MeisterEckhart

Some people say: 'Alas, sir, I wish I stood as well with my spiritual life and devotions, that I had as much devotion and were as much at peace with the Spirit as others are, I wish I were like them, or that I were so poor'; 'I can never manage it unless I go here or there, or do this or that. I must get away from it all, go and live in a cell or a cloister.'
--advices from Master Eckhart


Eckhart, spiritual guide and mystic, wrote on the subject of finding peace and comfort in the world. From his view it's dependent upon the fact that the reason for unease lies entirely with yourself and with nothing else, though you may not know it or believe it: restlessness  arises in you as the self-as-it-wills; whether you own it or not.
We may think a person must avoid certain things or people; that they seek other places, people or methods, company or activity.  Yet according to Eckhart, none is the reason why you find yourself held back: it's you yourself in the pursuit of those things which prevents one, 'for you have an inaccurate regard towards things."

Therefore he recommends one start first with oneself. Observe yourself.  In truth, unless you let go first of yourself, whatever you try, you will find obstacles. There will be indecision and restlessness, no matter where you are. 
If people seek peace in outward things, places or methods or in people or in deeds, the elimination of other people, poverty, humiliation, however great or small, is all in vain because it garners no peace. Why? Eckhart would say that its lack is due to the pursuit, rather tyhan opening ones' hand in the stillness of the world many seek forcefully to acquire.

 What does often result is that this chase, the pursuit of the desired result itself becomes the focus, a sort of ends though not one which often results in spiritual or other peace.
Observe yourself, and wherever you find yourself, leave yourself: that is the very best way, because we often find ourselves in ways and places we did not first imagine. Yet we are there, and that may not be a poor place to be. The spirit moves as it will. May we move likewise.

*Maya Angelou Crackers Sometimes

"When they go, Ghana will be here. They are like mice on an elephant's back. They will pass...He is just part of Africa." --All God's Children Need  Traveling Shoes by Maya Angelou

The American writer and poet, Maya Angelou was among the last of a generation who were raised under the full weight of segregation. As a child in rural Stamps, Arkansas, Ms. Angelou was privileged to be the grand daughter of a land owning woman with an independent business in the village of Stamps. From her relatively secure position, she became educated and an inveterate reader of all types of literature.
Steeped in the ways of the old South, by necessity, Ms. Angelou's early life formed a resolute character that later supported her as she forged forward to New York's Harlem in the 1950's. A supporter of Martin Luther King and later of Malcolm X, she earned her "radical" stripes early.

Reading her work chronicled together as an autobiography is an eye-opening journey with a brave and determined woman. But she also shows herself to be like anyone anywhere; Ms. Angelou is not perfect.
She repeatedly retorts with prejudices of her own youth and despite her extensive literary style, does at times pejoratively refer to some as "crackers". For the casual reader of Ms. Angelou, this may come as a surprise. She, these days, is perhaps equally well known as one whose words accompany Hallmark greeting cards. Yet a more thorough reading of her works reveals a woman who is complex and honest enough to admit her thoughts and what she learns.  
All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes has many nuggets; one in particular is when as the focus of the tale, Maya emigrates to Ghana, intending to leave all the strife behind in America. In Ghana she is surprised and repeatedly confronted with the unexpected:

"Professor, why you let them disturb your heart?"
 I stuttered... 

"They were insulting my people. I just couldn't sit there." 

His smiled never changed. "And your people, they my people?"

"Yes but--I mean American Blacks."

"They been insulted before?"

"Yes--but..."

"And they still live?"

"Yes, but... they also insulted Ghana, your country."

"Oh Sister, as for that one, it is nothing..." 

He said, "This is not their place. In time they will pass. 

Ghana was here when they came. When they go, Ghana will be here. 

They are like mice on an elephant's back. They will pass."

She is then astonished that a simple Ghanaian man could be so secure in this knowledge that he could ignore another's rudeness. 
He concludes his thought with the observation, that even that man, he is also a part of Africa, a place made of many nations, peoples and cultures. Despite many false starts, Ms. Angelou comes to learn that she too has a place while not as a returned African, but as a living, breathing "Black American" in Africa.
This story tells her tale. Spiritually it is poignant in her struggle for understanding of herself and others; she makes sense of the precept of meeting one another on level ground, neither better no worse, telling her experience as she perceives it.

*Ms. Angelou observed her 86th birthday April 4, 2013

Malthusianism and Scientism

The overproduction of people may lead to an overwhelming burden upon the earth. Science will answer for this concern.

The 19th century Protestant theologian, Thomas Malthus proposed that at some point in the foreseeable future, the world would likely be overpopulated and resources would not be readily available for its inhabitants. Therefore  man's fecundity, his most creative output should be tamed and births controlled. These ideas in part led to the modern drive to limit man in the sexual, procreative arena; it limits women especially. While Malthus was a theologian, today he is primarily remembered for his ideas regarding global and personal economics. He was influential in the incubation of  Darwinian ideas, "natural selection," especially.

Malthus wrote a seminal treatise he entitled, The Essay on the Principle of Population. In this he asserted that: the population forces of earth are so great that in some shape or form, death must be visited upon;  war, sickness and forms of extermination must be permitted. If however, this proves to be insufficient, then the population must be otherwise controlled. Whom is he speaking of, what is the means of control? Who will decide? Is the human of Creation an animal, and should we struggle, to kill for the resources of the world? Is our 'carbon print' poisonous to everyone? While many other 19th century soothsayers died along with that century, Malthus persists in other forms and other names, covertly influencing and directing our actions.

Scientism may be thought of as an exaggerated trust in the absolute empiricism of reasoning. It is partner to the Enlightenment theories arising at about the same century. Scientists engage in empirical reasoning throughout all aspect of life, personal, social, faith, medical, mathematical, humanities, etc. It leads in progression to a "church of Science" or Scientism. The American writer, Robert P. Lockwood notes that Scientism is the product of "two fallacies." First, there is no truth other than that which may be scientifically verifiable, and secondly science is the only acceptable means of running a society. Lockwood notes, "we live in a world where the ethos of the times is reflected in the media."

While both of these thoughts may be in opposite extremes, and both may or may not resonate with everyday spirituality, they are 'out there.' Their influence is lasting and far reaching: into politics, economics, science, and spirituality. Maybe into your head and mine. Where did that come from-- who was Malthus? What do I or do I not support with my everyday faith and beliefs? Some answers are surprising, if you take a look.

What Do You Live For?

