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..:: Poetry ::..
By
Alan Schneider
In today’s Post
Modern, data-oriented world culture, the emphasis on communication has
become directed solely toward the transmission of the greatest
quantity of information possible, without much regard for the
quality of either the information itself, or of the medium of
expression used. In times gone by, and perhaps not so distantly at
that, the total expression of the communication was often much
more present in the focus of consciousness, both for the sender and
receiver of the message. This essay explores some of the
most esthetic, graceful communication of distant cultures, and ponders
ways in which these qualities might be reinvested in the bleak mechanism
of modern parlance.
In both the East, and the
West, ancient cultures tended, at least among the learned classes, to
support the poetic means of communication through the
construction of rhymed, metered content that was frequently accompanied
by tonal recitation – chanting or singing as the mediums of
transmission. This was the exclusive means of transmission of the Vedas
(and, later, the Upanishads) for countless generations even before the
written tradition of Sanskrit was developed by the Vedic Seers and
Rishis. The content of the texts was arranged into verses and sung
from father to son as the means of transmission, frequently of great
volumes of text that were nonetheless memorized in this fashion by
generation after generation. In the west, the ancient Hebrew scholars
did much the same thing, a tradition that is still seen in the practices
of many Conservative and Orthodox Jewish households, in which the
father sings the verses of the Torah before meals, and at other
spiritually significant occasions, and the sons are expected to learn
the verses themselves to carry forth the tradition, and Rabbis also will
sing the Torah during Temple services. Some phases of Western opera also
continue to pay homage to this esthetic, through the voices of actors,
and the frequently poetic meter of the written content, although this
activity is heavily slanted toward the learned and wealthy patrons
present in society’s upper strata.
When the written text of both
Sanskrit and Post-Babylonian Hebrew was introduced as the means of
recording the spiritual insights contained in the ancient poetic
communications, something was gained in terms of the universal
availability of what was offered through written content, but lost in
terms of the lyrical beauty of what was given vocally to the intended
recipients. To read, even in the ancient symbol systems, what is
contained in a spiritual message is not even closely expressed in
comparison to being in the presence of an Ascended Master, a devoted
Rabbi, or even a loving parent, who is singing or chanting the spiritual
essence of the teaching in person. Sanskrit as a written language has
some forty characters (as opposed to modern English, with twenty six),
making it a functionally perfect language in the opinion of most
linguistic scholars, having a character corresponding to virtually every
sound of which the human vocal apparatus is capable. And the character
design of classical Sanskrit is also most esthetically appealing, being
both pleasant of graceful in form, however, the removal of the verbal
and lyrical context leaves behind what is essentially an archeological
artifact – useful as a mechanism of recording, but lifeless as an
expression love, grace, and joy. Even the dedicated efforts of Ezra (the
Hebrew Babylonian scribe who so impressed Cyrus the Great of Persia that
he was given both the funds and political support to reestablish the
ancient Hebrew city of Judea) to recreate the Hebrew written and spoken
language in the modern Aramaic/Assyrian characters still in use,
resulted in another system of artifacts. These subtle concepts
can only really be personally transmitted from the living
to the living in the poetic, lyrical context to genuinely
experience what they imply for our human consciousness as paths of
spiritual development. By all means, yes, do read the ancient
wisdom, in whatever language you may be capable of understanding, and if
in the original, so much the better, but know that much is still
absent.
The few examples cited here
are, of course, only this author’s choices among many present in
ancient, and not so ancient, history. The modern world has produced
literally tons of popular songs of all kinds as well, but most of these
do not concern themselves with spiritual subject matter per se. It is
the specific story-telling of extended spiritual texts in
esthetically heightened form that is our focus here. Such epics as the
ancient Greek Iliad and Odyssey of the poet Homer, or the
Asian Kublai Khan simply do not seem to be produced any longer in
contemporary society, musicals like West Side Story or
The Sound of Music notwithstanding.
The trend toward
mechanization and automation in society began with the advent of the
Machine Age, arguably placed approximately two hundred years ago with
the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney. The financial
advantages to the Southern cotton plantation owners of such a device
were rapidly appreciated, and spurred investigation of other
mass-production oriented possibilities. It would seem that there
resides within the human consciousness a deep-seated dissatisfaction
with any form of status quo situation – we must continue to forge
ahead and develop all the avenues of involvement available to us.
Certainly, the blind greed and ignorance associated with the
unsophisticated ego serve to drive this condition, but I feel there is
more to the picture than that. Even when we turn away from ego
involvement in such Eastern esthetic practices as meditation, and
successfully attain the peak experiences known to be resident in such
techniques, the restlessness referred to here remains. It appears that
there is an inherent drive to discovery that is endemic to the
human organism, although displayed to different extents on an individual
basis. When we came to know ourselves, we simultaneously came to know
our dissatisfactions with ourselves.
