Tags
books, Buddhism, culture, Finnegans Wake, James Joyce, Life, poetry, spirituality, Ulysses, Zen
I haven’t created a video in over two years now, so it never ceases to amaze me that people still find their way to them, watch, and even comment now and then. Here’s a reply to the latest message from a viewer:
Thanks Marcus, it’s much appreciated.
More is coming, though very slowly.
At this stage I have no other choice, for as much as I look around no one is conveying the message that needs to be conveyed… the Eternal Message: that Life is one and we the living are a part of its Living Flow, and that if we can only tap back into that flow we will know Satori, know oneness, know what Joyce was ultimately getting at as Stephen EXPERIENCED the oneness in Ulysses and then what he spent the remaining twenty years or so of his life attempting to convey in Finnegans Wake.
Hundreds of voices are pointing in that direction in their own unique way, if only we can open our hearts and souls to realize that fact. Different languages, different mediums, same message. Thinking divides in order to conquer and utilize, but in awakening we come to fully understand what Life truly is and then can work towards its reverence and nurture, utilizing what tools there are at hand for that goal alone.
I expect to resume the song sometime perhaps in the fall with shorter, less scripted videos celebrating those who heard the call and responded, often to their wonderment, joy, solitude, and suffering.
There is only one manifold message left to learn now, transcending all the old parochial visions and testaments.
Life is one, thinking divides it.
Thanks again, Jeff
Omphalos Cafe 
I am glad to find you here; your contributions are helping me. I’m getting a lot out of my visits to the Omphalos Cafe.
I retired at the beginning of this year, and was faced with the question of what to do. Of course we’re all faced with this question every moment, but after being a wage slave for decades it wasn’t just a question of confronting an open schedule but confronting myself. The unread pile of books that I had amassed and which had been whispering to me started shouting.
I made two lists: the first of which was all the books I had ever read (and I’m sure I got just about all of them), and the second list was all the authors that I had heard about that I felt either I really should read or that I wanted to read. I started reading the shorter books that I had on hand, and soon I had transferred a sizable number from the “to-read” list to the “read” list, and I was on my way to being literate… or educated… or whatever.
I accompanied my reading with a goodly amount of online research (or at least scrolling) to find out more about the historical periods and cultural milieux that produced these workers and works. Thread by thread I was weaving the tapestry of intellectual history that would explain where I came from, how I got here, and where was this “here” anyway. On the one hand I had everyday free but on the other hand I had a sense of running out of time, and so I was also looking for suggestions as to what would be the most valuable use of my time, and one answer kept popping up: Ulysses.
So compelling was this idea that I needed to read Ulysses, that I bought a copy, and so began the Journey of Hughlysses (my name is Hugh).
My love of learning was severely assaulted but not completely destroyed by my years of school and college. I approached Ulysses with an alacrity that was unfamiliar but which nevertheless brought me something akin to Joy. As I worked my way through Telemachus and Nestor, I filled my cellphone homescreen with icon after icon for Ulysses-related websites. I had thought I was going to just read a novel, but I kept adding more and more study and background such that the actual reading in my book accounted for far less than half of the effort that I put into each episode.
If I hadn’t had all this momentum and enthusiasm, Proteus would have sunk me. I was thoroughly convinced by now, though, that Ulysses was going to be worth the effort, whatever it took. I discovered the Omphalos Cafe early on and used it as an episode-by-episode guide along with the others. It took me to Aeolus until I realized that one of these guides is not like the others.
Now I see that this book addresses the most fundamental question about the purpose (or potential, if you prefer) of man (and woman). Now I see that this book is equal to the greatest spiritual texts ever written. Now I see that this book is pointing to something profoundly important, but it’s also saying that we should not concern ourselves with the finger that is pointing. As humans we are created by and from Truth and our nature is Truth, but this Truth is beyond that which can be expressed in words and indeed is even beyond that which we can conceive of with our ordinary thinking processes.
Blessed are the outsiders for they shall see that not British imperialism nor Irish nationalism nor Catholicism nor Academia will get us to the Oneness that is All Life. Blessed are the “failures” because who would want to change the rules if they’re winning? Any cause or ideology no matter how righteous (or perhaps especially if it’s righteous) that has an opposite is a projection of the ego’s duality. I believe we each have a purpose not just a potential, and for all of us it’s the same purpose.