"What if what we long hoped for does not come? The willingness to live for a better day."

What am I living for? Living for the joy of acquisition and power is self serving; living for the good of others is perhaps more in the Way. Yet we can seem to think ourselves to be living in the Way and yet we are not. There are those who convince themselves they are right; their ego has the answer, it is good--for me.
Do you live for freedom? In one sense freedom is the absence of restraint. There is nothing to hinder me to act as I choose. Suppose, however, that you live in a universe that for every choice I might make, the world has already determined the response, responses for which I have no control. I may remain physically free, no one has tied me down or locked me up, but I seem to lack freedom in a more durable and possible sense. While I am free to act as I choose, my choices are not free.

There is another type of freedom says the Christian philosopher and theologian, Augustine of Hippo. In the book, On Free Choice of the Will, translated by Thomas Williams, Augustine writes, "I have freedom to choose in a way that is not determined by any thing outside my control, what Augustine called metaphysical freedom. The view that human beings have metaphysical freedom is also known as Libertarianism."
Augustine is one of the great defenders of Libertarianism. He says that human beings are endowed with a power called the will. A person can direct his will to go in seemingly limitless directions. His own freedom of direction, then, can be thought of as free choice.

A person may choose for himself money, power, influence, sex, excesses of all types; these choices so mentioned have all been external choices, made by factors outside the person. If so, then a person could not be entirely responsible for them.
But it is not external factors that determine our choices. Rather it is internal states: beliefs, desires, hopes and fears. Since it is the desire, the will of a person and the character which determines one's choices, freedom therefore is not threatened.

Yet a Libertarian like Augustine would not be swayed by this. He says that in fact, human beings are rational thinking, and free choice makes them therefore responsible. Because persons have metaphysical freedom in this view, they are capable of making a real difference in the world. We may write our own "scripts." We may be truly in the image of God, the Creator, bringing something into the world that previously did not exist before us.

Nature's God the Origins of the American Revolution

"Locke and Spinoza are the chalk and cheese of the early Enlightenment..."  -- Nature's God by Matthew Stewart

The origins of  America, the United States of America as she is formally known, is set down and cast. Generations have studied her beginnings and precepts in schools and universities across this nation. Yet here comes author Matthew Stewart with his new book, Nature's God, to upset the status quo. Not only did the process of establishing a Republic form in the minds of Colonial America, but in European capitals as well where it found fertile soils. The Enlightenment brought a firm change in the usual order of intellectual life. Creation once separated from a divinity and re-assigned to science, now allowed for minds to range freely.

Stewart argues that along with those individuals traditionally credited for the founding of the American Republic, there were a few others. He writes that along with a nation, a civil religion also ensued. He further credits men such as Ethan Allen, Thomas Young, instigator of the 1773 Boston Tea Party, also Dutchman and philosopher Benedict de Spinoza as among those most fervent to liberate themselves and all minds from not the tyranny of one king but from the tyranny of the ultimate, the supernatural religions.

They returned to the fertile imaginings of the earlier Republics, both Roman and Greek, to philosophers such as Aristotle and Lucretius; the widely influential mind of Englishman John Locke. John Locke, who was a student of Frenchman Descartes in his early years, and mentored by the scientist Robert Boyle in close association with Issac Newton.
John Locke developed and promulgated his ideas on freedom of religion and the rights of a citizen which did not go well for him under the English monarchy; he was forced to flee England preferring Holland.
The Dutch received him well enough and he apparently made good contacts there, most importantly Benedict de Spinoza. Author Stewart charges that it was the conflagration between two unlikely minds, German Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibinitz and Englishman John Locke that produced the ground upon which the American experiment came to rest. For the remainder of the book he lays out his case for both the establishment of a land in which those ideas most rank and most fertile would develop into a Republic, and a national sort of religion based on science and reason.

In the evolving nationhood, America came to regard the supernatural in ways known since the much earlier eras of heterodox Rome. While Rome held forth for religion and spiritual practice, it was to nature they gave the most delight. These men of Enlightenment were in their day, deists, those for whom religion was, as Stewart writes, "a watery expression of the Christian religion," arising in England and transported to the American Colonies. He further charges that these same men stirred up a sweeping deism, an atheism that allowed for the simplicity of nature to overshadow and endow the American Declaration of Independence and likewise, the Constitution with so much of its radical force.

The False-Self, Healing

"This was also the point in my life when I became a master at masking my true thoughts."    --an unknown blogger

Simple Mindedly browsing though some blogs, I came upon this curious and very honest statement, "this was also the point in my life when I became a master at masking my true thoughts..."
How many of us relate to this? One guesses very many; it seems that one of our many fears is that we will not be accepted as we are, that we apparently see ourselves fearfully as a certain type of monster. While there are those rare individuals in every society who rub against the grain, some who are evil, for most of us this is a fear we face each and every day.

Recalling the words of R.D. Lang, "every man is involved whether or to the extent to which he is being true to his nature." The false-self as Lang views it is the complement of an inner, spiritual self, if you will, which is occupied with maintaining its identity and freedom by being transcendent, unembodied, and thus never grasped, pinpointed, trapped or possessed.
Its aim, writes Lang in his book, The Divided Self, "is to be a pure subject, without any objective existence. Thus except in certain safe moments, the individual seeks to regard his existence as the expression of a false-self, not himself.

 In spiritual terms, this is devastating, and it is very common. How often do we encounter the "fake" smile and the yawn which quickly follows it? How often do we feel divided, yet proceed with the response that is expected, even when it feels untrue to our deeper self?
And how often must we force ourselves to comport an attitude which we don't feel yet believe for social reasons to be obliged? In some societies these behaviors are usual and expected; societies in which the group is more valued than individuals frequently demand this behavior; one learns, 'a smile often hides a frown.' And in these groups, this behavior is normative.

Yet here in the West, often there is the sense of a dis-connect with the self and others. We are afraid to say who we are, or what matters most in our short lives; maintaining this stance may lead to a sense of grief, depression or loss over time.
As Lang expresses the situation, having an identity for the self, a private identity and another identity developed for the consumption of others is at times functional, and also may be at times non-functional leading to a sense of dis-reality, a feeling of not being real, a fake.
While living one's truth is not always easy, healing the self, gaining a perspective beyond the solution of the "false-self" is very healing to a soul; the soul seeks its original wholeness.

