Karl Jaspers: Way To Wisdom (1883- 1969)

  IV. THE IDEA 
                    OF GOD

Our western idea of God springs from two historical roots: the Bible and Greek philosophy. When Jeremiah saw the ruin of everything for which he had worked all his life, when his country and his people were lost, when in Egypt the last remnants of his people turned aside from their faith in Yahweh and offered sacrifices to Isis, and when his disciple Baruch despaired, "I fainted in my sighing, and I find no rest," Jeremiah answered, "Behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up, even this whole land. And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not. In such a  situation  these  words  mean:  It  is  enough  that  God  is.  Do  not  ask  whether  there  is immortality;  the  question  of  whether  God  forgives  is  no  longer  important.  Man  no  longer  matters,  his defiance as well as his concern for his own beatitude and eternity is extinguished. It is also impossible that the world should have a purpose susceptible of fulfilment, that it should endure in any form; for everything has been created out of nothing by God and is in His hand. When everything is lost, but one thing remains: God is. If a life in this world, even with faith in God's guidance, has failed, this overpowering reality still remains: God is. If man fully renounces himself and his aims, this reality can be manifested to him as the only reality. But it does not manifest itself in advance, it does not manifest itself abstractly, but descends into the existence of the world, and only here manifests itself at the limit. Jeremiah's words are hard words. They are no longer bound up with any will to historical efficacy in the world, though such a will has preceded them throughout a lifetime and ultimately, through total failure, made them  possible.  They  are  simple  words,  free  from imaginative flight, and they contain unfathomable truth, precisely because they are without finite content or any fixation in the world. The Greek philosophers expressed a similar thought in different terms. At about 500 B.C. Xenophanes proclaimed: There is only one God, resembling mortals neither in his aspect nor in his thoughts. Plato conceived of the godhead he called it the Good as the source of all knowledge. Not only is the knowable known in the light of the godhead; it also derives its being from the godhead which excels being both in rank and power.

           The Greek philosophers understood that the many gods were decreed merely by custom, whereas in nature there was only one God; that God is not seen with our eyes, that he resembles no one and can be recognized in no image. God is conceived as cosmic reason or cosmic law, or as fate and providence, or as demiurge. But this God of the Greek thinkers is a God originating in thought, not the living God of Jeremiah. In essence  the  two  coincide.  From  this  twofold  root  Western  theology  and  philosophy  have,  in  infinite modulations, reflected that God is and pondered on what He is. The philosophers of our day seem to evade the question of whether God exists. They do not say that He exists nor do they deny His existence. But anyone engaging in philosophical thought must answer for his opinions. If a philosopher doubts, he must say why, else he cannot progress beyond the sceptical philosophy which asserts nothing at all, which affirms nothing and denies nothing. Or, limiting himself to determinate object knowledge, that is to scientific cognition, he ceases to philosophize, saying: It is best not to talk of what we do not know. The question of God is discussed on the basis of conflicting propositions which we shall examine. The theological proposition is: We can know of God only because He revealed Himself to certain men from the prophets to Jesus. Without revelation God can have no reality for man. God is accessible not through thought but through faith and obedience. But long before and far outside the world of biblical revelation there was certainty as to the reality of the godhead. And within the world of the Christian West many men have derived certainty of God without the guarantee of revelation. 

         There is an old philosophical proposition opposed to this theological doctrine: We know of God because His existence can be proved. The proofs for the existence of God form an impressive document. But if the proofs for the existence of God are construed as scientifically compelling proofs such as we find in mathematics or the empirical sciences, they are false. In this light Kant radically confuted them. Then came the reverse proposition: Since all proofs of the existence of God can be refuted, there is no God. This inference is false. For the nonexistence of God can be proved no more than his existence. The proofs and their confutations show us only that a proved God would be no God but merely a thing in the world. The truth, as against all supposed proofs and refutations of the existence of God, seems to be this: The so-called proofs of the existence of God are fundamentally no proofs at all, but methods of achieving certainty through thought. All the proofs of the existence of God and their variants that have been devised through the centuries differ essentially from scientific proofs. They are attempts to express the experience of man's ascent to God in terms of thought. There are roads of thought by which we come to limits at which the consciousness of God suddenly becomes a natural presence. Let us consider a few examples: The oldest of proofs is the cosmological proof. From the existence of the cosmos (the Greek name for universe) we infer that God exists; from the world process, in which everything is effect, we infer a last cause; from motion the source of all motion; from the accident of the particular the necessity of the whole. If by this syllogism we mean to infer the existence of one thing from the existence of another thing, as we do for example in inferring from the existence of the side of the moon which faces us the existence of the other side which we never see, it is inapplicable. In this manner we can only infer the existence of things in the world from the existence of other things. 