If one approaches Ulysses from the perspective of 99% of my icons (academia), one can be broken, but if one approaches it from an Omphalos Cafe (Campbellian?) perspective, one can be “broken open” (to borrow a phrase). Is this a 644 page koan? Is it possible to come for the Gerty and stay for the satori? It requires an open mind and everybody figures they’ve got an open mind, all evidence to the contrary. It requires getting one’s head out of one’s ass and everybody figures that it’s somebody else’s head, not their own, that’s the problem.
I’ve given myself the arbitrary and flexible limit of 18 months to finish my first read-through, and so far I’m ahead of schedule. When I read an episode I don’t just point my eyes at the words on the page, I read it as if I would have to explain it to someone else. That said, I’ve given myself permission to not catch everything, though I catch as much as I can. And although I hear what you’re saying about the misconceptions, it’s fun learning about Sandymount Strand and Sylvia Beach. So, thank you again. I have no doubt I’ll be watching the rest of the Cafe videos and reading everything on this blog.
Oh man, that’s a comment! But actually it’s more than a comment, it’s a poetic song in itself. A ‘644 page koan,’ ‘come for the Gerty and stay for the satori,’ those are so beautifully put I wish I had coined them myself! And there’s so many more, in fact the whole things stands on its own and resonates deeply for those with eyes and hearts to see. Well done Hugh!
‘Blessed are the outsiders’ indeed, the scorned and derided, the persecuted and even, sadly purged, those who went their own way and are going their own way today, always with an eye on tomorrow, and Life!
A few weeks back I picked up a cheap copy of Moby Dick at a thrift shop, suspecting to find the same eternal message. And there it was! Just read the first paragraph to understand Melville’s own voyage of self-discovery as well as his eventual near complete solitude in the face of his country’s utter dismissal and neglect, until after his death of course. And that was what, 170 years ago? How many have gone their own way and left a record? How many fell by the wayside in bitter despair before touching or arriving at the heart of the matter? Certainly Kerouac fell far short, while Thomas Wolfe nearly made it, and would have had he not been struck down by some form of lesions on the brain.
Amongst the moderns, our present dayers, I fail to discern any. No one seems to be singing the song, no one seems to have read Joyce, Campbell, or Spengler, Miller (and picked up on the true spiritual message), and how can anyone hope to lay the next brick in the edifice of humanity if they are not aware of where we are today? Poorly put, for it is in truth an organic process and we are merely part of a larger whole, one with millions upon millions who have come before and the millions and millions who will follow.
It’s all to say we live in a transitional age. We, meaning almost the entire planet now, have thrown our faith and hope into our much vaunted Western Science and rationality, but cracks have begun to appear in the colossal artificial construct that is our world spanning Western Civilization. As more and more people, running into the millions and perhaps even billions, become disillusioned with the fantasy of ‘progress’ we have sold them they will go in search and cry out for something more, some other form of connection and relationship with ourselves and the world about. It is happening here at home all around us today, and the question or challenge is who or what voice, song or message will appeal to them and draw forth their energies? Will it be a message of hope and faith in Life or will it be a message of bitter anger and ultimately self-annihilation?
Last year I read a two volume biography of Adolf Hitler, interested in the origins of the man and the conditions which laid the German people open to his message of death and destruction.
Joyce was singing his song of Life, as was Henry Miller, while Hitler was bellowing his. They were almost exact contemporaries. Life and Death!
We, you and I, and everyone for that matter, have that choice before us, each in our modest little way.
What an adventure this life can be!
do some emotional, spiritual, and intellectual prep work. Yes, psych yourself up. You are leaving your home – everyone you love and everything that is familiar – to do battle in a far-away place. You want to read the book (win the war), and you want to be able to understand and explain the book (get home after the war).
Many people begin reading Ulysses but don’t finish because they decide it’s too difficult. This would be like warriors on a ship heading for home after they had won a war, stopping at an island to look for food and water, and then deciding that getting home wasn’t so important after all because that particular island was nice.
Each of us can think of ourselves as being on a heroic journey. Simba had to overthrow Scar (his uncle) and the hyenas to take back the pridelands. Hamlet had to vanquish Claudius (his uncle) to take back the crown. Luke had to triumph over Darth Vader (his dark father) to defeat the evil empire. And you have to read this book.
