of the many names for aspects of the one God, then Christianity could also be considered a polytheistic religion because it also possesses a trinity. In addition to the trinity, the Judeo-Christian Bible also puts on display many other names for God such as Jehovah, Yahweh, Lawgiver, Creator, Judge, and Providence—all obvious aspects of the One Supreme Absolute or God.
The fact remains that both Hinduism and Christianity, along with Judaism and Islam, are monotheistic religions. The Christian Trinity portrays the three functions of God, and Hinduism offers the same functional trinity in Sat-Tat-Aum. Hinduism also includes other manifestations or aspects of God such as Krishna [4], who in many ways parallels Jesus the Christ and Kali [5], who parallels the Virgin Mary.
Scientific religionists and dedicated spiritual seekers have determined that there is only one God—and all religions profess this fact—but there are many aspects of that one God. And those aspects have been given specific labels for the purpose of discussion. One cannot discuss everything at once; thus, to aid in that the ability to discuss spirituality and religion, various aspects of the one God have been isolated and specified with different names.
Aspect Names Similar to Nicknames
A human being may have several nicknames. I am Linda Sue Grimes, born Linda Sue Richardson, but I am also Sissy, Grammy, Nubbies—those are three of my nicknames: I am Sissy to my sister; Grammy to my grandchildren; Nubbies to the husband.
There are not five of me just because I have five names. There is one of me, but I have various aspects to different people; thus, each of them thinks of me in terms of a specific aspect to which they have each given a specific name. It is a similar situation for naming God through His many aspects.
However, even more pressing because in theory, one could discuss the person “Linda Sue Grimes” without breaking the concept of her into various aspects because Linda Sue Grimes as a human being is not ineffable. A discussion of the ineffable God remains impossible without those names of aspects.
God Remains Ineffable
Still, God remains ineffable despite the various aspects assigned to the concept. The spiritually striving devotee on the path to God unity is not attempting to merely understand God, which would be a mental function.
The spiritual aspirant is working to unite with God, more specifically to contact his own soul which is the spark or expression of God. Contacting the soul means quieting both the physical body and the mind in order for the soul become ascendant in one’s consciousness.
Avatars such a Paramahansa Yogananda instruct devotees that they are not the body, not the mind, but the soul. In fact, the human being is a soul that possesses and body and mind, not the other way around. The soul has become a blurred concept as it is replaced with the ego, which strongly identifies with physical body and the mind.
It is only through the soul that the human being can contact God. The body cannot contact God because it is just bunch of chemicals; the mind cannot contact God because it gets its information through the unreliable senses.
The senses are in contact with the ever-changing maya delusion of the created cosmos. Thus, only the soul as a spark of God can contact God. The only way the soul can contact God is to quiet the body and mind. After the body and mind become quieted and capable of remaining perfectly still, the soul can manifest to the consciousness of the individual human being.
Why Did God Create the Cosmic Delusion?
Paramahansa Yogananda explains:
In order to give individuality and independence to Its thought images, Spirit had to employ a cosmic deception, a universal mental magic.
Spirit overspread and permeated Its creative desire with cosmic delusion, a grand magical measurer described in Hindu scriptures as maya (from the Sanskrit root ma, “to measure”).
Delusion divides, measures out, the Undefined Infinite into finite forms and forces. The working of cosmic delusion on these individualizations is called avidya, individual illusion or ignorance, which imparts a specious reality to their existence as separate from Spirit.
. . .
This Unmanifested Absolute cannot be described except that It was the Knower, the Knowing, and the Known existing as One.
In It the being, Its cosmic consciousness, and Its omnipotence, all were without differentiation: ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever newly joyous Spirit.
In this Ever-New Bliss, there was no space or time, no dual conception or law of relativity; everything that was, is, or is to be existed as One Undifferentiated Spirit.[6]
The question arises, however: why did God decide to manifest into various forms, if as one ineffable Spirit He is nothing but Bliss? The best answer to that question is what gurus (spiritual leaders) tell their chelas (spiritual aspirants): leave some questions to Eternity, meaning after you reach your goal of unity with God, all questions will be answered.
However, Paramahansa Yogananda has also answered that question by explaining that God created his lila or divine play simply in order to enjoy it. As unmanifested Spirit, God exists as bliss, but even though He is present in his Creation and likely enjoying it, He is also suffering it; thus arise various paths that lead god back to God, or the soul back to the Over-Soul.