           The world as a whole is not an object, because we are always in it and we never confront the world as a whole. Hence we cannot, from the existence of the world as a whole, infer the existence of something other than the world. But  this  notion  takes  on  a  new  meaning  when  it  is  no  longer  regarded  as  a  proof.  Then metaphorically, in the form of an inference, it expresses awareness of the mystery inherent in the existence of the the  world  and  of ourselves  in  it.  If  we venture  the  thought  that  there  might  be  nothing,  and  ask  with Schelling: Why is there something and not nothing? we find that our certainty of existence is such that though we cannot determine the reason for it we are led by it to the Comprehensive, which by this very essence is and cannot not be, and through which everything else is. True, men have looked on the world as eternal and said that it existed out of itself and hence was identical with God. But this is not possible: Everything  in  the  world  which  is  beautiful,  appropriate,  ordered,  and  embodies  a  certain perfection, the vast abundance of things that fill us with emotion in our immediate contemplation of nature, all this cannot be apprehended through any fully knowable worldly thing, through matter, for example. The design  of organic life, the beauty of nature in all its forms, the order of the universe in general become increasingly mysterious as our knowledge advances. But if from all this we infer that God, the benevolent creator, exists, we must call to mind all that is ugly, disordered, base in the world. And this gives rise to fundamental attitudes for which the world is alien, frightening, terrible, and it seems as plausible to infer the existence of the devil as of God. The mystery of transcendence is not thereby solved but merely grows deeper. 

        But what clinches the matter is the imperfectibility of the world. The world is not finished, but in continuous change; our knowledge of the world cannot be completed, the world cannot be apprehended through itself. Far from proving the existence of God, these so-called proofs mislead us into placing God within the

real world, or second cosmos, which is as it were ascertained at the limits of the cosmos. Thus they obscure the idea of God.  But  they  move  us  deeply  when,  leading  through  the  concrete  phenomena  of  the  cosmos,  they confront Nothingness and imperfectibility. For then they seem to admonish us not to content ourselves with the world as the sole meaning of our life in the world. Again and again it is brought home to us that God is not an object of knowledge, of compelling evidence. He cannot be experienced by the senses. He is invisible, He cannot be seen but only believed in. But whence comes this faith? Its source is not in the limits of worldly experience but in the freedom of man. The man who attains true awareness of his freedom gains certainty of God. Freedom and God are inseparable. Why? This I know: in my freedom I am not through myself, but am given to myself, for I can fail myself and I cannot force my freedom. Where I am authentically myself, I am certain that I am not through myself. The highest  freedom  is  experienced  in  freedom  from  the  world,  and  this  freedom  is  a  profound  bond  with transcendence. We also call man's freedom his existence. My certainty of God has the force of my existence. I can have certainty of Him not as a content of science but as presence for existence. If  certainty  of  freedom  encompasses  certainty  of  God's  existence,  there  must  be  a  connection between the negation of freedom and the negation of God. If I do not experience the miracle of selfhood, I need no relation to God, I am content with the empirical existence of nature, many gods, demons.

               There is, on the other hand, a connection between the belief that there can be freedom without God and the deification of man. This is an illusory, arbitrary freedom, in which man's will is taken to be absolute and independent. I rely in the force of my will and in a defiant acceptance of death. But this delusion that I am

through myself alone turns freedom into perplexity and emptiness. A savage drive for self-assertion turns to a despair, in which Kierkegaard's ''desperate will to be oneself" and "desperate will not to be oneself" become one. God exists for me in the degree to which I in freedom authentically become myself.  But the illumination of our existence as freedom does not prove the existence of God; it merely points, one might say, to the area in which certainty of his existence is possible.  The  thought  that  strives  for  compelling  certainty  cannot  realize  its  aim  in  any  proof  of  God's existence. But the failure of thought does not result in nothingness. It points to that which resolves into an inexhaustible, forever-questioning, Comprehensive consciousness of God.  God never becomes a tangible object in the world and this means that man must not abandon his freedom to the tangibilities, authorities, powers of the world; that he bears responsibility for himself, and must not evade this responsibility by renouncing freedom ostensibly for the sake of freedom. He must owe his  decision  and  the  road  he  chooses  to  himself.  

