Two months ago, for the first time in over ten years, I was able to listen again to, to share with someone, the Symphonies of Brahms – with the Third seeming to capture and express something of my then often turbulent but always loving recent personal relationship, before the object of my love killed herself in her despair.
For so many years I had avoided that music, expressing as it had for me so many memories from another personal relationship, which also ended with the tragic death of a loved one, then, from cancer. Now, in this dark but still rather humid night, I listen to it again, but only briefly, hoping for catharsis – and I am overwhelmed with the sadness of it all. All is sadness, in this moment of heavy rain following days of Mediterranean heat, and I ask again what is the meaning to life: is there anything beyond our death, or is such a belief in a life beyond just a need in me, in us, as human beings? All now seems to be sorrow, the sadness of the centuries seeping through a transient joy – as the opening of JS Bach’s St Matthew Passion, presaging a strange but powerful allegory.
So much beauty, promise, gentleness; so much to presence and feel of the numinous. But even more the sadness of tragedy and of sorrow; the suffering inflicted by so many for so long, and still without any ending in sight. And why do so many of those fragile ones – the good, sensitive, ones who for whatever reason could find no answers, no hope, no way to end their inner torment and pain – die by their own hand, month after month, year upon year, decade upon decade, century upon century, when those who cause so much suffering continue, and mostly enjoy their life? There is no fairness, here; no large movement toward a better way. Only the perpetuation of suffering, since each person, blankly-born, struggles as others have struggled millennia upon millennia, learning very little through the beauty of Art, music, literature, music, education, the suffering of the past. Such a waste; such a sad un-necessity.
There is no excuse – and I cannot any longer it seems believe that an omnipotent compassionate God would allow such suffering; would allow us to continue to inflict so much suffering. But we it seems make, have made and probably will continue to make, excuses for God. It is all a test, we are told to believe – and the innocent ones; the suffering ones; the good, taken from us, will be redeemed, somewhere, after their death and be rewarded, while the others will suffer for their deeds. It is after all a test, of us, for us, by God. And if it is not? If there is nothing: no life, no existence, beyond; no punishment of those who have caused harm; no reward for good deeds done? What, then? How then do we make sense of the suffering; of the early death of a loved one taken from us by their own hand in their despair? How are we to live, with what moral guidance? Or are we merely thinking animals, who just die?
For most of my adult life I have found my answers through three things – through a personal relationship; through belief in a Cause, a particular Weltanschauung; and through work. Sometimes, for years on end, I have had all three together to provide my role, my sense of identity, a sense of being, as sometimes, these things have kept me distracted from what I now feel is the essence of life itself, distracted from very purpose of life. That is – like many people, I assume – I was often so busy, so involved with work, a relationship, with doing things, that life passed often quickly by, and even when one of these three things was lost, through for example the ending of a personal relationship, I still had the other two, or at least one of them. I especially had, for nearly all of my adult life, my belief in duty – in being involved in some way in creating what I considered to be a better world, through my political writing and activism, and through my propagation of the Cause, the world-view, I upheld. Furthermore, I also knew I needed a personal relationship – to be involved with, to love and to be loved by, a woman, for I found such joy in such things; such beauty; such a source of comfort and meaning – even though there were times when I placed my adherence to some Cause, my perceived duty to some ideal, before the women I loved, thus causing some suffering for that person. This, as I now understand it, was wrong – for I know now that no sense of duty, no perceived duty, no Cause, no ideal, no striving for some ideal, no religion or Way of Life, should be the genesis of suffering, for that is wrong, immoral, against the ethic of life, contrary to our humanity, and that to cease to cause suffering, to be compassionate, is the human thing to do. But it has taken me a long time to arrive at such conclusions – taken me many years of learning from my mistakes, as it has involved me causing suffering to others, and even though my intentions were mostly good, such intentions are fundamentally no excuse for causing suffering. I made such excuses, many times, and that was morally wrong.
Now, I have no relationship, no role of work; no particular Weltanschauung to uphold, which I believe in, which I feel is right and which I feel I have a duty to propagate, above and beyond work and a relationship. Thus, there are difficult and important questions to be answered – questions I have asked before, several times, over the past three decades, and which I believed I had answered, at least for a while, although in truth I only found myself distracted again, by one or more or all of those three things. However, in the past year – due to understanding the nature of suffering and and especially since Francine’s death – I have been thinking deeply about morality; about the question of life’s meaning, beyond the role of work; beyond a particular Weltanschauung or religion or Way of Life which we may believe in; beyond a personal relationship.
What can imbue us – without causing any suffering – with meaning? What gives us, as individuals, meaning – beyond the role of work; beyond a personal relationship; beyond some perceived duty to some ideal, some Cause, some Weltanschauung, beyond God? Do we need – must we have – a belief in God, a belief in some kind of existence beyond death, to provide us with morality, with some reason to cease to cause suffering? And, if so, do we have to accept a God who seems to be indifferent to suffering; who allows suffering? Are the theological answers for such suffering merely an excuse to continue to so believe in God? Why do we so often forget, in our living, the tragedy that may have caused us, for a moment, to pause, and reflect? Why do we so consistently it seems fail to learn from such tragedy and keep repeating the mistakes of the past, mistakes which cause, which perpetuate, suffering?