Because that answer likely still heralds another “why?” One must return to the notion of leaving some answers to Eternity. One must take baby steps on the journey back to uniting with unmanifested Spirit. Just fitting the physical and mental bodies by yogic practice for the ability to accomplish that unity gives the devotee enough to think about and do.
Other Concepts and Labels for God
As names for God vary, so do personal concepts. For example, Jesus the Christ liked to think of God as the Father [7]; thus, many Western prayers begin with “Heavenly Father.”
The founder Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), Paramahansa Yogananda—”The Father of Yoga in the West”—was fond of assigning the mother-aspect to God and referring to God as Divine Mother. Thus, the opening of each SRF gathering begins with the following invocation:
Heavenly Father, Mother, (often lengthened to “Divine Mother”), Friend, Belovèd God, followed by the names of each guru associated with Self-Realization Fellowship.
All of these named references designate aspects of the same Entity—the Absolute Spirit or God.
My Use of the Term “God”
Because the term God can be alienating, especially triggering atheists and agnostics, I often refer to God in my commentaries by one of His possibly less disagreeable aspects. Therefore, I employ such terms as Ultimate Reality, Originator, Creator, Divine Reality, Divine Belovèd, Blessèd Creator, or simply just the Divine.
Likely, even the term Divine can be too mystically oriented for some postmodern, belligerent anti-spiritual, anti-religionists. Nevertheless, I do not completely eschew using the label God, despite negative reactions to and ignorance about the term, because the term does remain accurate and perfectly descriptive.
I do, however, continue to strive to render the context in which I use the term God as accurate and understandable as possible so that it may soften the blow for postmodern minds, being accosted by that term.
Sources
[1] Editors. Glossary: Trinity. Self-Realization Fellowship Official Web Site. Accessed March 5, 2023.
[2] Editors. “Law of Maya.” Paramahansa Yogananda: The Royal Path of Yoga. Accessed March 5, 2023.
Image: Open AI created inspired by the lines “Noise blossoms in the mind / Bursting into a riot of sound color”
Quotations
Paramahansa Yogananda: People interested in developing their memory should avoid the regular use of stimulants such as coffee, tea, and tobacco, which contain caffeine, theine, and nicotine, respectively.* Strictly avoid using strong stimulants such as liquor and drugs. Such substances intoxicate, drug, and deteriorate the intelligence and memory cells of the brain, preventing them from recording noble ideas and sense impressions in general. Memory cells that are constantly anesthetized by intoxicants lose their retentive power, and become lazy and inert. Intoxication obliterates the functions of the conscious mind by harmful chemicals, hence injures the cerebral memory-organ. When the brain is affected the memory is impaired. — SRF Lesson 51: “Yoga Methods for Developing Memory” (*Editor’s Note: Some modern research indicates that light to moderate use of caffeine improves short-term memory for brief periods. Yogis, however, assert that continuous use over a long period erodes rather than enhances the capacity of this divine faculty.)
Paramahansa Yogananda: In the natural course of evolution through reincarnation, souls are automatically reincarnated by cosmic law in a higher form or species in each incarnation. The soul is never reborn in the same animal species: a dog is never a dog again. — SRF Lesson 78: “Conscious Evolution”
Paramahansa Yogananda: There is nothing more powerful than will. Everything in this universe is produced by will. Physiological changes may even be made to occur in the body by will power. There is no time element involved; place a thought in the mind and hold it there, and think that the thing is done and your whole body and mind will respond to it. Nor does it take time to acquire or discard a habit if you exercise sufficient will power. It is all in your mind. —SRF Lesson S-4 P-79
Paramahansa Yogananda: Remember that when you are unhappy it is generally because you do not visualize strongly enough the great things that you definitely want to accomplish in life, nor do you employ steadfastly enough your will power, your creative ability, and your patience until your dreams are materialized. —SRF Lessons and Spiritual Diary, April 22 – Will Power, Creative Ability, & Patience
Paramahansa Yogananda: The Sanskrit word for ‘musician’ is bhagavathar, “he who sings the praises of God.” —Autobiography of a Yogi
Sri Yukteswar: Forget the past. The vanished lives of all men are dark with many shames. Human conduct is ever unreliable until man is anchored in the Divine. Everything in future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now. —Autobiography of a Yogi
Sri Yukteswar: “How can sense slaves enjoy the world? Its subtle flavors escape them while they grovel in primal mud. All nice discriminations are lost to the man of elemental lusts.” —Autobiography of a Yogi
Sri Yukteswar: Sri Yukteswar’s interpretation of the Adam and Eve creation story in Genesis—from Autobiography of a Yogi, pages 169-171, Twelfth Edition, First quality paperback printing 1994:
Genesis is deeply symbolic, and cannot be grasped by a literal interpretation; its “tree of life” is the human body. The spinal cord is like an upturned tree, with man’s hair as its roots, and afferent and efferent nerves as branches. The tree of the nervous system bears many enjoyable fruits, or sensations of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. In these, man may rightfully indulge; but he was forbidden the experience of sex, the “apple” at the center of the body (“in the midst of the garden”). (my emphasis)
The “serpent” represents the coiled-up spinal energy that stimulates the sex nerves. “Adam” is reason, and “Eve” is feeling. When the emotion or Eve-consciousness in any human being is overpowered by the sex impulse, his reason or Adam also succumbs.