           Kant  has  said  that  God's  unfathomable  wisdom  is  as admirable in what it gives us as in what it denies us. For if God's wisdom in its majesty were always before our eyes, if it were an absolute authority, speaking unequivocally in the world, we should be puppets of its will. But God in his wisdom wanted us to be free.  Instead  of  the  knowledge  of  God,  which  is  unattainable,  we  gain  through  philosophy  a Comprehensive consciousness of God.  "God is." The essential in this proposition is the reality to which it points. We do not encompass this reality  in  thinking  the  proposition;  merely  to  think  it  leaves  us  empty.  For  it  means  nothing  to  the understanding  and  to  sensory  experience.  We  apprehend  its  meaning  only  as  we  transcend,  as  we  pass beyond the world of objects and through it discover authentic reality. Hence the climax and goal of our life is
the point at which we ascertain authentic reality, that is, God.  This reality is accessible to existence through the orientation toward God that lies at its source.
Hence faith in God, springing as it does from the source, resists any mediation. This faith is not laid down in any definite articles of faith applicable to all men or in any historical reality which mediates between man and God and is the same for all men. The individual, always in his own historicity, stands rather in an immediate, independent relation to God that requires no intermediary. 

         This historicity, which can be communicated and described, is in this form not absolute truth for all, and yet in its source it is absolutely true. God is reality, absolute, and cannot be encompassed by any of the historical manifestations through which He speaks to men. If He is, man as an individual must be able to apprehend Him directly. The reality of God and the immediacy of our historical relation to God exclude any universally compelling knowledge of God; therefore what matters is not our knowledge of God but our attitude towards God. From time immemorial God has been conceived in empirical forms, including a personification after the image of man. And yet every such conception is at the same time in the nature of a veil. God is not what we may see with our eyes.  Our true attitude toward God has found its profoundest expression in a few biblical injunctions: 

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or likeness. This meant, to begin with, that because God is invisible man must not worship Him in statues, idols, effigies. Gaining in depth, this tangible prohibition developed into the idea that God is not only invisible but also inconceivable, unthinkable. No symbol or metaphor can describe Him and none may take His place. All metaphorical representations of God without exception are myths, meaningful as such when understood to be mere hints and parallels, but they become superstitions when mistaken for the reality of God Himself.  Since every image conceals as much as it discloses, we come closest to God in the negation of images. But even in the Bible this Old Testament commandment was not fulfilled: the image of God's personality remained, His wrath and His love, His justice and His mercy. It is a commandment that cannot be fulfilled. Parmenides  and  Plato,  with  their  speculative  doctrines  of  being,  the  Indian  Brahman  philosophers,  the Chinese  Taoists  attempted  to  apprehend  without  images  the  Suprapersonal,  pure,  intangible  reality  of God but in this they did not succeed. Human thought and human vision cannot dispense with the image. And though in philosophical thinking sensation and object almost vanished, perhaps ultimately some wisp of God's presence remains, with power to engender life. Then, even after philosophy has rationally elucidated the deification of nature, the purely demonic, the aesthetic and superstitious, the specifically numinous, the deepest mystery is still not expelled. Perhaps we can give some paraphrase of this presence of God at the end of philosophical endeavour. It is the silence in the face of being. Speech ceases in the presence of that which is lost to us when it becomes object. This ultimate can be attained only in the transcending of all thought. It cannot itself be transcended. Before it lies contentment with one's lot and the extinction of all desire. Here is a haven and yet no fixed home. Here is a repose that can sustain us amid the inevitable unrest of our wanderings in the world. Here  thought  must  dissolve  into  radiance.  Where  there  is  no  further  question,  there  is  also  no answer. In the philosophical transcending of question and answer we arrive at the limit, at the stillness of being. Another biblical injunction runs: 

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. At first this commandment implied a rejection of alien gods. Gaining in depth, it became a simple and unfathomable idea: there is only one God. The life of the man who believes in the one and only God rests on a foundation entirely different from that of a life with many gods. Concentration on the One gives to the decision of existence its real foundation. Infinite wealth implies diffusion; God's glory is not absolute unless it is grounded in the One. The quest for the One as the foundation of his life is an  enduring problem for man, as actual as it was thousands of years ago.

          A third biblical saying:  Thy will be done. This fundamental attitude toward God means: Bow down before that which defies understanding, confident that it is situated above and not below the understandable. "Thy thoughts are not our thoughts, thy ways are not our ways." Trust in this basic attitude makes possible an all-encompassing sense of thankfulness, a wordless, impersonal love. Man stands  before the  godhead  as  the hidden  God  and  can  accept  what  is  most  terrible  as  His decision, fully aware that in whatever finite form he expresses this God it is spoken in human terms and hence false. 