You will probably have to open your eyes to some new ways of looking at things. Don’t be like those one-eyed people who lack depth perception. Don’t be so sure that what you think and the way you think is all that great. Don’t be like that guy at the bar who’s filled with liquor and righteous certitude – he’ll argue with anyone about anything without actually communicating.
Once you start reading Joyce, you are on that journey – you can’t stop, and you can’t fail. The reason you can’t fail is because you can’t ever stop. You may rest, you may have a sandwich, you may take a bath, you may have sex (with or without another person), you may go to libraries and funerals, but then you must pick up your walking stick and get back to reading Joyce.
Joyce hasn’t just written a book about a journey home, it IS the journey home. Let us elevate the concept of “home” to refer to our true natures as human beings. This is as important a spiritual book as the Bible, the Upanishads, or the Koran.
Ask yourself right now whether what you are doing is part of your heroic journey or a distraction from it? Is your current activity bringing you closer to the experience of your true nature, that is, closer to home? To whom have you given the authority to answer this question?
Each of us is on a spiritual journey. The destination of that journey has gone by different names: nirvana, satori, heaven, the atonement (at-one-ment), enlightenment, total consciousness, and so on, but for the remainder of this piece I will use the term Awakening. We cannot choose whether that is the destination (home), we can only choose how much time it takes us to reach it. Similarly we can choose to put our copy of Ulysses on the shelf for a while, but we will pick it up again someday.
So how do we judge whether we’re on the right track? It can’t have to do with the activity because even ascended masters such as Buddha and Christ eat, get dressed, walk, feed the seagulls, shit… but if it’s not the things that they’re doing that determines whether they’re heading home, what could it possibly be?
Perhaps it is a quality of mindfulness, perhaps it is the state of consciousness that they are bringing to each moment, and perhaps that high state of consciousness does not perceive any difference between moments – it’s all just one moment: now.
Our spiritual home is the state of being awake, but it’s also the process of waking up. It’s both a destination and a journey. Awakening.
In their attempts to reveal ultimate truth to people all religions get some things right and some things wrong. Some religions teach about reincarnation. Related terms include: palingenesis, transmigration, and metempsychosis. The soul goes from lifetime to lifetime on its journey home. Sometimes the soul does not make much progress during a particular lifetime or for several lifetimes. Maybe the soul lost its bearings, rudder, or wind, so to speak.
The soul is immortal. You can take a break for a while but not forever. No one will force your soul to move forward, but eventually every soul decides that that’s what it wants to do. Women will keep having babies and souls will keep being incarnated.
Humans have the choice to do terrible things to each other. We humans can engage in war, torture, cannibalism, and exploit each other in all kinds of ways. We have free will. If we want to, we can band together with people like us and wipe out individuals and entire groups of people who are not like us.
A strong case can be made that violence is justifiable as a defense. A strong case can also be made that there is no violence in Awakening. The former case would be made by the ego, and the latter case would be made by the soul.
Both the Warrior and the Soul know that home is peaceful. The Warrior fights to defend his peaceful home, and the Soul merely surrenders to the peace of Awakening.
The folks who believe in reincarnation will tell you that it’s volition that prevents our souls from going home. Volition refers to action that is generated by the ego. What’s the alternative? Surrender. It’s a letting-go.
When preparing to read Ulysses, one must get ready to let go. “Everything I ever let go of had claw marks all over it.” If you run into trouble, or if you want to quit, it’s because you think the book should be different than it is. Allow yourself to be different. Allow yourself to be transformed.
One of the perils of reading Ulysses is the mistaken belief that you must understand everything in it. Another mistaken belief is that it’s OK to read it without understanding it. I like to picture these extremes as rocks in a stream that I have to steer my canoe between. It’s not the best metaphor, I guess, because sometimes you’re going to want to chase down allusions, and other times you’re going to want to let the text flow over you. It’s like the rocks are moving.
The soul does not achieve an awakened state. It achieves an Awakening state. Once awakened it does not exit the flow of life. This is Zen. We do not “wake up” so much as realize that we’ve always been awake. We never exited the river of life, we’ve always been in it. We dreamed that it’s possible to remove ourselves from the flow, but wherever the river of life has taken us – from swerve of shore to bend of bay – it’s all part of our Awakening.
That last paragraph and final sentence might be a great place to end this piece, yes, but just as novels don’t always have neat and tidy endings and explanations, sometimes internet posting don’t either. Yes, it might just be possible that you will have to…