God created the human species by materializing the bodies of man and woman through the force of His will; He endowed the new species with the power to create children in a similar “immaculate” or divine manner. Because His manifestation in the individualized soul had hitherto been limited to animals, instinct-bound and lacking the potentialities of full reason, God made the first human bodies, symbolically called Adam and Eve. To these, for advantageous upward evolution, He transferred the souls or divine essence of two animals. In Adam or man, reason predominated; in Eve or woman, feeling was ascendant. Thus was expressed the duality or polarity that underlies the phenomenal worlds. Reason and feeling remain in the heaven of cooperative joy so long as the human mind is not tricked by the serpentine energy of animal propensities.
The human body was therefore not solely a result of evolution from beasts, but was produced through an act of special creation by God. The animal forms were too crude to express full divinity; man was uniquely given the potentially omniscient “thousand-petaled lotus” in the brain, as well as acutely awakened occult centers in the spine.
God, or the Divine Consciousness present within the first created pair, counseled them to enjoy all human sensibilities, with one exception: sex sensations. These were banned, lest humanity enmesh itself in the inferior animal method of propagation. (my emphasis) The warning not to revive subconsciously present bestial memories was unheeded. Resuming the way of brute procreation, Adam and Eve fell from the state of heavenly joy natural to the original perfect man. When “they knew they were naked,” their consciousness of immortality was lost, even as God had warned them; they had placed themselves under the physical law by which bodily birth must be followed by bodily death.
The knowledge of “good and evil,” promised Eve by the “serpent,” refers to the dualistic and oppositional experiences that mortals under maya must undergo. Falling into delusion through misuse of his feeling and reason, or Eve- and Adam-consciousness, man relinquishes his right to enter the heavenly garden of divine self-sufficiency. The personal responsibility of every human being is to restore his “parents” or dual nature to a unified harmony or Eden.
Alexander Pope: Hope springs eternal in the human breast. —An Essay on Man: “Epistle 1”
Alexander Pope: All are but parts of one stupendous whole, / Whose body Nature is, and God the soul. —An Essay on Man: “Epistle 1”
Alexander Pope: And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite, / One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right. —An Essay on Man: “Epistle 1”
Alexander Pope: Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; / The proper study of mankind is man. —An Essay on Man: “Epistle 2”
Alexander Pope: What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone. —An Essay on Man: “Epistle 2”
T. S. Eliot: Man is man because he can recognize supernatural realities, not because he can invent them.
Evan Sayet: “The modern liberal will invariably side with evil over good, wrong over right, and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success.”
—from the Paramahansa Yogananda’s Lessons S-2 P-27-30 Copyright 1956
The loving Lord of the Universe has always visited ardent devotees. Sometimes before doing so He sends messengers to find out those devotees who are worthy of darshan (a vision or sight of the Lord). In India they tell a story about the time God sent Narada back to earth. In the West, Narada might be described as an archangel.
He was a glorious being, freed from birth and death, and ever close to the Lord. During a former incarnation on earth he had been a great devotee of God and so it seemed that he should be easily able to discover others who were pursuing the Lord with will and ardor.
Narada the archangel now came to earth incognito, garbed as an ascetic. In mountains and valleys and jungles all over India he sought out the hermits and renunciants whose thoughts were centered on God and who performed all actions only for Him.
While ambling through a dark woodland one day, he spied a hoary anchorite practicing different kinds of postures and undergoing penances under the cool shade of huge umbrella-like tamarind tree. As if he were merely a leisurely wanderer, Narada approached and greeted the ascetic, inquiring curiously, “Who are you, and what are you doing?”