           To sum up: Our attitude toward the godhead is defined by the commandments "No image and no likeness," "No other god," and by the attitude of acceptance expressed in the words ''Thy will be done." Reflection on God clarifies our faith. But to believe is not to see. God remains in the distance and remains question.   To live by God does not mean to base oneself on calculable knowledge but to live as though we staked our existence on the assumption that God is. To believe in God means to live by something which is not in the world, except in the polyvalent language of phenomena, which we call the hieroglyphs or symbols of transcendence. The God of faith is the distant God, the hidden God, the indemonstrable God. Hence I must recognize not only that I do not know  God but even that I do not know whether I believe. Faith is no possession. It confers no secure knowledge, but it gives certainty in the practice of life. Thus the believer lives in the enduring ambiguity of the objective, in enduring willingness to hear. He listens patiently and yet he is unswerving in his resolve. In the cloak of weakness he is strong, he is open, though in his real life he is resolute.

             Reflection  on  God  is  typical  of  all  significant  philosophical  thought:  it  does  not  bring  secure knowledge, but to authentic self-hood it gives a free area for decision; the whole emphasis is on love in the world, on the reading of the symbols of transcendence, on the depth and breadth of that which is illumined by reason.  That is why all philosophical discourse is so incomplete. It calls for completion out of the being of him who hears it.  Philosophy does not give, it can only awaken. it can remind, and help to secure and preserve.  In it each of us understands what he actually knew before.

Translated by D.W. Ross

François Rabelais (1494-1553)

The Rules 

   According to 

     which     

        the Thélèmites 

                          Lived

All their life was regulated not by laws, statutes, or rules, but according to their free will and pleasure. They rose from bed when they pleased, and drank, ate, worked, and slept when the fancy seized them. Nobody woke them; nobody compelled them to either eat or to drink, or to do anything else whatsoever. So it was that Gargantua had established it. In their rules there was only one clause:

DO WHAT YOU WILL!

because people who are free, well-born, well-bred, and easy in honest company have a natural spur and instinct which drives them to virtuous deeds and deflects them from vice; and this they called honour. When these same men are depressed and enslaved by vile constraint and subjection, they use this noble quality which once impelled them freely towards virtue, to throw off and break this yoke of slavery. For we always strive after things forbidden and covet what is denied us.

Making use of this liberty, they most laudably rivaled one another in all of them doing what they saw pleased one. If some man or woman said, "Let us drink," they all drank; if he or she said, "Let us play," they all played; if it was "Let us go and amuse ourselves in the fields," everyone went there. If it were for hawking or hunting, the ladies, mounted on fine mares, with their grand palfreys following, each carried on their daintily gloved wrists a sparrow-hawk, a lanneret, or a merlin, the men carrying the other birds.

So nobly were they instructed that there was not a man or woman among them who could not read, write, sing, play musical instruments, speak five or six languages, and compose in them both verse and prose. Never were seen such worthy knights, so valiant, so nimble both on foot and horse; knights more vigorous, more agile, handier with all weapons than they were. Never were seen ladies so good-looking, so dainty, less tiresome, more skilled with the finger and the needle, and in every free and honest womanly pursuit than they were . . . .

Now every method of teaching has been restored, and the study of languages has been revived: of Greek, without which it is disgraceful for a man to call himself a scholar, and of Hebrew, and Latin. The elegant and accurate art of printing, which is now in use, was invented in my time, by divine inspiration; as, by contrast, artillery was inspired by diabolical suggestion. The whole world is full of learned men, of very erudite tutors, and of most extensive libraries, and it is my opinion that neither in the time of Plato, of Cicero, nor of Papinian were there such faculties for study as one finds today. No one, in future, will risk appearing in public or in any company, who is not well polished in Minerva's workshop. I find robbers, hangmen, freebooters, and grooms nowadays more learned than the doctors and preachers were in my time.

Why, the very women and girls aspire to the glory and reach out for the celestial manna of sound learning. So much so that at my present age I have been compelled to learn Greek, which I had not despised like Cato, but which I had not the leisure to learn in my youth. Indeed I find great delight in reading the Morals of Plutarch, Plato's magnificent Dialogues, the Monuments of Pausanias , and the Antiquities of Athenaeus, while I wait for the hour when it will please God, my Creator, to call me and bid me leave this earth.

