Part 18 (2/2)

5 Revelation 2I: 11-23.

let the sun and the moon stand for the right and left eyes, whereby the ordinary man sees the world as dual. On the other hand, the divine man sees life with the Third Eye, revealing it to him as non-dual”. Thus, ”if thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light”. Furthermore, the whole image of the city is of the form of a mandala-that is, of a foursquare circle or sphere, which, though a universal symbol, appears most commonly in Buddhist art as a figure of the reconciliation of Al opposites in the ”Void” (sunyata)-symbolized in Buddhism by the vajra or diamond, and in the Apocalypse by the jasper,stone.

The mandala form appears likewise in the vision of Dante, for whom the company of the blessed is the Mystic Rose, imaging the triple circle of light in which he finally beholds the Trinity -the Point in the midst of the Rose, which seems to be em-braced by what it embraces. Visually as well as symbolically, the obvious function of the mandala is to ”frame” its own centre, like the rings around the bull's eye of a target, or to indicate a centre sending forth effluence like the sun or a flower. The streets from the twelve gates, the four arms of the Cross, and the petals of the rose lead the eye to the centre at which they meet, and from which they originate. Where it is not satisfied with the human form itself, man's imagination everywhere tends to represent the Ultimate End by this encircled Point, this beginning and end of rays point in that it endlessly escapes definition, circle (or square, or cube) in that it embraces the world in every direction.

This, then, is the image of the Centre of Heaven-the Beatific Vision ringed about with the nine choirs of angels and the transfixed hosts of Patriarchs and Prophets, Apostles and Martyrs, Doctors and Confessors, and the whole company of blessed ones-all together making up that Mystic Rose which is, in tum, the Virgin of Virgins, Matrix of the World, May, radiating from and returning into its Origin. Imagery

1 Matthew 6: 22. 2 Pqradiso x.x.x. to.

8. CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN.

(”Die Kronung Mariae durch die Dreicinigkeit.” French (?) Master J. M.

1457. Basel Museum.) A mandala representing the ultimate fulfilment of the

drama of creation. The crowning of the Virgin by the Holy Trinity is the

final divinization of Nature, of the created or manifested Universe, so that

the Trinity becomes in some sense a Quarternty. The central scene is surd

rounded by an inner ring of angels and an outer ring of Apostles, Prophets,

Martyrs, Virgins, and other Saints. The four corners are occupied by the

Tetramorph, the symbolic %gures of the Four Evangelists and the Four Fixed

Signs of the Zodiac.

describes this Centre as a destination, an end, towards which man travels through time, and which lies beyond the Last Day of the future when the arrow of the soul will either plunge into its Mark, or miss it for ever. But we must not mistake that which is beyond the future for that which is in the future. Only h.e.l.l is in the future, for the more effectively man is able to prognosticate, the more he must be anxious and tremble. For the future has no other content than the disappearance of the past, which is what we think we are; it is by definition a time in which the past has no place. And thus the more accurately and realistically men consider the future, the more they are depressed.

He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.... Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun: But if a man live many years, and rejoice in them all, yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity.'

Nevenheless popular Christianity has always been an expression of the hope that, in the future, beyond ”the days of darkness” there will lie ”the life of the world to come”. In Heaven G.o.d is central, but on earth he is extreme--far out on the edges of time, the First Cause and the Last End. We have come from G.o.d in the forgotten past, and are on our way back to him in the distant future, so that here and now our life is one of exile and pilgrimage.

To thee we exiles, childrei. of Eve, lift our crying. To thee we are sighing, as mournful and weeping, we pa.s.s through this vale of sorrow.... Hereafter, when our earthly exile shall be ended, show us Jesus, the blessed fruit of thy womb, 0 gentle, 0 tender, 0 gracious Virgin Mary.2

Ecclesiastes xi: 4, 7-8. 2 Final Antiphon B.V.M., Salve Regina.

I6.

Whether in the poetry of the Salve Regina or the doggerel of There is a happy land, far, far away”, this is the dominant myth of Western culture both Christian and Humanist-the myth of the impoverished present, empty of content. The significance of life is felt to lie in its past history and its future promise, so that the time in which we live seems almost to be nothing-a hairline at most, fleeting, momentary, ever beyond our grasp. As time goes on and, with the pa.s.sing centuries, Heaven recedes so far as to be implausible, we are forced against every habit of will and imagination to see that time takes us nowhere, so that-as always-the opposites change places and hope becomes despair.

At the present time it is hard to say whether the Christian myth is to stay with us as an effective power. Certain signs of revival do not warrant hasty conclusions, for there is all the difference in the world between genuine faith in G.o.d, on the one hand, and the tormented intellectual's faith in faith, on the other. As I have observed elsewhere,' much of the present ”return to religion” is based, not upon a veritable trust in G.o.d, but upon the feeling that faith in the Christian G.o.d is a social and psychological necessity. But Christianity cannot survive in the role of a ”therapeutic illusion”, nor as a mere refuge of authority and certainty for those who shrink from the bleak consequences of logical thought, and still less as a nostalgic selfindulgence for those who need it as a pretext for the physical beauty of the Liturgy.

I do not feel that the Christian myth has anything left to tell Western man unless he understands it outside/in. He must discover that what seemed to be the far/offedges of time, where G.o.d is Alpha and Omega, are the present, and that the pilgrimage from earth to Heaven is not a journey into the future but into the Centre. He must realize that the death” through which we must pa.s.s before G.o.d can be seen does not lie ahead of us in time. ”Death” is the point at which ”I” come to an end,

1 The Wisdom of Insecurity (New York, 1951), ch. i.

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