The Harry Potter Alliance

4 Comments

1. 

   Max Coleman

   August 28, 2009 at 11:25 pm
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   Hmm . . . there’s certainly a lot of wisdom in this quote, but I’m not sure whether or not I agree. I definitely agree with the message to enjoy and appreciate life, but at the same time the quote doesn’t really encompass the importance of social activism.

   That wasn’t very eloquent, but basically what I’m trying to say is that if we have but moments to live our lives, is it not our duty to help others before taking pleasure in what life has to offer? Of course, there is inherent pleasure in altruism, but his choice of the word “joke” doesn’t really imply that. Maybe if I were to rewrite the quote, I would write, “Eternity is a mere moment just long enough to help one person in need.”

   I know it sounds self-righteous, but I really feel that it’s our job to serve others before we serve ourselves.

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2. 

   Max Coleman

   August 28, 2009 at 11:36 pm
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   I forgot to add another Hesse quote which I love:

   “If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What is not part of ourselves does not bother us.”

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3. 

   andrew

   August 29, 2009 at 2:31 pm
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   Max: this is a really striking point that you’re making! Wow. It’s excellent. Hesse was not a social activist in the traditional sense of the word – though he did spend a great deal of his life protesting two World Wars even though it meant losing most of his friends.

   Hesse is one of the most influential writers in my life and as an activist, you are hitting on a paradox that I find with Hesse. However, I personally believe that this paradox exists on purpose. Hesse would later say that the book that most clearly stated his beliefs was Siddhartha in which he says: “And here is a doctrine at which you will laugh. It seems to me, Govinda, that love is the most important thing in the world. It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.’’

   From that place, one can certainly engage in the idea that service to others and transforming/challenging systems that oppress others are inevitable manifestations of this ideal around love and respect to all. But we need to, I think, understand that this quote about eternity being a mere moment just long enough for a joke goes, perhaps, far deeper into the spiritual realm of existence itself. It’s not a matter of simply being concerned with the particular issues of one time in history versus another time in history. When one dissolves time, when one lives in the world of eternity, tragedy no longer exists. Tragedy is an accident of time. Now does that mean that you should just party and not serve others? No, I don’t think it does. But it does call into question the kind of service that one does. It gets into the idea that at the heart of all of this quest for justice and a better world is something very fundamentally deep. Each person has left the “Garden of Eden” and seems to struggle to find our way back. Yet the ability to return is with us all along, much like Dorothy’s ability to return to home was always right at her feet. Then it is the mission of some activists – not all activists- but some, to call upon themselves to be awake to the nature of reality – the infinite abundance to which we live and in turn to allow others the chance for this realization as well. Our greatest quest is not for equal wages for all, but to remember the Divine Oneness to which we are already a part of. And in that remembering, that is love. That is our greatest weapon. For it is reality. Reality is the Divine interconnection between all things. Love is it’s only song. Our job is merely to hear it. And when we do it dispels time.

   Now how does this affect those who are in need? Well for one, we are all in need. It puts us all somewhat at a level playing field. All of us are in a common journey – different but common. We are all feeling abandoned and searching the way back to Love. To help others in need, one recognizes their own need, and together people move toward realizing that Oneness.

   Now what are the spontaneous political ramifications that come from this idea? That all human suffering is to be accepted. But that our wish to heal the soul of ourselves, the souls of our sisters, the souls of our brothers can be believed and acted upon. And in the end, whether we defeat Voldemort or not is not the question. The question is how well we loved. Did we embody love to the greatest of our abilities? This is not about political ideologies – they are so frustrating in their simplifying of the entire human experience – though also important and necessary to explore as models of reality. But to defeat Voldemort is to become the embodiment of love. And to become the embodiment of love, in that process, we transcend thought. This quote by Hesse, allows us to transcend thought. And not dwell on the particulars that we as activists obsess over to a point where we begin to forget about the big, big picture. Hesse also believed that it was fine for people to not see the big picture. Comical that they don’t try, but also fine because we are here as participants in this carnival, not only as observers – a question that he continued to ask in books like Narcissus and Goldmund. Hesse introduces what could be, though I think partially unintentionally by him, the seeds of a different model of activism. Not one that is compelled to serve based on ideology or a herd mentality (not to say in any way that you are doing that!) but one that flows spontaneously from the deepest regions of our hearts and the conscious realizations of our being what Joanna Macy refers to as nerve cells in the mind of a Great Being.