Therefore, my son, I beg you to devote your youth to the firm pursuit of your studies and to the attainment of virtue. You are in Paris. There you will find many praiseworthy examples to follow. You have Epistemon for your tutor, and he can give you living instruction by word of mouth. It is my earnest wish that you shall become a perfect master of languages. First of Greek, as Quintillian advises; secondly, of Latin; and then of Hebrew, on account of the Holy Scriptures; also of Chaldean and Arabic, for the same reasons; and I would have you model your Greek style on Plato's and your Latin on that of Cicero. Keep your memory well stocked with every tale from history, and here you will find help in the Cosmographies of the historians. Of the liberal arts, geometry, arithmetic, and music, I gave you some smattering when you were still small, at the age of five or six. Go on and learn the rest, also the rules of astronomy. But leave divinatory astrology and Lully's art alone, I beg of you, for they are frauds and vanities. Of Civil Law I would have you learn the best texts by heart, and relate them to the art of philosophy. And as for the knowledge of Nature's works, I should like you to give careful attention to that too; so that there may be no sea, river, or spring of which you do not know the fish. All the birds of the air, all the trees, shrubs, and bushes of the forest, all the herbs of the field, all the metals deep in the bowels of the earth, the precious stones of the whole East and the South -- let none of them be unknown to you.

Then scrupulously peruse the books of the Greek, Arabian, and Latin doctors once more, not omitting the Talmudists and Cabalists, and by frequent dissections gain a perfect knowledge of that other world which is man. At some hours of the day also, begin to examine the Holy Scriptures. First the New Testament and the Epistles of the Apostles in Greek; and  then the Old Testament in Hebrew. In short, let me find you a veritable abyss of knowledge. For, later, when you have grown into a man, you will have to leave this quiet and repose of study, to learn chivalry and warfare, to defend my house, and to help our friends in every emergency against the attacks of evildoers.

[Source: François Rabelais,

The Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel, trans. J. M. Cohen 
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1955).]

Epictetus (Ἐπίκτητος; AD 55 – AD 135)

    The Art of Living 

Know what you can control and what you can't

Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and can't control that inner tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible.

Within our control are our own opinions, aspirations, desires, and the things that repel us. These areas are quite rightly our concern, because they are directly subject to our influence. We always have a choice about the contents and character of our inner lives.

Outside our control, however, are such things as what kind of body we have, whether we're born into wealth or strike it rich, how we are regarded by others, and our status in society. We must remember that those things are externals and are therefore not our concern. Trying to control or to change what we can't only results in torment.

Remember: The things within our power are naturally at our disposal, free from any restraint or hindrance; but those things outside our power are weak, dependent, or determined by the whims and actions of others. Remember, too, that if you think that you have free rein over things that are naturally beyond your control, or if you attempt to adopt the affairs of others as your won, your pursuits will be thwarted and you will become a frustrated, anxious, and fault-finding person.

Stick with your own business

Keep your attention focused entirely on what is truly your own concern, and be clear that what belongs to others is their business and none of yours. If you do this, you will be impervious to coercion and no one can ever hold you back. You will be truly free and effective, for your efforts will be put to good use and won't be foolishly squandered finding fault with or opposing others.

In knowing and attending to what actually concerns you, you cannot be made to do anything against your will; others can't hurt you, you don't incur enemies or suffer harm.

If you aim to live by such principles, remember that it won't be easy: you must give up some things entirely; and postpone others for now. You may well have to forego wealth and power if you want to assure the attainment of happiness and freedom.

Recognize appearances for what they really are

From now on, practice saying to everything that appears unpleasant: "You are just an appearance and by no means what you appear to be." And then thoroughly consider the matter according to the principles just discussed, primarily: Does this appearance concern the things that are within my own control or those that are not? If it concerns anything outside your control, train yourself not to worry about it.

Our desires and aversions are mercurial rulers. They demand to be pleased. Desire commands us to run off and get what we want. Aversion insists that we must avoid the things that repel us.


Typically when we don't get what we want, we are disappointed, and when we get what we don't want, we are distressed.

If, then, you avoid only those undesirable things that are contrary to your natural well-being and are within your control, you won't ever incur anything you truly don't want. However, if you try to avoid inevitabilities such as sickness, death, or misfortune, over which you have no real control, you will make yourself and others around you suffer.

Desire and aversion, though powerful, are but habits. And we can train ourselves to have better habits. Restrain the habit of being repelled by all those things that aren't within your control, and focus instead on combating things within your power that are not good for you.

Do your best to rein in your desire. For if you desire something that isn't within your own control, disappointment will surely follow; meanwhile, you will be neglecting the very things that are within your control that are worthy of desire.

Of course, there are times when for practical reasons you must go after one thing or shun another, but do so with grace, finesse, and flexibility.

See things for what they are
Circumstances do not rise to meet our expectations. Events happen as they do. People behave as they are. Embrace what you actually get.