The false, divided self is like a child, eternally small, anxious, weak and not responsible for what happens in any given interaction. This is because a feeling arises that it wasn't truly me who did those things--it was someone else. Alternatively, there is a sense that one may do things--but only to a point-- because the truer, inner self would not go that far, or allow those thoughts or behaviors--would they? So it's not me.

The end point of many spiritual traditions is to encourage the maturity of the individual, to acknowledge the rightness of all creation, individuals included, so as to bridge the gap, with the clear knowledge, the belief in the harmony and rightness of matters to each one.
This existential dawning of both 'false' and true, undivided, self is widespread across today's societies; writers as diverse as Henry Fielding, Kierkegaard, Sartre, D.H. Lawrence and Carl Jung have acknowledged its role in the modern world. It is becoming a constant theme as societies settle into an industrialized, group identity. This leaves little room for the self, so you then must carve a whole one.

Knowledge, Commitment and Freedom

"Only true knowledge of a person makes it possible to commit one's freedom to the other."
--Karol Wojtyla

"Love," says Christian theologian, Wojtyla, 'consists of a commitment which limits one's freedom-- it is a "giving" of the self... to limit one's freedom on behalf of another. Limitation might seem to be something negative or unpleasant, but love makes it a positive, joyful and creative thing."

If this freedom is not engaged by the will, it becomes negative, and gives to human feeling, a sense of emptiness and unfulfilment. Yet love commits to freedom and " imbues it with that to which the will is naturally attracted-- the element of goodness. Thus the will then aspires to the good; freedom is the providence of the will, existing for and because of love; it is the way of love in which human beings share most fully in the good. "Human freedom then is one of the highest in the moral order of things," says Wojtyla. This order encompasses the spectrum of man's longings and desires; his growing pathways of awareness of the life in the spirit. But man longs for love more than he longs for freedom. In choosing, there is an affirmation of value in response to natural, sense perceptions, to sentiment. "Sexual values [as an expression of the appetite] tend to impose themselves," regardless of the choosing of the possible values of a whole person.

For this reason, a man, especially, one who has not succumbed to mere passion, but preserves his interior innocence, usually finds himself in the arena of struggle between the sexual instinct and a need for freedom, or liberty to do as he otherwise wishes. This natural instinct, this drive of Eros cannot be underestimated; it is a powerful, yet limited drive. Eros can, and often lays siege to the will itself, clouding the other values with sensual intensity. Through a perception of sentiment, however, the will may be freed of the vice-like hold of a conscious, lusting desire, of a consumer view; rather it is transformed by sentiment, and the action of the will to a longing for a person of the other sex, for a possibility of wholeness.

It is love, finally, when the will enters into the equation, providing a conscious commitment of one's freedom in respect to another person, in recognition and affirmation, providing a creative contribution of the love that develops between the persons. Thus love is between persons, existing in a space that is neither one or the other, is created, and not possessed. So then in love, in freedom, there is a conscious will for another person's good, an unqualified good, a good unlimited, that is a person's happiness.

"Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward in the same direction. " -Antoine de St. Exupery

We desire moreover to make the beloved happy, to please them and see to their good. It is this precisely that makes possible for a person to be re-born in love, to become alive, aware of the riches within himself, of his creativity, his spirituality, of his fertility. The person, in love, compels belief in his own spiritual powers; it awakens the creativity and the sense of worth within the individual. And yet for all its lofty abundance, human lovers must learn to translate their highest impulses into the everyday world.

Fearing the Beloved

"Most of us go into relationships to find security; we want to be with someone else who makes us feel safe… Spiritually the answer to fear… [is] you are already safe." The Path to Love by Deepak Chopra

Writing about a compelling topic, a concern for individuals and societies the world over, Deepak Chopra in his book, The Path to Love, makes a simply profound observation. That is the simple realization that we are safe, as safe as we can be in any given moment.
If we have suffered previously, we are safe. What has occurred is past and we have survived it. It is spiritually unnecessary to make events "larger than life." Everything as a part of the whole has its place in the world. Traumatized though we may be by events, they are survivable.

It may be part of your life experience that you were left alone together with your mother by your father to fend for yourselves; possibly your experience has been war, or criminal acts; maybe you have experienced the effects of serious illness, possibly ongoing events such as cancer or mental illnesses like serious depression.
But it remains true that you have survived each and all of these events day by day! The worst is not, what is before you, as you fear; it isn't unknown.
 Looking into the face of an assailant or one who abandons you, treats you poorly, may well inspire fears, or it may initiate a 'substitute life,' one provoked by the mind's imagination.

"If you felt truly safe, fear wouldn't arise," writes Chopra. He makes the point that from a position of spirituality, all fears are projections, a term coined by psychologist Carl Jung to state that one's thoughts, feeling and perceptions are outwardly focused or projected away from the self in an effort to defend the 'ego' from jolts.
"As long as these projections continue, you will keep generating fearful situations to accommodate them… the threats you perceive around you now, or coming at you in the future are the long shadow being cast by your past."
In relationships of long time standing, we often counteract this impulse to fear precisely because the lengthiness of the relationship.
In other words, according to this observation made by Chopra, if it was going to happen, it has already occurred, and you have already survived the worst of it. There is nothing more to fear today.

Now in romantic love, we feel protected and loved. But it was love, all along, whose protection we sought. "The love you have for one person is a safe zone and thus a good place to begin.'
'The beloved is like a harbor" in which you may take refuge. In an effort to protect ourselves from pain or disappointment, we may perform many maneuvers, either consciously or unconsciously.

Spiritually it is something like the child who places their hands over their ears. It's good for muffling overly loud noises or frustrating conversations. But it isn't selective; it blocks out most everything. So our efforts to protect our self from what we fear, often also accomplishes the banishment of the possibilities for love.

We can begin to replace controlling with allowing, writes Chopra. "If you can begin to replace controlling with allowing to your Beloved, the effect is to release you from attachment--both of you are spiritually served from the same act."
Examples of allowing are things like letting go of controls such as judgment, impatience, resistance; these may be replaced by allowing yourself and others some tolerance, acceptance, and open, non-resistance. There is a great freedom here; energy is released for other, constructive uses.

"Needing to control life, either yours or your partner, is based on spiritual desperation." When you allow, the self-serving facade of a demanding, critical, impatient, perfectionist partner begins to crumble.
An easy, more comfortable friendliness then may take its place, at least, in increasing amounts. Blame becomes unnecessary, love flows as a heart-felt sensation.
So then, from Chopra's view, the most loving thing one can do is to encourage and support these shifts within our self and our Beloved.