When science, and the
scientific method of investigation, were incorporated in the burgeoning
Machine Age, the trend toward the rote mechanization of human awareness
was drastically accelerated, enabling the vast populations currently in
evidence around the world to survive and procreate, and this despite two
World Wars, and countless other military actions and social calamities
in recent history. As is frequently the case, increase in literal
quantity has been accompanied by functional decrease in esthetic
quality – although we how live longer, and superficially better, we have
largely lost the sense of who and what we are that can only be provided
by spiritual, esthetic practice, investigation, and, most importantly,
celebration. That we have come this far as a conscious species
should be celebrated, and not only at the upper levels of
culture, but everywhere. The question is how to advocate and practice
this observance – through superficial material frivolity, or through the
renewal of the kind of deep personal contact of Cabalist and Hindu
antiquity.
What we need is the
reconstruction of spiritual rite and ritual at the grass roots of
society – father to son, mother to daughter, spiritual mentor to
aspirant – at the most personal level attainable. What we need is the
revitalization of Post Modern culture through the reconstitution of our
bond with higher consciousness and the Truth of Consciousness
– the reaffirmation that we are all One Being manifest in many
expressions – from the essence of nature and the natural world to the
Soul and the Logos. The creation of contemporary rites of affirmation
and celebration are the keys to this transformation of consciousness.
And these rites need by far to be esthetic as the first measure of their
content – beautiful, graceful, poetic statements of the highest
sentiments that we can intuitively grasp and communicate. To a very
large extent, the nineteen-sixties media philosopher, Marshall McClewan,
was correct when he said “The medium is the message!”, because
the means of transmission accounts for so much of message
perception by the receiver. The higher the vibration of the medium, the
higher will be the vibration of the message.
For those of us working in
English, as opposed to the beauty of Ezra’s Post-Babylonian Hebrew, or
the descriptive potency of Classical Sanskrit, this poses a challenge.
English is a purposefully functional language developed over the
centuries for the description of general categories of information –
technical, legal, cultural, educational, and financial – but it is not
particularly esthetic per se, and written English script certainly
is not. This is one reason why so much is lost in translation from
Sanskrit to English – the twenty-six letter English alphabet is simply
not up to the descriptive task of rendering the often subtle and sublime
concepts of the Sanskrit Visionaries into equivalent terms. The best
that can be hoped for is a crude translation that approximates the
original meanings and intent. The use of Old English of various
derivatives helps somewhat, as in the case of Sir Edwin Arnold’s
translation of the Bhagavad-Gita directly from the original
Sanskrit text, but still falls short of the mark. Even a simple Sanskrit
term like Dharma first, loses some sense of its meaning when
written in English characters, then, confronts the individual who
has managed to acquire a valid sense of the full implication of this
expansive spiritual concept with the need to write paragraphs of
English information to faithfully convey that implication to an
English-trained reader. Yet, this is the script that I must use, by
dint of my personal limitations, to communicate to everyone. This has
been a challenge!
The old adage “One picture is
worth a thousand words!” is frequently very helpful in confronting
verbal and written communication barriers. The visual portrayal
of content can often transcend the limitations of mere language. One
needs no better example of this than the well-known visual
representations of the Hindu Chakras or the Cabalistic Tree of Life.
These beautiful diagrams of the developmental map of consciousness
convey so much more than the words needed to elucidate their meanings!
And when they are augmented with either the Hebrew or English script
labels, the full meaning of the visual symbols present bursts forth in
brilliant clarity.
Perhaps what we need most at
this time in history is a New Temple of Consciousness
for the emerging spirit of humanity, one that incorporates the full
esthetics of all of the human senses in its form and manifestation. Not
merely a building, or grounds, but a living message of Truth from the
point of first contact onward – a repository of beauty and grace, both
in the external material sense, and in the internal spiritual expression
of the Adytum – Paul Foster Case’s term for the Inner Temple of
the Heart and Soul of humanity.
In my humble way, and within
the woeful limitations of written English, I have begun this process
with A Prayer for Grace, the frontispiece of these newsletters,
and if it is not poetry per se, it represents at least a trend in the
right direction:
“O Thou Who Art Eternally Manifest As
Divine Light, Perfect Love, and Limitless
Wisdom, Guide me from Above, Protect me
from Below, And Grant that all my
Thoughts, Words, and Deeds Will Serve
Thy Wondrous Design Forever!”
- With Love, Alan -
(Copyright 2009, by Alan Schneider)
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