“My name is Bhadraka,” the hermit replies. “I am an old anchorite. I have been practicing rigorous physical discipline for eighty years.”
He added disconsolately, “without achieving any marked results.” Narada then introduced himself: ” I am a special messenger sent by the Lord of the Universe to seek out His true devotees.”
Realizing that at last his opportunity had come, the anchorite pompously assured Narada of his worthiness to be honored by the Lord. “Esteemed Emissary,” he said, “surely your eyes are now beholding the greatest devotee of the Lord on this earth. Think of it, for eighty years, rain or shine I have practiced every imaginable technique of torturous mental and physical self-discipline to attain knowledge and to find merit in the Lord’s eyes.”
Narada was impressed, “Even though I am from those higher planes where greater accomplishments are possible, I am very much touched by your persistence,” he assured the old man.
Bhadraka had been brooding on his grievances while talking to Narada, and instead of being comforted by Narada’s words, he spoke angrily. “Well then, since you are so close to the Lord, please find out why He has kept away from me for so long. When next you meet Him, do ask why He has not responded to my disciplinary exercise. Will you promise me that?”
Narada agreed to the old man’s request, and then resumed his search for earnest devotees of God. In one place he paused to watch a most amusing incident taking place at the roadside.
A very handsome and determined young man was trying to build a fence. Unfortunately he was dead drunk, and his senses kept deceiving him. He had dug a series of holes for fence posts, and was trying in vain to fit an unwieldy bamboo pole in one of the elusive holes. He would thump the pole on the ground all around, but he could not get it in the hole. Several times he fumbled forward and almost tripped himself.
At first Narada thought his spectacle was very funny. But the young man began to call upon the Lord to come and help him, and when this brought no results, he became angry and began to threaten God with curses and shouts: “You unfeeling, lazy God, what a fine friend You are! Come here now and help me fix my pole in this hole, or I’ll thrust the bamboo right through Your hard heart.”
Just then the young man’s wandering gaze fastened on Narada, standing shocked and agape at the drunken one’s temerity. His wrath diverted, the young man exclaimed, “You good-for-nothing idler, how dare you just to stand there, staring at me like that?” Taken aback, Narada said meekly: “Shall I help you to set your pole?”
“No,” growled the young man, I will accept no help but that of my Divine Friend, that sly Eluder who has been playing hide-and-seek with me, who is even now hiding behind the clouds, trying to evade working with me.”
“You drunken fool,” said Narada, “aren’t you afraid to curse the omnipresent Lord?”
“Oh no, He understands me better than you do,” was the instant reply. “And who are you anyway?” demanded the swaying your man, trying to keep his eye focused on the visitor.
Narada answered truthful: “I am a messenger from the all-powerful Lord, and I am searching out His true devotees on earth.”
“Oh!” the youn man exclaimed eagerly. “In that case I ask you to please put in a good word for me when you see the Divine Friend. Even though I behave badly now and then, and abuse the powers he gave me, please do remind Him about me. And ask Him why He has been delaying His visit to me, and when He is coming, for I have been waiting and waiting and always expecting Him.”
Narada felt sorry for the fellow, and so half reluctantly, he agreed to the man’s request, although he was privately thinking that his drunkard would have very little chance of meeting the Lord!
After Narada had traveled all over, and noted the names and accomplishments of many devotees, he suddenly felt so lonely for the Lord’s loving smile that he discarded his earthly form and rushed straight to the heavenly abode, as swiftly as thought could carry him. In an instant he was there before the Beloved One, surrounded by a warm glow of divine love.
“Welcome, dear Narada, ” said the Lord gently, and the light from His lotus eye melted the last vestige of earthly tension that clung to His messenger’s aura. “Tell Me abut your earthly excursions.” Narada gave a full report, ending with the descriptions of the two devotees who seemed to exemplify opposite ends of the scale of virtue—the pious old anchorite and the intoxicated young man with the pole.
“You know, Beloved Lord, sometimes I think you are too hard to please, and even cruel,” Narada said seriously. “Think how you treated that anchorite Bhadraka, who has been waiting for eighty years for you, under a tamarind tree. You know whom I mean!” The Lord thought for a moment an even sought a response from His all-recording heart, but He answered, “No, I don’t remember him.”
“Why how an that be possible?” Narada exclaimed. “That devoted man has been practicing all sorts of harsh disciplines these eighty years just to attract Your attention.” But the Lord only shrugged indifferently. “No matter what the anchorite has been practicing, he has not yet touched My heart. What next?”