I Am That

"...One who is ascended has achieved [the] Christ's injunction to be in this world but not of it." --The Path to Love by Deepak Chopra


I am that,
You are That,
All this is That.

These seemingly simple statements, from the Upanishads of India are thousands of years old; together they express what Hinduism calls Moksha, or liberation. Some see Moksha as freedom in love, enlightenment or ascension. Moksha ends karmic bonds. It is a freedom to be empty, but emptiness is not nothingness.

Many persons commonly suppose "they are what they eat," and in a little way this is true but not literally. Because one likes ice cream, for example, or chocolate doesn't make one an ice cream or a chocolate; because cowboys ride horses that doesn't make them a horse either. Nor is one either male or female by the simple wearing of any particular article of clothing. The same is true with ones' profession; the job one performs on a regular basis does not define the soul or the body; so it does not create Moksha either.


So often we fall into these notions of defining ourselves in literal, unskillful ways. It's easy to do and for many the application of a label is comforting; it provides a box or a stage from which to operate our daily lives, but it is not Moksha which is without limits. Moksha initiates one into a new birth of wholeness, of fullness. It states quite profoundly I am That, you are That, all this is That. Mokesha draws one close to the Divine.

The seeking is done. You find God is within; love enfolds  into pure religious devotion. You are simply an observer, a witness or a seer to life's journeys. The moment you are able to look deep within and see that I am That, meaning you see your lightness along with your darkness, your virtues and your sins as one, equal-- everything that matters is now a part of Being itself.
In other words, I am Being, and not anything else. 'I am as I am; you may love me or hate me; I aspire to no other. I am only myself.'

You are That tells the seer that they too are part of the Creation, both sacred be-loved and the lover. Creation becomes personal.

All is That tells us that as part of Creation, co-creators, we are all intimately and divinely involved in infinite consciousness. The possible expands, and very much-- because you are so much more than what you eat.

Shepherd Me, Oh, Lord: The Mentally Ill Youth

Update: The story is similar, the place is an elementary school in Connecticut. The gun violence is obvious, but maybe not so the illness prompting it.

The recent, tragic events in a Colorado movie theater elementary school brings the topic of the mentally ill yet again to fore. This most recent mass shooting brings the public face to face with the mentally ill once more. In American society it has been the norm to keep the chronically mentally ill out of institutions and in local communities since the late 1970's. Those afflicted with serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia, manic depression (now often referred to as Bi-Polar Depression), psychosis, certain personality disorders, paranoia, etc., are now commonly treated with scads of psychiatric medications. Thankfully for the many who suffer these illnesses, their "meds" and support from mental health professionals and loved ones, keeps them on an even keel. They can "function," as the medical community calls it. 

Update: The violence must not mask the need for medical attention for those suffering these types of illnesses.

Many of those affected work, study, hold advanced degrees, support families, and are friend to others. They are office mates, the person seated in the church pew next to us, the one inspecting produce at local farmers markets, walking dogs, attending their child's sporting events, our neighbor next door, the guy in the car stopped next to us, and most of the time we don't know they are ill. Quirky or moody--yes, but we do not think they are mentally ill. And that's the way it should be.

Many medical conditions are best left private. And since many of the mentally ill in our communities can function, that is to say that they can carry out most of their normal activities with little or no modifications on a normal day, it is right that they live at home, in their community, in our community. However things may go awry, and the public is reinvigorated, terrified even of the factors that cause mental illness and the fact that they just don't understand the low-functioning or non-functioning individual. Often for those who suffer various illnesses, their illness does not arise until the early adult years; some suffers have extremely high IQs. It may be more years until they arrive at treatment or appropriate support for their condition. And for some, the medications don't work, or they present terrible side effects such as diabetes or neurological damage, making their use perilous.

One famous Schizophrenic, John Nash, is a Mathematician and a Nobel Prize winner. In the book, A Beautiful Mind (later made into a movie by that title) the author, Sylvia Nasar, recounts his sad decline and descent into illness, the efforts to treat him and the striving of a community to accommodate him; when all failed, he dropped out, into the shadows for many years. Ahead of his time intellectually, it took just as many years for the world to recognize the genius of his "Game Theory" for which he received the Nobel Prize for Economic Theory.
Perhaps Nash's situation was ideal; it was not without grief and despair, failed and broken relationships, those who could not tolerate year in and year out of his quirky and unpredictable behavior.

And so it may be for the most recent perpetrator of the Aurora, Colorado Connecticut shootings. A killer he is alleged to be and possibly mentally ill, having slid into his current state over the past years.
 As a society is there not much else we might do to protect ourselves from these otherwise unprovoked attacks? We like to think cameras, doors, locks, security personnel will keep us safe; but they didn't here.
The man with the gun was heedless to it all. His weapons were acquired from home. His parent allowed their use on other occasions. She suffered the consequences for that. This family is also victimized.
 However, we may always hope that the Lord of All holds those afflicted and all those harmed by the weaknesses and failures of others in his sight.
"Shepherd me O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears" Psalm 23

Shepherd Me, O God; Those Who Suffer Mental Illnesses

The recent events in a Colorado movie theater brings the topic of the mentally ill yet again to fore. This most recent mass shooting brings the public face to face with the mentally ill once more. In American society it has been the norm to keep the chronically mentally ill out of institutions and in local communities since the late 1970's. Those afflicted with serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia, manic depression (now often referred to as Bi-Polar Depression), psychosis, certain personality disorders, paranoia, etc., are now commonly treated with scads of psychiatric medications. Thankfully for the many who suffer these illnesses, their "meds" and support from mental health professionals and loved ones, keeps them on an even keel. They can "function," as the medical community calls it.

Many of those affected work, study, hold advanced degrees, support families, and are friend to others. They are office mates, the person seated in the church pew next to us, the one inspecting produce at local farmers markets, walking dogs, attending their child's sporting events, our neighbor next door, the guy in the car stopped next to us, and most of the time we don't know they are ill. Quirky or moody--yes, but we do not think they are mentally ill. And that's the way it should be.

Many medical conditions are best left private. And since many of the mentally ill in our communities can function, that is to say that they can carry out most of their normal activities with little or no modifications on a normal day, it is right that they live at home, in their community, in our community. However things may go awry, and the public is reinvigorated, terrified even of the factors that cause mental illness and the fact that they just don't understand the low-functioning or non-functioning individual. Often for those who suffer various illnesses, their illness does not arise until the early adult years; some suffers have extremely high IQs. It may be more years until they arrive at treatment or appropriate support for their condition. And for some, the medications don't work, or they present terrible side effects such as diabetes or neurological damage, making their use perilous.

