NITTI GRITTI II

Nitti Gritti I posed the question “Where is the Devil?” The Old Testament, Genesis, Chapter 3 tells us that the first sin committed by humans was disobedience.   The Symbol of evil was the serpent.

In the New Testament Satan tempts Jesus (Matthew Chapter 4:10).  Could the symbol of the serpent and Satan be symbolic of self and spirit? In current and past times what has fueled the desire to hate, kill, and celebrate greed and power as a virtue? Are we composed of positive and negative poles, or is it possible to be all negative or all positive? Without these opposites could there be life? Can there be movement without friction?

If man is a spiritual being, upon what basis of reason could consent, support or silence be acceptable to any act that would deliberately harm another human being? If thought precedes the act, is the devil the negative pole? Was James Allen correct in his book, “As A Man Thinketh,” when he wrote:
“Man is the Master Power that moulds and makes
And man is Mind, and evermore he takes
The Tool of Thought, and shaping what he wills
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills –
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass,
Environment is but his looking glass.”

There are those who claim to be “Believers”, who by their deeds give ample evidence that in reality they are “non-believers”, and there are “Non-believers” who by their acts are really “Believers.” Both good and evil are the sum total of actions taken. Can good be found in pre-emptive war, torture, murder by drones or any form of wanton destruction of human life or the planet Earth?

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell and a Hell of Heaven.” Paradise Lost, Part I, John Milton (1608-1674)

To this end I dedicate this poem:

VOICES IN THE TEMPLE

They speak to each of us – the Voices –
Oft uninvited, to join in battle
For the Dominance of thought and deed
In the dark chambers of the mind.
I know not why only those deemed insane
Actually hear the voices;
Whilst those few believed to be sane sit mute
Midst the silence of thought and selection,
Contemplating the choice between
The darkness and the light.

They speak to each of us – the Voices –
And none know from whence they come
Or why they exist is a contradiction
And opposition to each other.
But then, could there be light
In the absence of darkness or
Could joy be present without the shadow of sadness?
And is not that harbinger of good thought and deed
But the triumph of reason over that other
Spectre of doom and death?

They speak to each other – the Voices –
Midst wave after wave of cascading thoughts,
Controlled solely by the depth of our understanding,
While that omniscient Farmer called Time
Nourishes the seeds of our choice,
And the harvest yields both
Rewards or punishments conferred
Without regard to rank and privilege
For each acquiescence to thought
And the subsequent flower of deed.

They speak to each of us – the Voices –
As they spoke to Plato, who viewed the voices
As a flawed belief in the cave of life,
Wherein the inhabitants gyrated
Before a mirage of perceived reality,
Which were but shadows dancing
On a wall forged by the lack of understanding.
And, as the images moved in random circles,
Only the chosen few turned from the
Darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge.

They speak to each of us – the Voices –
As they spoke to Ghandi and
He freed a nation and its people
From the vice of oppression
Knowing that the price of redemption
Was a bullet in his bony breast.
And the nation mourned and waited
In the agony of the blasphemy of murder,
While the assassin counted His thirty pieces of silver.

They speak to each of us – the Voices –
As they spoke to King, and he
Led a people to an altar of love and preached a
Sermon on the brotherhood of man,
While others plotted to destroy this,
Man, whose only crime was
Listening to the voices that spoke to him
In the valleys and on the mountain top –
Until they were silenced by an assassin’s bullet
For thirty pieces of silver.

They speak to each of us – the Voices –
As they spoke to Him on the
Precipice and bid Him to choose
Between the world and the Word.
They spoke to Him in the garden
As He trembled in fearful
Anticipation of the cross of wood.
And they spoke to the despised one
Who betrayed Him with a kiss
For thirty pieces of silver.

They speak to each of us – the Voices –
And each of us, in the never ending struggle
To conquer self, must reach deep within
The turbulent stream of consciousness
And find the rock of understanding before we
Can join the battle to conquer that
Negation of reason and righteousness always present
In the realm of mind where both Heaven and Hell reside.