Bab 14
Suara-suara batu. Tembok gereja dan tembok penjara. Tiang kapal dan tiang gantungan. Bayangan algojo dan bayangan santo. Jiwa seorang algojo dan jiwa orang suci. Kombinasi berbagai fenomena yang kita kenal di ruang yang lebih tinggi. Keterkaitan fenomena yang tampaknya bagi kita terpisah, dan perbedaan antara fenomena yang tampaknya serupa. Bagaimana seharusnya kita mendekati dunia noumenal? Pemahaman hal-hal di luar kategori waktu dan ruang. Realitas banyak sekali 'kiasan'. Pemahaman energi gaib. Surat okultis Hindu. Seni sebagai kognisi dari dunia noumenal. Apa yang kita lihat dan apa yang tidak kita lihat. Dialog Plato tentang gua.
At times we dimly feel in things the difference resulting from their functions, i.e. their REAL difference. Once I was crossing the Neva in a boat with my friend A. with whom, before this and later, I had many conversations on the subjects touched on in this book. We had been talking, but approaching the fortress we both fell silent, looking at the walls and probably thinking more or less, the same thoughts. There are factory chimneys too!' said A. And indeed from behind the fortress there rose brick chimneys with smoke-blackened tops. And suddenly, as he said it, I had an incredibly vivid sensation of the difference between factory chimneys and prison walls, a sensation that was like a blow or an electric shock. I sensed the difference of the very bricks. And it seemed to me that A. had the same sensation.
Later, in a conversation with A. I recalled this episode, and he told me that not only then, but always he had sensed this difference and was deeply convinced of its reality. 'Only positivism is convinced that a stone is a stone and nothing more,' he said. 'But any uneducated woman or a child knows quite well that a stone from the wall of a church or a stone from the wall of a prison are different things.'
Thus it seems to me that, in examining a given phenomenon in connection with all the chains of consequences of which it is a link, we shall find that the subjective sensation of the differences between two physically identical objects, which we often regard as mere poetic imagery, a metaphor, the reality of which we deny - is entirely real; we shall see that these objects actually are different, as different as a candle and a coin which look like identical circles (moving lines) in the two-dimensional world of plane beings. We shall then see that objects identical as regards the material of which they consist, but different as regards their functions, are really different, and that this difference goes so deep that it even makes the seemingly identical material physically different. There are DIFFERENT STONES, DIFFERENT IRON, DIFFERENT WOOD, DIFFERENT PAPER. No chemistry will ever detect this difference. Nevertheless it exists, and there are people who feel and understand it.
The mast of a ship, a gallows, a cross at the cross-roads in the steppe may be made of the same kind of wood, but in reality they are different objects made of different material. That which we see, touch, investigate are only the 'circles on the plane' made by the coin and the candle. They are nothing but the shadows of real things, the essence of which lies in their function. The shadows of a sailor, a hangman and a saint may be completely identical - it is impossible to distinguish them by their shadows just as it is impossible to distinguish the wood of the mast, the gallows and the cross by chemical analysis. Nevertheless they are different men and different objects - it is only the shadows that are equal and alike.
And if we take men as we know them - the sailor, the hangman and the saint - men who seem to us similar and equal, and examine them from the point of view of their different functions, we shall see that, in actual fact, they are totally different and have nothing whatever in common. They are different beings, belonging to different categories, different planes of the world between which there are no bridges or ways of communication. These men seem to us alike and equal because, in general, we see only the shadows of real facts. In reality, the 'souls' of these men are totally different, and different not in quality, not in magnitude, not in their 'age' as people prefer to put in now, but different in their very nature, their origin and the purpose of their existence just as objects differ when they belong to completely different categories.
When we begin to understand this, the general concept man must undergo a great change in us.
And this relation is repeated in the observation of all phenomena. A mast, a gallows and a cross are things of such different categories, atoms of such different bodies (which we know by their functions), that there can be no question of any similitude between them. Our misfortune is that we regard the chemical composition of a thing as its most real attribute, whereas real attributes should be sought in the functions of a thing. Should we acquire the possibility of broadening and deepening our view of the chains of causation the links of which are our actions and our behaviour; should we learn to take them not only in their narrow meaning in relation to the life of man, to our own life, but in a wide cosmic meaning; should we succeed in finding and establishing the connection between the simple phenomena of our life and the life 01 the cosmos, then, undoubtedly, we should find in the 'simplest' phenomena an infinity of the new and the unexpected.
For instance, we should be able to learn in this way something entirely new about simple physical phenomena which we are accustomed to regard as natural and explicable, and concerning which we take it for granted that we know something. But, quite unexpectedly, we may find that we know nothing, that everything we have previously known is only a wrong deduction from wrong premises. Something infinitely vast and immeasurably significant may become revealed to us in such phenomena as the expansion and contraction of solids, electrical phenomena, heat, light, sound, the movement of planets, the coming of day and of night, the succession of seasons, a thunderstorm, heat-lightning, and so on. In general, we may suddenly and most unexpectedly find explanations of the properties of phenomena which we used to accept as something known and containing nothing beyond what we see in them.