   As for your second quote: I love that one too. Wow. You know Hesse, huh? We should talk about that.

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4. 

   Max Coleman

   August 29, 2009 at 3:51 pm
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   First of all, let me just say that I am absolutely stunned by the eloquence and truth of your words. As I was reading this (in fact, far before you mentioned Joanna Macy) I was reminded of an interview of her by Catherine Ingram. (By the way, if you have not yet “In the Footsteps of Gandhi” it is a tremendous work.) In the interview, she mentioned what’s called “paticca samuppada,” a term which you may be entirely familiar with but which I am only just beginning to grasp. It means “dependent co-arising” and refers to the inherent connection between all people (see “general systems theory”). Perhaps I should have remembered Joanna Macy when I wrote my first uninformed (if well-intentioned) comment. In the interview, she says: “Some of the people . . . would attempt to stay in a cathartic mode– “What we need to do is let people beat their breasts and tear their hair, and then they can act” –and then they realize, “Oh, it’s beyond catharsis.” It’s in honoring the depths of our responses to what is going on in the world that we experience that the pain comes from caring, and that caring springs from interconnectedness. In other words, our responses are a direct doorway into, or proof of, interdependence. Realizing this can pop us out of that narrow prison of the separate ego.”

   I am also reminded of an interview (in the same book) with activist Ram Dass, wherein he speaks of the human heart. He says, “There are many levels of heart. And the human heart will break because it empathizes. The deeper heart –the hridayam, the jitvatma, or the hsin hsin in Chinese –that heart is the one that looks at the universe, just as it is, in a non-reactive way and says, “Ah so,” “Yes.” And it includes your own human heart that is breaking, but your identity isn’t only with your human heart. Your identity is with a deeper, intuitive heart wisdom, which is different.”

   I suppose what Hesse meant in one word (“joke”) was this connection of love and compassion between all peoples, by simple virtue of the divine truth, which as you so eloquently mentioned includes the absence of tragedy.

   I will admit that despite quoting Herman Hesse, I have yet to read any of his major works. But I have read some of his poetry, and I find most of it quite chilling. Here is a particularly interesting piece, which touches on some of the themes we have been discussing:

   At Night on the High Seas:

   At night, when the sea cradles me
   And the pale star gleam
   Lies down on its broad waves,
   Then I free myself wholly
   From all activity and all the love
   And stand silent and breathe purely,
   Alone, alone cradled by the sea
   That lies there, cold and silent, with a thousand lights.
   Then I have to think of my friends
   And my gaze sinks into their gazes
   And I ask each one, silent, alone:
   “Are you still mine”
   Is my sorrow a sorrow to you, my death a death?
   Do you feel from my love, my grief,
   Just a breath, just an echo?”
   And the sea peacefully gazes back, silent, 
And smiles: no. 
And no greeting and no answer comes from anywhere.

   Indeed, I see a paradox here, because although the quote you originally mentioned encompasses paticca samuppada and human connection, this poem seems to deny that connection. It seems to imply that, no, we are all alone. Perhaps I am being too simplistic here. Perhaps Hesse believes we are all alone, and yet at the same time we are all members of the world. This is what Carson McCullers called the “we of me” — the idea that each of us are individuals, but each of us are also members of something more important than ourselves. (See “The Member of the Wedding.”)

   You mention that all suffering is to be accepted, and yet it is our job to ease the suffering of others. The Buddhists believe that suffering comes from want, from desire, and yet the only way to help others is to give to them in some way. Is there not another paradox here? In giving, we are lessening desire, but we are also enabling and empowering further desire. Of course, in helping others, it is a worthy sacrifice. Perhaps the Buddhists acknowledge the difference between desire based on need and desire based on want.

   If you’ve read to the bottom of this quote, it is very kind of you. In attempting eloquence I sometimes find myself rambling (-:

   But first, let me leave you with a quote by Tennessee Williams. It is one of my favorites:

   “The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.”

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