Open your eyes: See things for what they really are, thereby sparing yourself the pain of false attachments and avoidable devastation.

Think about what delights you—the tools on which you depend, the people whom you cherish. But remember that they have their own distinct character, which is quite a separate matter from how we happen to regard them. emphasis added

As an exercise, consider the smallest things to which you are attached. For instance, suppose you have a favorite cup. It is, after all, merely a cup; so if it should break, you could cope. Next build up to things—or people— toward which your clinging feelings and thoughts intensify.

Remember, for example, when you embrace your child, your husband, your wife, you are embracing a mortal. Thus, if one of them should die, you could bear it with tranquility.

When something happens, the only thing in your power is your attitude toward it; you can either accept it or resent it. emphasis added

What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance.


Stop scaring yourself with impetuous notions, with your reactive impressions of the way things are!

Things and people are not what we wish them to be nor what they seem to be. They are what they are.

Harmonize your actions with the way life is
Don't try to make your own rules.

Conduct yourself in all matters, grand and public or small and domestic, in accordance with the laws of nature. Harmonizing your will with nature should be your utmost ideal.

Where do you practice this ideal? In the particulars of your own daily life with its uniquely personal tasks and duties. When you carry out your tasks, such as taking a bath, do so—to the best of your ability—in harmony with nature. When you eat do so—to the best of your ability—in harmony with nature, and so on.

It is not so much what are are doing as how you are doing it. When we properly understand and live by this principles, while difficulties will arise—for they are part of the divine order too—inner peace will still be possible.

Events don't hurt us, but our views of them can
Things themselves don't hurt or hinder us. Nor do other people. How we view these things is another matter. It is our attitudes and reactions that give us trouble.

Therefore even death is no big deal in and of itself. It is our notion of death, our idea that it is terrible, that terrifies us. There are so many different ways to think about death. Scrutinize your notions about death—and everything else. Are they really true? Are they doing you any good? Don't dread death or pain; dread the fear of death or pain.

We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.

No shame, no blame
If it is our feelings about things that torment us rather than the things themselves, it follows that blaming others is silly. Therefore, when we suffer setbacks, disturbances, or grief, let us never place the blame on others, but on our own attitudes.

Small-minded people habitually reproach others for their own misfortunes. Average people reproach themselves. Those are are dedicated to a life of wisdom understand that the impulse to blame something or someone is foolishness, that there is nothing to be gained in blaming, whether it be others or oneself.

One of the signs of the dawning of moral progress is the gradual extinguishing of blame. We see the futility of finger-pointing. The more we examine our attitudes and work on ourselves, the less we are apt to be swept away by stormy emotion reactions in which we seek easy explanations for unbidden events.

Things simply are what they are. Other people think what they will think; it is of no concern to us. No Shame. No Blame.

Joseph Campbell: The Hero with a thousand faces (1904–1987

End of the Microcosm 

THE mighty hero of extraordinary powers —able to lift Mount Govardhan on a finger, and to fill himself with the terrible glory of the universe—is each of us: not the physical self visible in the mirror, but the king within. Krishna declares: "I am the Self, seated in the hearts of all creatures. I am the beginning, the middle, and the end of all beings."' This, precisely, is the sense of the prayers for the dead, at the moment of personal dissolution: that the individual should now return to his pristine knowledge of the world-creative divinity who during life was reflected

within his heart. "When he comes to weakness—whether he come to weakness

through old age or through disease—this person frees himself from these limbs just as a mango, or a fig, or a berry releases itself from its bond; and he hastens again, according to the entrance and place of origin, back to life. As noblemen, policemen, chariot-drivers, village-heads wait with food, drink, and lodgings for a king who is coming, and cry: 'Here he comes! Here he comes!' so indeed do all things wait for him who has this knowledge and cry: 'Here is the Imperishable coming! Here is the Imperishable coming!'" The idea is sounded already in the Coffin Texts of ancient Egypt, where the dead man sings of himself as one with God:

I am Re at his first appearance.

I am the Great God, self-generator,

Who fashioned his names, lord of gods,

Whom none approaches among the gods.

I was yesterday, I know tomorrow.

The battle-field of the gods was made when I spoke.

I know the name of that Great God who is therein.

"Praise of Re" is his name.

I am that great Phoenix which is in Heliopolis.

But, as in the death of the Buddha, the power to make a full transit back through the epochs of emanation depends on the character of the man when he was alive. The myths tell of a dangerous journey of the soul, with obstacles to be passed. The

Eskimos in Greenland enumerate a boiling kettle, a pelvis bone, a large burning lamp, monster guardians, and two rocks that strike together and open again.