One famous Schizophrenic, John Nash, is a Mathematician and a Nobel Prize winner. In the book, A Beautiful Mind (later made into a movie by that title) the author, Sylvia Nasar, recounts his sad decline and descent into illness, the efforts to treat him and the striving of a community to accommodate him; when all failed, he dropped out, into the shadows for many years. Ahead of his time intellectually, it took just as many years for the world to recognize the genius of his "Game Theory" for which he received the Nobel Prize for Economic Theory.
Perhaps Nash's situation was ideal; it was not without grief and despair, failed and broken relationships, those who could not tolerate year in and year out of his quirky and unpredictable behavior.

And so it may be for the most recent perpetrator of the Aurora, Colorado shootings. A killer he is alleged to be and possibly mentally ill, having slid into his current state over the last few years. However, we may always hope that the Lord of All holds those afflicted and all those harmed by the weaknesses and failures of others in his sight.
"Shepherd me O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears" Psalm 23

Democracy, Communism and Fascism

"The social aspirations of man cannot attain full originality and full value, except in a society which respects man's personal integrity." --Building the Earth by Teilhard de Chardin

Returning to the topic of religion and politics, we turn to the modernist ideas of democracy, communism and fascism. For those who doubt that religion, or even less spirituality, has a place with politics, permit here a simple enumeration: from the earliest religious history, politics demonstrates its part in the religious and spiritual milieu of mankind. As was common in the ancient world, the king or ruler of a tribe or nation had the "divine right" to determine, institute and force religious beliefs upon a population. They did this often, enforcing a state religion.

The Greeks and Romans, along with other Orientals, formed religions and spiritualities which predictably led to establishment of moralities for any of these given cultural groups. This practice continues with the moderns (1200-1800 in the common era), who as Kings and emperors forced their judeo-christian beliefs upon the population; indeed their kingship made them the heads of those faiths. In other words, the king was the state-church, so the church was represented in the body of the king.

It was this against which Machiavelli protested.

The Khalifs of the mid-east, Africa and other places arose to form what is now called Islam. They ruled in places by persuasion and by force; the United States of America was formed in part to protest against the state religion which during the colonial period was constituted by the King of England (King George III and others); today in the 20 and 21st centuries, there have been and will likely continue, governments which attempt to control, even police the population through forced religion.

Indeed we learn of places around the globe where Islam is practiced by regimes in an oppressive manner; the 14th Dalai Lama has been forced from his native Tibet into exile through religious actions taken against the Buddhists whom he leads. It seems the Chinese government wishes to direct and control his faith and others as well. Then there are the Sikhs in India, in opposition to the Hindus. They have, like many others, sought their own lands to live and practice their faith freely. The Jewish faith cannot be overlooked. It is in the arbitrary political formation of the modern state of Israel which has cast conflict upon previously settled territories.

And just now, today, in the United States the cry goes out for the practice of religion, freely or even not at all. The civil religion of the State wishes to suppose that it can most easily supplant the free will of the people and their freely chosen faiths for a legislated, legalistic spirituality and belief system. Today we are mired in conflict regarding forced participation in health care initiatives. The legislation which possibly thwarts the US Constitution, has made its way to the US Supreme court, the highest and final authority, asking to determine if Americans can and do have the liberty to practice their faith freely and the resulting morality they derive from it.

Many in this nation believe that government is dictating their moral stance in regard to health care. Many Americans who do not follow the state instituted Civil Religion represented in the law wish to practice a faith of their own free will and to determine what, if anything this should be; that the civil religion of the American state not be forced upon them.

It is these ideas and others, as such contained within democracy, communism and fascism against which many struggle from the bounds of religion and government.

Spiritual Energy

Love is the great union of the universe."  Theilhard de Chardin

There is no subject in the world which arouses greater curiosity than spiritual, or psychic energy. The energy that animates a body, that enlivens the soul; it lights the eyes and attracts life to itself. Spiritual energy is that which is absent in the corpse. Yet there is scant, scientific evidence that it even exists. Most have an awareness of this energy by their own, daily experience. It is often encountered in the simple, everydayness of life, and as well in the profound.

While science is largely unaware of its presence in the world, its realness, none more opaque scientifically, spawns the whole of Ethics which rests upon it. "The nature of this inner power is so intangible that the whole description of the universe in mechanical terms has had no need to take account... but has deliberate disregard of its reality," wrote Pierre Theilhard de Chardin in his work, The Phenomenon
of Man.
"The difficulties we still encounter in trying to hold together spirit and matter in a reasonable perspective are nowhere more harshly revealed... the building of a bridge between the two banks of our existence-- the physical and the moral-- if we wish the material and spiritual of our activities to be mutually enlivened. To connect the two energies, of the body and the soul in a coherent manner: science has ignored the question... [yet]we must advance."

"The inner face of the world is manifest deep within" and we are most aware of through our concrete behaviors that the two energies do combine, but we cannot easily, or not at all, make out the method. It seems, according to de Chardin, that the method is made of both a dependence and an independence, thus a mutual inter-dependence arises as it occurs to us that the "soul" must be "a focal point of transformation" at which point all energy converges. However attractive it may be to suppose that there is a direct transformation, it becomes clear that in practice, in love, it is their mutual inter-dependence, as clear as their inter-relation arising, says de Chardin writing about the nature of spiritual energy and love.

His book, The Phenomenon of Man, deemed radical when it first appeared in 1940, was blacklisted by many contemporary theologians upon its arrival; today de Chardin now occupies an esteemed place in the world of theology. His ideas give rise to the idea of humanity as a unifying factor of the universe, and man its bearer.

Illness, a Look With New Eyes

"I will act as if what I do makes a difference." poet and writer, William Blake

 

Debilitating illness has plagued mankind as long as anyone may imagine. Yet the human spirit ever resourceful, ever hopeful, bounds back into the realms of life. Unable to quash the spirit and its boundless potential, Susan Nessim was inspired to write about her spiritual, physical and medical journey with cancer. She writes in her book, Cancervive, now revised as: Can Survive, that for her, the roads she traveled were difficult and long, but ultimately fruitful for her spirit. Writing to share her experience, Nessim encourages others along the path she's followed from illness to recovery; for some it is not recovery so much as living, surviving with illness. She writes to encourage one and all. You are more than your diagnosis! Even when the diagnosis changes, you are more than those few words.