Certainly, the stark remembrance of tragedy, of suffering, seems to be mostly avoided in the modern West – except in some rather stage-managed national events where a certain insincere sentiment seems to be present in otherwise hypocritical opportunistic politicians and where one cannot quite escape the maybe unkind thought of such events being staged for some ulterior political motive. We also seem to prefer to hide away our own personal suffering, caused by the deaths of loved ones or by tragic personal events, while the hedonistic culture around us continues on its way, oblivious to such things, with the Media of that culture striving so hard, it seems, to portray an idealized life of people smiling, happy, wallowing in possessions and following, chasing, the emotion, the gossip, the fashion, of the moment, and chasing, following the latest idea or “trend”. Certainly, our politicians seem to pride themselves on the success of our material culture, while avoiding the suffering that still blights us – while avoiding, for instance, the number of suicides; the poverty; the growing inequality; the ever present prejudice and continuing lack of moral behaviour. We also seem to avoid the underlying causes, the morality, of suffering itself- of such suffering as nations, and governments, and politicians, and armies, inflict, often allegedly in our name. We certainly for the most part – as I myself did, for decades – avoid applying the correct moral criteria to our own behaviour, and make excuse after excuse for ourselves, and for others. Is it easier, less traumatic in personal terms, to just forget – and busy ourselves in work; in relationships; in some Cause, or in striving for some perceived duty or some ideal? Yes, of course it is – but that surely is a denial of our humanity: a denial of our ability to learn, and of our ability to change ourselves for the better.
What, then, can induce us to change? For myself, I am finding answers in what I have called The Numinous Way – in that understanding of simple cause and effect which does away, it seems, with an omnipotent Deity who allows suffering, and which thus does away also with the theological necessity of trying to explain how such a God can be compassionate and allow such suffering and the continuation of suffering. The basis for this Way is the morality of compassion, empathy and honour – of a knowing of suffering and its causes, as in Buddhism. But there is also, unlike, in Buddhism, an appreciation, an understanding, a knowing, of the Cosmos as a living being – of Nature as a type of being, and of ourselves as nexions, one connexion between the change which was the past and the evolution which is possible; and an understanding of such a presencing of what is numinous in those things, such as some music, or a personal love, which might or which could aid us to change, to remember our failings. There does not, of necessity, even have to be any assumption in this Way regarding a life beyond – only that understanding of the causes of suffering and the way to end suffering. Ceasing causing suffering has the effect of reducing suffering in the world and thus in the cosmos. Which reduction, which transformation, is the aim, the purpose, of our life – for thus do we evolve the Cosmos because we are the Cosmos. We are contributing to the consciousness of the Cosmos; to evolution. That is, there is a personal desire to alleviate suffering arising from an understanding of suffering, an understanding of its cause and its ending, because such a desire is an expression of the evolving life of the Cosmos – a presencing of The Numen, of the numinous, of The Cosmic Being: of that imperfect, still-evolving, changing, consciousness of which we are a part, if we but perceived it, if we but felt it.
Furthermore, it does seem to me that there is another possibility here – a possibility already within us by virtue of our nature, our being. This is to participate in another way in this change, this ending of suffering and it implies us, as individuals living within the causal, accessing more of the acausal, of acausal energy – balancing ourselves; returning to a harmony with the Cosmos, with Life – and thus becoming, beyond this causal realm, some-thing far more than we are now. For now, we are a nexion, one small presencing of acausal energies in the causal, and we surely have the potentiality to be, to become – through such presencing of acausal energies, such presencing of the numinous, of The Numen, such awareness of the Cosmic Being, such a cessation of causing suffering – an acausal being. Or, rather, to move toward an acausal existence after our causal death – to be part of the Cosmos, beyond the self, beyond individuality, and thus to participate in a new, acausal way, with the Cosmos, and the evolution of the Cosmos which is Life and its changes.
Is this life, then, all sadness? Yes, and no. As some music, or perchance some loving personal relationship, has made us aware, there is also joy – the potentiality for change; for sharing such joy – mingled in with the tragedy of suffering. But it is the living between the moments of understanding, between the moments of insight, which can be, which is, difficult – if there is no prayer for us to rely on; no God to turn to; no Master or Sage or Buddha to follow; no prospect of being rewarded for enduring and striving to be what is good. It is difficult, and, occasionally, bleak – being removed from that feeling of love which arises, which can arise, from a belief in God, from a belief in a Saviour, from following the revelation of some Messenger or Prophet; and which can even arise from the knowledge of the possibility of a personal redemption, a personal, living in another Time and Space. And difficult, sometimes, because there is the temptation, for the sake of such love, such comfort, to strive to believe; to hope to believe.
Now, the Dawn has arrived – but the rain continues, and the Dawn Chorus of hungry birds is somewhat subdued, as dark clouds have come to obscure the warming Sun which, for weeks, has warmed us, bringing a certain transient joy.
DW Myatt
The Early Morning of the 6th of July 2006 CE