Such elements are standard features of world folklore and heroic legend. We have discussed them above, in our chapters of the "Adventure of the Hero." They

have received their most elaborate and significant development in the mythology of the soul's last journey. An Aztec prayer to be said at the deathbed warns the departed of the dangers along the way back to the skeleton god of the dead, Tzontemoc, "He of the Falling Hair." "Dear child! Thou hast passed through and survived the labors of this life. Now it hath pleased our Lord to carry thee away. For we do not enjoy this world everlastingly, only briefly; our life is like warming of oneself in the sun. And the Lord hath conferred on us the blessing of knowing and conversing with each other in this existence; but now, at this moment, the god who is called Mictlantecutli, or Aculnahuacatl, or again Tzontemoc, and the goddess known as Mictecacihuatl, have transported thee away. Thou art brought before His seat; for we all must go there: that place is intended for us all, and it is vast.

"We are to have of thee no further recollection. Thou wilt reside in that place most dark, where there is neither light nor window. Thou wilt not return or depart from thence; nor wilt thou think about or concern thyself with the matter of return.

Thou wilt be absent from among us for ever more. Poor and orphaned hast thou left thy children, thy grandchildren; nor dost thou know how they will end, how they will pass through the labors of this life. As for ourselves, we shall soon be going there where thou art to be." The Aztec ancients and officials prepared the body for the funeral, and, when they had properly wrapped it, took a little water and poured it on the head, saying to the deceased: "This thou didst enjoy when thou wert living in the world." And they took a small jug of water and presented it to him, saying: "Here is something for thy journey"; they set it in the fold of his shroud. Then they wrapped the deceased in his blankets, secured him strongly, and placed before him, one at a time, certain papers that had been prepared: "Lo, with this thou wilt be able to go between the mountains that clash." "With this thou wilt

pass along the road where the serpent watcheth." "This will satisfy the little green lizard, Xochitonal." "And behold, with this thou wilt make the transit of the eight deserts of freezing cold." "Here is that by which thou wilt go across the eight small

hills." "Here is that by which thou wilt survive the wind of the obsidian knives."

The departed was to take a little dog with him, of bright reddish hair. Around its neck they placed a soft thread of cotton; they killed it and cremated it with the corpse. The departed swam on this small animal when he passed the river of the underworld.  And, after four years of passage, he arrived with it before the

god, to whom he presented his papers and gifts. Whereupon hewas admitted, together with his faithful companion, to the"Ninth Abyss."

The Chinese tell of a crossing of the Fairy Bridge under guidance of the Jade Maiden and the Golden Youth. The Hindus picture a towering firmament of heavens and a many-leveled underworld of hells. The soul gravitates after death to the story appropriate to its relative density, there to digest and assimilate

the whole meaning of its past life. When the lesson has been learned, it returns to the world, to prepare itself for the next degree of experience. Thus gradually it makes its way through all the levels of life-value until it has broken past the confines of the cosmic egg. Dante's Divina Commedia is an exhaustive review of

the stages: "Inferno," the misery of the spirit bound to the prides and actions of the flesh; "Purgatorio," the process of transmuting fleshly into spiritual experience; '"Paradiso," the degrees of spiritual realization. A deep and awesome vision of the journey is that of the Egyptian Book of the Dead.  T he man or woman who has died is identified with and actually called Osiris. The texts open with hymns of praise to Re and Osiris and then proceed to the mysteries of the unswathing of the spirit in the world beneath. In the "Chapter of Giving a Mouth to Osiris N.,"we read the

phrase: "I rise out of the egg in the hidden land." This is the announcement of the idea of death as a rebirth. Then, in the "Chapter of Opening the Mouth of Osiris N.," the awakening spirit prays: "May the god Ptah open my mouth, and may the god of my city loose the swathings, even the swathings which are over

my mouth. The "Chapter of Making Osiris N. to possess Memory in the Underworld" and the "Chapter of Giving a Heart to Osiris N. in the Underworld" carry the process of rebirth two stages further. Then begin the chapters of the dangers that the lone voyager has to face and overcome on his way to the throne

of the awesome judge. The Book of the Dead was buried with the mummy as a guide

book to the perils of the difficult way, and chapters were recited at the time of burial. At one stage in the preparation of the mummy, the heart of the dead man was cut open and a basalt scarab in a gold setting, symbolic of the sun, was placed therein with the prayer: "My heart, my mother, my heart, my mother; my heart of transformations." This is prescribed in the "Chapter of not Letting the Heart of Osiris N. be Taken from Him in the Underworld." Next we read, in the "Chapter of Beating Back the Crocodile": "Get thee back, O crocodile that dwellest in the