"One of the most frustrating things," she writes is, "... allowing disease to dominate their thoughts to such an extent that it undermines their life." With diagnosis you may easily be transformed from a person to a 'patient.' One thing is certain, however, significant illness is change. As a patient your day may easily become structured around your symptoms and treatment. Perhaps you obsess about little changes, you go to websites where others with similar diagnosis carry on at length about their treatment, their moods, their medications, etc, etc.  

Possibly even, you may be attracted to groups who claim advocacy and support. They may be in fact, groups who exist for their own, other purposes, their political agendas; like a sort of union, they may need you for less obvious reasons, for money, for prestige, for access, or for a myriad of other considerations. So do just what truly matters to you. Uniquely you. Let your decisions be from a spiritual basis. The rest will follow.

Learning to cope is essential for those living with serious illness. Cure may just be a chase for perfection, something that may not be. Perhaps acceptance of the dilemma in which one now exists is preferable; acceptance of oneself is an important spiritual act; it may be slow in coming, but ultimately it is the most satisfying to discover one's unique talents and blessings, despite everything else. Looking with new eyes, remaining in the stillness of the beating heart is often enough. Learn to smile, because this is the day that has been made; let us all rejoice and be glad in it.

Imaging the Kingdom of Heaven

"When you enter into my Kingdom." --Bible, Matthew Chapter 18

Many write, speak and think of the "kingdom of heaven" as a concrete afterlife place; they believe that the Christ's teaching was geared to the how and why of getting there. In doing so, many miss the perhaps most obvious and subtle of points. Jesus, the Christ was a Jew and the Jews of the time did not espouse a concept of heaven as a place. Their spirituality called for good works performed on earth, and earth as the kingdom of heaven. Indeed it is the place where the Bible describes the Garden of Eden.

Must we work on earth so as to ascend to a place called heaven? No, suggests author Thomas Moore, in his book, Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels. Moore writes of the kingdom of heaven as the center of the gospels intention, and of Jesus' teaching. He writes, "it is woven into all the stories and teachings."
Your response to those teachings, or lack of it directly corresponds to your understanding about living the kingdom. In reading the bible stories one learns that Jesus' view was that the kingdom "is at hand," that we are surrounded by it. This is to say that the Kingdom of Heaven is on earth, in keeping with the beliefs of Judaism.

In Judeo-Christian belief, what we learn about the kingdom through our life experiences, is what we then share and live in both a mystical and everyday way through our actions, and behaviors as well as our prayer. The Kingdom in this view is in you. "When you enter into my kingdom" is a strong message to all who consider the Christ message. It does not suggest if or maybe; it suggests when and it suggests life. We all learn lessons of love and pain; there is bitterness and joy in all lives. We seek our meaning in life, and we share our fruits with others.

If one does otherwise and expresses a tendency to zealotry, "not just about religion but about everything in life, he is easily thrown into deep confusion and depression... there was hope for them when they could laugh at the contradictions in their lives," writes Moore. He explains that when we doggedly hang onto our usual ideas and images of our self and our lives, passionate to find ways of making sense of it all, some do forget that life is complex, subtle; our spirituality needs to reflect that. Otherwise we may find our self in a very brittle position, neurotic and pained.

Many do not appreciate the extreme, radical nature of the Christ's call. It's a call to be more than to believe, and that's hard to do, especially in the modern world. The potential believers do not image it, they do not see who Jesus stood for or why he stood at all. These are radical questions that millenia has grappled with. The mystery of Jesus is the equal mystery of the kingdom. In Jesus' world, the kingdom is on earth, it is living, breathing, real, the now. It calls for all, demands all, gives all and forgives. In Jesus' kingdom Moore writes, there is " a place of bliss and idealistic values. The Gospels suggest it is more important to enter that kingdom than to [simply] live a good life."

Transformation and Self-Forgiveness

"You cannot forgive yourself until you commit yourself to personal change."  Forgiving Yourself by Beverly Flannigan

Both books written by Beverly Flannigan, Forgiving the Unforgivable and Forgiving Yourself, are two of the most helpful books I've encountered on this pithy subject.
Not only does the author assist the reader in identifying the possible wrong doings, harm and hurt they perpetrate to others, but she offers her readers a critical self assessment to engage in the journey back from ill by those same wrong doers.
In another tradition, one would say that the self-forgiven as Flannigan describes it are those who have taken the hard step of self inquiry and recognized themselves in truth; they wake up to what they do.

We all experience moments of bad, terrible, even perilous judgments that result in harm, sometimes irreparable harm to others. And we may be the cause, the prime element, of that harm. Now some suffer, some may even be dead.
Can we forgive our self for what we do wrong? Accidentally, unintentional or not, the harm is there and cannot be easily removed or retracted. For those who succeed and move on in their lives, change, vast changes are necessary.
Transformation is the name of one of the final chapters of Flannigan's book, Forgiving Yourself.

"Transformation is the subject of countless novels, treatises, movies and textbooks. In a sense, philosophy, psychology and theology all address the essential nature of human beings, and how or if a human being can change fundamentally.
She writes that when people are transformed, they change in a most fundamental way; they in a sense, recreate themselves. Some feel re-born, a newness that their now long struggled for clarity now brings to their daily life.
When one forgives others, one engages in a process that finally admits light to one's own life: now able to see other's limits, weaknesses and faults, they move from unawareness to clarity regarding injury inflicted by others:
 "incorporating that injury into his life" story and no longer blaming nor considering oneself injured; changed--one who is blinded by emotions, wishes and desires to one who now sees the world as it is; they accept change, and a number of its alternate scenarios.

Though similar, self-forgiveness is different in that one struggles with one's own mistakes, faults and weaknesses, gains insight and clarity of one's real, true nature and motives; realizing that everyone is flawed or weak in some way, all exist despite being in a perpetual state of imperfection.
Feeling a guilt which holds one in a recurring pattern, as if imprisoned to face their actions over and over again, genuine self-forgiveness produces someone who no longer hates, feels ashamed or guilty about them self because they now use the self knowledge gained through transformation to set their new course in life. Some who were not spiritually aware of their essential inter-connectedness to others becomes one who now recognizes their essential spiritual interconnectedness to others and to their community.
In any case, transformation requires a relentless, intensive search for truth in all situations, "a continuing undiluted confrontation with truth." It is finally by this means alone that one may forgive them self.

