Who Started the Fire?
Pop music is not generally seen as a source of great philosophical insight. However, one Zen master points out that, with regards to Enlightenment, even “Alice in Wonderland” can be used as a sacred text. If so, Billy Joel’s, “The Fire” raises some critical questions that any non “pie in the sky” mystic needs to address. Simply put: why has all this “stuff” been going on for so long?
The traditional Judeo-Christian Western model that has human history culminating in some futuristic, perfect Messianic Era cannot explain the delay. At some point, the faith described in the the Christian song “I need to know You got this” is understandable, but reveals–probably unwittingly–the concern as to just what is taking so long. After all, even taking the Genesis Adam and Eve saga seriously, the process has been some 6,000 years now. If someone is more scientifically oriented, the evolution of Man has been millions of years in the making. If there is some “End” in sight, either way, surely enough time has passed.
On the other hand, the Hindu model is different. Apparently eternal, sublime perfection is not all it is cracked up to be. There the Source of all–“Brahman” (“God,” in western terminology)–is just bored and, to quote Madonna, “I’m tired of dancing with myself.” S/He creates all of existence as a cosmic movie theater for sheer entertainment. If that sounds far fetched–even mean spirited, given the suffering and evil in the world–consider the popularity of war, crime, and horror movies that are profitable in proportion to their repugnance. The “Saw” movies come to mind where the plot of the entire series is that of kidnapped people who have to saw off their own limbs in order to escape. For those who shrink at the thought of the Divine actually desiring such scenes, how many of us would go to the movies to watch a two hour film of oh-too-cute toddlers chasing butterflies on a sunny day in some pasture? Without the menace of some growling dark menace erupting from the sandbox devouring the little ones–ideally with bloody pigtails dripping from its lips–the film likely would suffer the fate of any number of Disney recent incarnations.
Of course, the natural response–these are just movies, not real life!–is totally understandable. Nevertheless, from a mystical point of view, All is One, which means that the dark and the suffering and the pain are comingled with the light and the joy and the celebration. To use a different analogy, humanity is obsessed with sports. We all want our teams to win and hate it when our teams lose. Nevertheless, imagine how we would feel if our teams were destined to win each and every time. Would we still be able to celebrate the thrills of victory without the prospect of the agony of defeat? It may sound counter-intuitive, but without the possibility of defeat–or evil or death or, God forbid, a sports loss–the satisfaction of the victory disappears.
Simply put: we may not have started the fire. We may even protest that we detest the fire. Nevertheless, from a mystical point of view, there is no enlightenment without the due recognition of the importance of the fire. To the degree we are attached to the light and refuse the dark–to use Carl Jung’s terms, “to the degree we refuse to integrate our Shadow self”–we will never experience the mystical “ALL.”
Oh c’mon, Arthur. You do better than that in your very own book. The “Spiritual Bypass” is simply not part of your “Hail Mary” playbook.
The old duality chestnut of coexistence is overplayed. Job will attest to that. Tell the Divine Presence, “Too little, too late.” Take the human creation and put it out of its misery already. Heaven knows, the rest of Earth would celebrate.
Respectfully,
H.T.
Hi. Thanks for your comment. I happen to agree with you. The problem with “Take the human creation and put it out of its misery already” is that people have been praying that for years and years and years…with no visible results. If that is the reality, we need to come up with another explanation. The Christian “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you” and the Zen “Samsara is Nirvana and Nirvana is Samsara” turn the question into a psychological dilemma. That may be true, but there is too much suffering of innocent, ignorant people for that to be satisfying for me. So what else is there? If there is a Creator at all, the Hindu notion that this is all a matter of divine entertainment can work–with the caveat that the suffering is temporary and illusory, with reincarnation in the mix. Otherwise, the atheists have it right–there is no Creator and there is no divine justice. Given the rationality of the Universe, I am not prepared to concede that. As for Job…well, what is there to say? God allows Satan to torture an innocent man just to test his faith–not to mention all those innocent people who are killed as collateral damage? If so, that does not sound like the sort of god Abraham had in mind when he asked: “Will not the Lord of all the earth do justly?” (Gen. 18:25) So, it may be overplayed, but it is hard to get away from that “old chestnut of coexistence.” Existence is what it is and any explanations we have need to fit in with that reality. Put another way, we don’t have to believe in the Law of Gravity, but we will still fall if we jump off a cliff.
For the record, I could care less about watching sports or give a hoot about who wins the game.
But, personally speaking…winning the race to move over and out, scoring a touch down into a better place, or hitting a home run and making some one happy… those matter and are what I check off on my chit
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Thanks for your comment. Yes, those are all priorities for many of us. We just need to remember that they are in the context of worse places and people who are unhappy. It seems the universe is so constructed as one cannot have one without the other.