west. . . . Get thee back, O crocodile that dwellest in the south. . . . Get thee back, O crocodile that dwellest in the north. . . . The things which are created are in the hollow of my hand, and those which have not yet come into being are in my body. I am clothed and wholly provided with thy magical words, O Re, the which are in heaven above me and in the earth beneath me. . . ." The "Chapter of Repulsing Serpents" follows, then the "Chapter of Driving Away Apshait." The soul cries at the latter demon: "Depart from me, O thou who hast lips that gnaw." In the "Chapter of Driving Back the Two Merti Goddesses" the soul declares its purpose, and protects itself by stating its claim to be the son of the father:  " . .. I shine from the Sektet boat, I am Horus the son of Osiris, and I have come to see my father Osiris." The "Chapter of Living by Air in the Underworld" and the "Chapter of Driving Back the Serpent Rerek in the Underworld" carry the hero still further along his way, and then comes

the great proclamation of the "Chapter of Driving Away the Slaughterings which are Performed in the Underworld": "My hair is the hair of Nu. My face is the face of the Disk. My eyes are the eyes of Hathor. My ears are the ears of Apuat. My nose

is the nose of Khenti-khas. My lips are the lips of Anpu. My teeth are the teeth of Serget. My neck is the neck of the divine goddess Isis. My hands are the hands of Ba-neb-Tattu. My forearms are the forearms of Neith, the Lady of Sais. My backbone is the backbone of Suti. My phallus is the phallus of Osiris. My loins are the loins of the Lords of Kher-aba. My chest is the chest of the Mighty One of Terror There is no member of my body that is not the member of some God. The god Thoth shieldeth my body altogether, and I am Re day by day. I shall

not be dragged back by the arms, and none shall lay violent hold upon my hands. . . ." As in the much later Buddhist image of the Bodhisattva within whose nimbus stand five hundred transformed Buddhas, each attended by five hundred Bodhisattvas, and each of these, in turn, by innumerable gods, so here, the soul comes to the fulness of its stature and power through assimilating the deities that formerly had been thought to be separate from and outside

of it. They are projections of its own being; and as it returns to its true state they are all reassumed. In the "Chapter of Snuffing the Air and of having the Masteryover the Water of the Underworld," the soul proclaims itself to

be the guardian of the cosmic egg: "Hail, thou sycamore-tree of the goddess Nut! Grant thou to me of the water and of the air which dwell in thee. I embrace the throne which is in Hermopolis. And I watch and guard the egg of the Great Cackler. It groweth, I grow; it liveth, I live; it snuffeth the air, I snuff the air, I the Osiris N\, in triumph." There follow the "Chapter of not Letting the Soul of a Man be taken from him in the Underworld" and the "Chapter of Drinking Water in the Underworld and of not being Burnt by Fire," and then we come to the great culmination —the "Chapter of Coming Forth by Day in the Underworld," wherein the soul and the universal being are known to be one: "I am Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, and I have the power to be born a second time;

I am the divine hidden Soul who createth the gods, and who

giveth sepulchral meals iinto the denizens of the Underworld of

Amentet and of Heaven. I am the rudder of the east, the possessor of two divine faces wherein his beams are seen. I am the lord

of the men who are raised up; the lord who cometh forth out of

darkness, and whose forms of existence are of the house wherein

are the dead. Hail, ye two hawks who are perched upon your

resting-places, who harken unto the things which are said by

him, who guide the bier to the hidden place, who lead along Re,

and who follow him into the uppermost place of the shrine

which is in the celestial heights! Hail, lord of the shrine which standeth in the middle of the earth. He is I, and I am he, and

Ftah hath covered his sky with crystal. . . ."

Thereafter, the soul may range the universe at will, as is shown

in the "Chapter of Lifting up the Feet and of Corning forth upon

the Earth," the "Chapter of Journeying to Heliopolis and of Receiving a Throne therein," the "Chapter of a Man Transforming

himself into Whatever Form he Pleaseth," the "Chapter of Entering into the Great House," and the "Chapter of Going into the

Presence of the Divine Sovereign Princes of Osiris." The chapters of the so-called Negative Confession declare the moral purity

of the man who has been redeemed: "I have not done iniquity. . . .

I have not robbed with violence.... I have not done violence to any

m a n . . .. I have not committed  the f t . . .. I have not slain man or

woman " The book concludes with addresses of praise of the

gods, and then: the "Chapter of Living N'igh unto Re," die "Chapter of Causing a Man to Come Back to See his House upon Earth,"