The result of this forgiveness may be a partial or complete re-working of one's values and priorities; what one once believed,  spent time, engaged, valued, ones' associates may all come under scrutiny as the natural course of the transforming process.
For the one who under takes such a task, a new vitality and joy is rightly his reward. Now 'older and wiser,' a person invariably reunites with his human, spiritual community through use of effective, appropriate coping strategies which do no further harm to himself or others; by transforming his life's basic assumptions, by engaging in purification rituals one reconnects with other people, and spiritual activities. Flannigan paraphrased, p. 149

Flannigan further identifies five significant coping strategies often used to reduce life stresses, most of which while potentially beneficial may also be used in a weapon-like way for harm.
Apologies and confessions may at first notice seem quite similar, they have a fundamental difference: apologies are the glue that reconnects most things in life. But they also have the effect giving the authority of acceptance or rejection to another. For this reason, many people refuse to apologize for their mistakes.
They are willing to engage in harm and walk away rather than face another's scathing recriminations or outright rejection.

On the other hand confessions "allows another person to see one's deepest flaws." An apology acknowledges flaws to people who already know about them.
A confession bares one's limitations; it's  in the spirit of forgiving, part of the way to transformation, thus apologies are a necessary first step.
Taking the risk that the offended may not receive our words or gestures well, we do it anyway with the hope of reconnecting. Humility then is at the core of apologies, a recognition of our basic lack of perfection, our clumsy, faulted ways. Apologies "whether directed at another or spoken to a surrogate, open communication" with primarily one's self and potentially with others is the way to transformation.

The Divine Puppet Show

"Physical freedom means that there is nothing to hinder me from acting as I choose to act." Augustine: On Free Choice and the Will, translated, edited by Thomas Williams

As a vital current in Western thought, the subject of freedom and will are no small issues. From ancient times, the thoughts of Aristotle, philosopher, influenced theologian Augustine of Hippo to write a slim, but in-depth treatise on this subject. While only 129 pages, one is likely to read parts of it again and again. Thomas Williams makes an English translation of Augustine: On Free Choice of the Will, noting that this one discourse, more than any other by Augustine of Hippo contains all his essential points including freedom, will, human nature, deity, ethics and more.

On freedom, Williams records Augustine's thought as sorting through the many senses of the word. For example, one sort of freedom may be the lack of restraint; another may be construed: since I am not in prison, I may, for example, leave at any time. This is physical freedom. On the other hand, Augustine notes there is also a freedom which he calls metaphysical freedom. It is this freedom which his treatise mostly concerns itself.

Metaphysical freedom is said to be 'deterministic.' Determinism states that for every choice I make, there are multiple and often competing alternatives, including prior states of the universe over which I have no control. While I may be physically free, not tied up or otherwise prevented from movement, I seem to lack freedom in a more urgent, vital regard. For example, I am free to do my own choosing, but the choices themselves are not with liberty (I can for example, choose in an emergency situation to crash my car into the car suddenly in my lane speeding towards me, the lane with cars traveling in the opposite direction, or into a large tree in an effort to save myself). The freedom to choose something that is accomplished in a way so as to be un-determined by anything beyond my personal control is called metaphysical freedom.

Metaphysical freedom is a philosophical position that places human beings in a libertarian position. While this idea of Libertarianism enjoyed its heyday, nowadays many philosophers follow a more existential route, and no more consider human freedom in terms of Libertarianism. Today it is fashionable to enshrine the limits of human freedom within the physical realm. Augustine however is, and remains, a great defender of the Libertarian point of view. It is chiefly this view which he, as a theologian, brings into the Catholic Christian church. According to this view, human beings are endowed with an energy he calls, the will.

As the commander of our self, we may roam wherever; there is free choice. All options may, at times, be considered: the good, the bad, the indifferent. The will is unaffected by external factors. Only the will can itself determine to choose. This freedom allows us responsibility for our actions alone; more often however, it's internal issues which provoke our choices of will. Things such as feeling, desire, fears, and wishes are what the will factors from within. As for causal events, one cannot have control, nor over that which occurred prior to one's birth, so Augustine also and finally rejects Compatabilism and Determinism in favor of  Metaphysical Freedom alone as prime.

Due to our metaphysical freedom, we are therefore able to make real change in the world, real contact with the physical, the rule of nature. To some extent, we write our own scripts, live a life, play our own role in the "divine puppet show." So what does this have to do with Simple Mind or Zen? Everything. If we view the world as actors or as re-actors, there imputes great influence upon our social and spiritual lives; our view directs and influences our senses, responsibility and our mental states. Our fault-finding and base assumptions start here as well. It is the cornerstone of every conscious action undertaken, argues Augustine.

Mandala or Mandorla?

"Happily...we have a solution. This is the mandorla... It is far too valuable a concept to have lost." Owning Your Own Shadow -- by R. Johnson

"Everyone knows what a mandala is, even though mandala is a Sanskrit idea borrowed from India and Tibet. A mandala is a holy circle or bounded place that is a representation of wholeness..... the Tibetan tanka [for example], a picture generally of the Buddha in his many attributes... Mandalas are devices that remind us of our unity with god and all living things."
Mandalas are found in places as diverse as a Tibetan monastery, an Indian ashram or a Christian cathedral. In the christian version, the mandala is most often represented as a rose flowering. It appears in Gothic architecture as a rose window,  frequently representing a healing symbol in christian mythology.

While mandalas are perhaps more familiar to many persons, the mandorla is an important symbol as well; during the Medieval age it was prevalent in many places. It has a healing effect, "but, as Johnson writes in his book, Owning Your Own Shadow,' it's somewhat different.
A mandorla is an almond shaped segment formed when two circles partly overlap."  This symbol is "nothing less than the overlap of opposites." It is often seen in spiritual terms as the overlap between heaven and earth, dark and light.
Each of us, at different moments in our every day existence, have the experience of the worldly demands which collide or conflict with our spiritual longings and desires.

It is within the ancient symbol of mandorla that we may be instructed so as to reconcile these demands and needs. In our lives, mandorla may act to remind us of our life as both earthly and heavenly.
The Christ depicted with his mother, Mary at his side, clearly makes the point (mandorla) how wonderfully true the affirmation of the feminine energy is in life, by assigning her in a place next to the majesty (masculine) which is the Christ.
Some of the most beautiful mandorlas in European monuments feature this particular subject. "The mandorla is so important in our torn world" that re-examining it is of great significance.
There is a tendency to divide the self, to banish elements of self and let them live unobserved alongside the "known" self.
However in doing so, considerable energy is sidelined into what is sometimes called the "shadow." But they will not stay hidden forever and have the habit of returning; asserting their energy, like it or not.