“Well,” Narada began hesitantly, “by the roadside, I met—”
“Oh, yes,” the Divine One broke in, “you met a drunken young man.”
“Now how do You happen to remember him?” Narada asked complainingly. “Perhaps because the sacrilegious young fool was trying to pole You with a bamboo pole?”
The Lord laughed heartily, and seemed to be thinking about the impudent yung man for some time before he turned His attention to the sulky-faced Narada. “O My Narada,” He said lovingly, “don’t be angry and sarcastic with Me, for I shall prove to you which of these two men you have just told Me about is My true devotee.”
Having captured Narada’s interest in the experiment, the Lord continued: “This is really very simple. Go back to the earth again, and first report to the anchorite Bhadraka under the tamarind tree and say: ‘I have your message to the Lord of the Universe, but He is very busy now passing millions of elephants through the eye of a needle. When He gets through doing this, He will visit you.’ After you get the anchorite’s reaction to that, then go and tell that same thing to the drunken young man and watch his reaction. Then you will understand.”
Although Narada was baffled by the Lord’s instructions, he had long since learned unquestioning faith in the command of the Lord, so he thought himself back to earth and was at once standing under the tamarind tree, fact to face with the long-suffering anchorite.
The ancient one looked up at him expectantly, but after the strange message had been delivered, he flew into a rage and began to shout.
“Get out, you mocking messenger, and your lying Lord, and all the rest of your crazy crowd. Whoever heard of anyone passing elephants through the eye of a needle: What it means is that He’ll never come. Maybe there isn’t any Lord to come anyway.” He was now trembling with fury and brandishing a pilgrim’s staff. “I’ve wasted my life! This eighty years of discipline was nothing but folly! I’m through, do you hear? through trying to please a crazy non-existent God. Now I am sane again. For what little is left of life I am going to resume my long-neglected earthy pursuits.”
Narada was too horrified to say a word, so he just disappeared. But the second part of mission was not yet fulfilled; dubiously he came again to the roadside where he had met the noisy young man. The fellow was still there, and if possible more drunk than ever. The fence was not yet completed and he was laboring to bring the holes and bamboo poles together.
But no sooner had Narada appeared on the scene than the youth’s earthly intoxication seemed to leave him. In its place a premonition of great joy caused a divine intoxication which lighted his features as he came running and crying, “Hey there, Narada, what is my Friend’s reply to my message? What is His answer? When is He coming?”
When he heard the Lord’ strange message he was not at all disconcerted, he began to dance around and around with joy, half speaking, half chanting: “He, who can send worlds through the eye of a needle in an instant if He desires, has already finished passing those elephants though the eye of a needle. Now, any minute, He will be with me, and when He comes He shall touch me but once and I shall change. All my evil actions and bad habits will be drowned in my overwhelming love for Him.”
So the young man danced in heavenly ecstasy, as do many devotees in India when divine joy becomes too great for their bodies.
The feeble flesh cannot hold such immense bliss and—lest the very atoms fly apart and release their energy to the Divine Source which calls them—this bliss spills over into tears or into rhythmic movements of kirtana, into singing and dancing as an expression of this joy.
And now as the young man danced blissfully, Narada joined him, and soon they found the laughing, lotus-eyed Lord was dancing with them.
MORAL
If you ever feel smug about practicing the techniques, I hope you will think of this story and be jolted into seeing things again in their true perspective. Practice of technique is not enough. Intellectual attainments are no enough. Going to church regularly or performing good actions in a mechanical way because “it is the thing to do” will never bring Self-realization.
Students who resemble the anchorite may strive for years, only to turn aside from the path in a moment if reason tells them they have been misled. Like the anchorite who “knew” that elephants cannot pas through the eye of a needle, they try limit God’s powers and manifestations to conform to their own small comprehension.
But devotees who resemble the young man know that even if they have not been able to give up bad habits they can bring God closer and closer by constantly calling upon Him and expecting Him to be present at all times—to take part in their daily lives as well as to respond to them in their moments of prayer.
They know that all things are possible in God, and that most understanding lies beyond the intellect. When the devotee insistently demands the assistance and presence of God, lovingly visualizing Him and believing in His Omnipresence, then the Lord will reveal Himself in some form. With the dawning of the light of His revelation, the darkness of evil habits will automatically be banished to reveal the untainted soul.
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