POEMS AND POETS
24. The Wrong Bitch!
Many years ago, in 1961 or 62, I read a joke printed as a page-filler in that lovely monthy, The Reader's Digest. An American tourist was in London. He got into a city bus, but found no seat. He noticed a fat lady occupying a seat, with her dog next to her. He looked at her for some time, then bent forward, gathered the dog in his arms, and threw it out of the window. An occupant of a near-by seat remarked: " You Americans always do the wrong thing. You eat with the wrong hand, drive on the wrong side of the road, and now have thrown the wrong bitch out of the window!"
Come to think of it , we are all Americans now! Dealing with the wrong bitch all the time!
Look at our economics. The more we talk about growth, development,wealth, the more poverty grows, and so does the gap between the rich and the poor. In politics, the more they talk of empowerment, the more people are getting marginalised. New groups of deprived , or new forms of deprivation,emerge. Look at health-care. The more we talk about it, the more we turn it into sick-care, building more and more hospitals; health-insurance is the label for payment system for sickness attention. If you don't have insurance, you can't buy health, by definition! But which company will sell you a policy to cover real health care- buy good walking or jogging shoes, a tennis racquet, a bicycle, use a jogging track,etc? Just last week, we read how the American medical system is swindling the public, and how the Judiciary is dealing with it.
This economic preoccupation with wealth seems meaningless, considering how counter-productive it has become. In Sanskrit, the word 'artha' is used for wealth. But artha also means 'meaning' ! So what does wealth really mean? What is real wealth? Philosopher Sankara said: " artham anartham"., which means wealth causes harm, or untruth depending on how the word 'anartham' is spelt . Stunningly, in Tamil too there is just one word: 'Porul' which means both wealth and meaning!
What about our philosophy and organised religions? The one has become incomprehensible to uninitiated minds like us, and the other has become irrelevant to our times and needs. So, both have ceased to be guides to life. Many people have indeed thrown both out of their lives, which is our biggest window on the Universe! This is a pity.
Structured, systematised philosophy is not sure what it has to deal with , or how to go about it. Books are written only for the peers, and perhaps understood only by them. Religion is not sure of what it has to concern with- Life or Death, Man or God. Actually, there is no choice here. One means and involves the other.
It is said that once Tennyson was seriously ill, and was slowly being nursed back to health. But he was grumbling. The nurse asked him why he could not write some poetry, in gratitude for his recovery, instead of grumbling. So, he composed a poem and read it out to her. She heard it and silently ran from the room. This is the poem.
Tennyson : "Crossing the Bar"
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark.
For tho' from out our bourne
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the Bar.
Tennyson said the poem "came in a moment." When questioned about the presence of the Pilot, and why the speaker sees him only when the vessel reaches the open sea, Tennyson clarified:
"The Pilot has been on board all the while, but in the dark I have not seen him".He further said:
He is " that Divine and Unseen Who is always guiding us."( From Tennyson's Memoir.
See: Tennyson's Poetry -
Norton Critical Editions.)
Is this sad? Morbid? To me, it does not seem so. Can it be sad, when we get to meet the Pilot? In fact, this conveys to me the whole failure of religion: the Pilot has been with us all along, but we are taught to look for him elsewhere! It is only a genuine poet who can remind us.
Tennyson believed in personal immortality, and its mysteries. " burned for ever and for ever! I can't believe that", he said. He also said:" I can't call myself orthodox. Two things however I have always been convinced of-God,- and that death will not end my existence."Here is an ancient Tamil poet singing on this theme:
Tirumular
Is the sweetness of honey black or red?
You fools, who search for God in the high heavens,
Just as sweetness pervades honey
God pervades as our Self, this very fleshy body.
The Pilot is with us all the time, but we do not get or try to know!
Here is John Donne confronting the subject more directly, defiantly.
John Donne: DEATH BE NOT PROUD
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
For those whom thou think'st,thou dost overthrow,
Die not,poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me;
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure,then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones,and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.
Donne is almost mocking death. From where does he get the courage ? Death is like a longer sleep and rest. If we find pleasure from rest and sleep, which is usually short, how much more should we get from a longer sleep and rest! And then, death only catches our body, but can it touch our spirit? It becomes free!- rest of the bones, but soul's delivery!
Donne is not called a metaphysical poet for nothing!But our dear Shakespeare is not so sure! Let us see what he says.
Shakespeare: Hamlet. 3.1.
"...............the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action."
We do not know what happens after death and so fear it. This fear ( 'Conscience' here ) makes us cowards. distorts our thinking and results in our messing up with our action. But there is a rub. Earlier, when we read Tennyson and Donne, we knew the poets were speaking to us. But here? It is Hamlet- and this occurs in that most famous passage beginning " To be, or not to be?". So, we are not sure it is Shakespeare speaking out his thoughts here.
How do we resolve this? It is where true philosophy and religion will have to teach us. The only true question in philosophy is whether life/existence/world has any meaning or purpose. If everything ends with death, life on earth has no meaning. That is, if death has no meaning, life will have none either! What is the point in having a little fun on the ship, when we know it is going to sink? It is the idea that there is a Pilot who is guiding it safely that gives us comfort.
It is this sense of certainty or certitude- and not this or that doctrine- that is what we mean by philosophy. It is an attitude, rather than a formula. What we make of this world immediately raises the question how we relate to it.It provides us with a view of life, and also a way to live it! It leads to uncomplicated thinking, and uncluttered living. Great poets give that. Both by their words, and their lives. William Blake is one of the greatest in this respect.
William Blake
Throughout his life he was guided by visions. He produced his songs and illustrations by a process which came to him in a vision, when his deceased brother appeared to him and explained the process. But he had the larger vision too- he " kept the Divine Vision in time of trouble". He firmly believed in the spiritual reality of the universe. He wrote:
" Now I a fourfold vision see
And a fourfold vision is given to me;
Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And threefold in soft Beulah's night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newton's Sleep."
Blake had said to a friend earlier:
" I cannot consider death as any thing but a removing from one room to another."
Blake died a glorified death.
" Just before he died, His Countenance became fair-His eyes brighten'd and He burst out in Singing of the things he Saw in Heaven.....He Died like a Saint."
iIt is such poets who provide us a true,simple approach to life.
'Newton's Sleep' here refers to Newton's laws which make of this world a mechanical device, denying the spiritual reality. Ironically, science itself has travelled far from Newton's days and views, and the present view of science is that the universe is more like an organism, rather than a mechanism, which is but a tool of the former. Jacob Needleman,philosopher,explains:
"Every day, in almost all its branches, the revelations of modern science offer evidence that the universe,reality itself, is alive- alive beyond all imagining. All those who love science must know this truth in their bones, whatever may be the view officially sanctioned in the corridors of our universities and institutions of research. In any case, this is and always has been the view offered by the great spiritual traditions of the world, East and West, in all cultures and at all times previous to our own."
"The very word "cosmos" signifies that the universe itself is a living organism.....Mechanism is the instrument of organism."
From the Preface to the 2003 Monkfish edition
of 'A Sense Of The Cosmos' .
Where a poet conveys such a spiritual view, he is restoring our real sight! But poetry is also now taught in the very same universities which may not allow the poets to speak of their vision or faith. Browning's religious convictions may not be discussed in academic books, just as the dream experiences of Srinivasa Ramanujan, from where he got his theorems, do not find mention!