When that day of reckoning comes, and there may be many over a period of time, the mandorla is a wonderfully healing help. It begins to focus one upon the self and the re-emerging split. Mandorla starts first as something very tiny, a sliver really, and as it grows, greater overlap occurs; the self is re-made more whole, stronger and more complete.
Binding together, making holy the unholy; mandorla is a profound religious and spiritual experience. It is the place of poetry, where the fire becomes the rose, where this is that, where transformation is great synthesis.
The biblical story of the bush which burns, yet is not consumed is poetry leading to a new sense of wholeness, unity completed. The bush and its burning overlap. Healing begins in the space between. And mandorla is peacemaking.

"If your eye be seen, your whole body will be filled with light." Matthew 6:22

Feminism, a Failure to Appreciate

"Then all of them together, crying loudly, moved to the malevolent shore that awaits anyone who has no fear of God." -- Inferno, Canto III by Dante

In his belief, born of experience first as a cloistered monk and then as a Jungian therapist, Thomas Moore comes now to realize that "what was really at the root of those unsettled lives was religion... I didn't always realize the extent to which spiritual issues were playing a central role... The obvious spiritual problems had to do with disturbing experiences surrounding religion in childhood." In his book, The Soul's Religion, Moore writes "in these ordinary, troubled lives, spirit and psyche were closely connected. In other cases, spiritual issues were more subtle and required a broadening of the idea of spirituality."

Today, society to the extent that it acknowledges religion at all, sees itself "in relation to an image of a "gentleman God,' the grandfather and patriarch." This pushes the feminine into the shadows, hidden beneath the surface of everyday life. Neglected feminine nature in the world is often felt in oppressive and mysterious forces that may make living an everyday life almost impossible. For the feminine energy, like her balance, masculine energy, needs recognition for composure in daily living. Many today neglect, even deny the feminine nature; they are hostile to its alleged weak frailty. Yet many seek its compensations in a professional life that includes care-taking in fields like nursing, elementary school teaching, social work; merely doing this everyday, external work doesn't solve an interior, spiritual lack or need for the feminine energy. There are, Moore notes, countless females who mother and nurture all those they contact almost to death. We often seek to escape them. Allowing the feminine, the Marian, into daily life as a spiritual role or guide "is an effective way to heal" the lack of a divine mother in a man or woman's life. She takes her proper place as an 'avatar' rather than a lived out female image. Then, here she is spirit; she is soul.

"In matters of soul and spirit, things are not always what they might seem." Moore observes, "I have come to understand sexism and violence against women as a spiritual issue, as a failure to appreciate the feminine mysteries" which no amount of nudity, ogling, looking or voyeuristic regard will alleviate. The deepest interior, which cannot be seen, can only be sensed with the soul-heart is at issue. "Today many spiritual passions are disguised in politics, war, money, sex or athletics." Even so, most secular, enlightenment outlets for spiritual passion are inadequate because they address merely a surface issue, meaning that recognition is admitted only indirectly, often unconsciously, so we don't often even grant that they are religious. These modern, secular, indirect forms "siphon off spiritual steam, leaving unsatisfied religious needs."

This loss of recognition of the spiritual, the religious, as an attitude, a way of life, a lifestyle, leads to great degrees of loss, of illness, of alienation in modern life. Some have written of the "sick soul." Many relationships, families and marriages fail "because we now treat them as sociological constructions or psychological arrangements, partnerships, rather than as holy mysteries. As a result we continue to crave religion of the deepest kind, often in disguised form; yet so much of what we try is inadequate, "only increasing the craving and emptiness" of our deepest selves, writes Moore.

In maturity, spiritual growth, like growth in any other area of our life, renders to us a "quest and search." What we discover is a deepening and a broadening of ourself; we are not obliged to a single path, our perceptions deepen, wisdom accrues. We often discover paradoxes at work. How to combine apparent opposites into one coherent whole is our challenge, and our grace. In doing so, we find the gifts of our life.

The Grail Legend, Signs of Life

"...the man is distinguished by the feminine elements." The Grail Legend by Emma Jung

Continuing in the classic story of the Holy Grail, a myth made noble by its telling and re-telling, the author Emma Jung, wife of famed psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, writes that the myth is known since the middle ages. Over time it develops and refines itself through the numerous spiritual awakenings experienced by its telling. "Thus he [like Percival]  is brought into close connection with the Christ." So then the "Grail hero," Percival, represents  the higher conscious awareness of a person, in the religious, spiritual sense of the word.

The story events can be traced and understood as "symbolic representations of the archetypal development .... on the other hand, they possess a dimension in depth which points specifically to the problem of the Christian era." The "problem" as described relates to the nature of salvation contained within the Christ story. Percival spurred on by his mother, goes forth from the family home to find his way in the world and most importantly to discover the location of the Grail Castle. For this, he searches long, high and low.

"It would seem,' writes Jung, 'that the mother's story has produced an after-effect in the unconscious of the youth and has there aroused the images of the paternal figures which he then meets in the Grail Castle." This as example, is an experience many of us are familiar with: during our waking day we experience something which while fleeting, to which no importance may be attached, nonetheless it activates the unconscious mind. Often these experiences give rise to dreams which appropriately consider the subject in depth, but most often in symbols. Within the Grail Legend there are a host of symbols to be considered, both religious and spiritual, masculine and feminine.

One of the many things the myth demonstrates is that during Percival's long wandering, while a man naturally has the "tendency to identify with his masculinity, and it is well known, the acceptance of his feminine side is a severe problem for him. He is therefore inclined to act unjustly towards the feminine. It may seem strange... to place a high value on the wronging of the feminine element... it must not be overlooked, however, that a woman is only loved externally; the manly ideal is a one-sided and absolute masculinity." There is then the "motif of the chessboard" upon which Gauvain [another character in the myth] and his beloved defend themselves.

"For in the game of chess which requires concentration and close attention, the two sides confront one another,  "a well nigh all powerful queen stands beside a somewhat helpless yet nevertheless vitally important king... the knight must still submit himself" for the further development of the game. As in the game, Percival, like a 'shadow figure' tries to investigate these and other profound problems seeking solutions and the ultimate holy of holy, the Grail itself. To whom the Grail is possessed is riches without parallel. In this game, that one is the victor.