The constancy, duration, periodicity or non-periodicity of phenomena may acquire for us an entirely new meaning and significance. Much that is new and unexpected may open up for us in the transition of one phenomenon into another. Birth, death, a man's life, his relationship with other men, love, enmity, sympathies, antipathies, desires, passions may suddenly appear in quite a new light. It is difficult for us to imagine at the present moment the nature of this newness which it is possible for us to feel in old familiar things; and, once we begin to feel it, it will be very difficult to understand. But in reality it is only our incapacity to feel and understand this 'newness' which separates us from it, for we live in it and in the midst of it. But our senses are too primitive, our ideas too crude for a subtle differentiation of phenomena which should become revealed to us in higher space. Our mind, our capacity for association, is insufficiently flexible to grasp new correlations. Consequently, the first feeling brought by our acquaintance with 'that world' (i.e. this same world of ours, only taken without the limitations under which we usually view it), should be the feeling of wonder, and this wonder should grow, becoming greater and greater as acquaintance with it becomes better. And the better we know a thing or a certain correlation of things, the closer, the more familiar they are to us, the greater will be our wonder and the more shall we discover in them of the new and the unexpected.
Wishing to understand the noumenal world, we must seek a hidden meaning in everything. At present we are too deeply rooted in the positivist method with its tendency to seek in everything a visible cause and a visible effect. And this weight of positivistic habits makes the understanding of certain ideas extremely difficult. Among other things it is extremely hard for us to understand the reality of the difference in the noumenal world between objects which are similar in our world but which have different functions. However, if we want to approach to an understanding of the noumenal world, we must strive with all our might to notice all those apparent, 'subjective' differences between objects, which occasionally strike us and which sometimes we feel so painfully clearly, those differences which are expressed in the imagery of art and which give glimpses of the world of realities. These differences are the realities of the noumenal world, much more real than all the maya of our phenomena. We should strive to notice these realities and develop in ourselves the capacity to sense them, because it is precisely in this way (and only in this way) that we enter into communion with the noumenal world or the world of causes. I find a very interesting example of the understanding of the hidden meaning of phenomena in the book The Occult World contained in the letter of a Hindu occultist to the author of the book, A. P. Sinnett: We see a vast difference [he writes] between the two qualities of two equal amounts of energy expended by two men, one of whom, let us suppose on his way to his daily quiet work, and another on his way to denounce a fellow-creature at the police station, while the men of science see none; and we - not they - see a specific difference between the energy in the motion of the wind and that of a revolving wheel. . . . Every thought of man upon being evolved passes into the inner world, and becomes an active entity by associating itself, coalescing we might term it, with an elemental - that is to say, with one of the semi-intelligent forces of the kingdoms.* If, for the moment, we leave aside the last pan of this quotation and take only the first part, we shall see that, certainly, the 'man of science' does not admit the difference in the quality of energy expended by two men walking one to his work and the other to denounce someone. For science this difference is not discernible. Science does not feel it and does not recognize it. But perhaps in an actual fact this difference is even deeper and consists not only in the difference between kinds of energy but in the difference between the men, one of whom may develop energy of one kind and another energy of another kind. And we possess a form of perception which senses this difference perfectly, understands it and knows it. I am speaking of art. A musician, a painter, a sculptor understand perfectly that it is possible to walk differently; more than that, that it is impossible to walk in the same way. A workman and an informer walk differently. The best person to understand this, at least he should best understand it, is an actor. A poet understands that the mast of a ship, a gallows and a cross are made of different wood. He understands the difference between a stone from the wall of a church and a stone from the wall of a prison. He hears* the voices of stones', understands the language of ancient walls, of burial mounds, of ruins, rivers, woods and plains. He hears the voice of the silence, understands the psychological difference of silences, realizes that silence may be different. And this poetical understanding of the world should be developed, strengthened and fortified, because only through it do we come into touch with the truly real world. And in the real world, behind phenomena which seem to us the same, there are often concealed noumena so different that only our blindness can account for our idea of the similarity of these phenomena. One of the ideas which must thus prove false is the current idea of the similarity and equality of men. In actual fact the difference between the 'hangman', the 'sailor' and the 'saint' is not an accidental difference of position, status and heredity, as materialism endeavours to persuade us, and not the difference between different degrees of one and the same evolution, as theosophy asserts, but a deep and unbridgeable difference, such as exists between murder, labour and prayer, belonging to entirely different worlds. The representatives of these worlds can appear to us similar men only because we actually see not them but merely their shadows. It is necessary to make ourselves accustomed to the thought and to establish firmly the fact that this difference is not in the least metaphysical but perfectly real, more real in fact than many visible differences of things and phenomena. Actually, all art consists in understanding and representing these elusive differences. For an artist the phenomenal world is merely material - just as colours are for the painter and sounds for the musician; it is only a means for the understanding, and the expression of his understanding, of the noumenal world. At our present stage of development we possess no other means for the perception of the world of causes, which is as powerful as the one contained in art. The mystery of life consists in the fact that the noumenon, i.e. the hidden meaning and the hidden function of a thing, is reflected in its phenomenon. The phenomenon is the reflection of the noumenon in our sphere. THE PHENOMENON IS AN IMAGE OF THE NOUMENON. And by the phenomenon it is possible to know the noumenon. Only here chemical reagents and the spectroscope will accomplish nothing. The reflection of the noumenon in the phenomenon can be sensed and understood only by that subtle apparatus which is called the soul of the artist. 'Occultism' - the hidden side of life - should be studied in art. An artist must be a clairvoyant, he must see that which others do not see. And he must be a magician, must possess the gift of making others see what they do not see by themselves, but what he sees. Art sees more and further than we do. It was pointed out earlier that, on the whole, we do not see anything, we only grope, and consequently we fail to notice those differences between things which do not express themselves physically or chemically. But art is already a beginning of vision. It sees much more than the most perfect apparatus; and it senses the infinite invisible facets of the crystal, one of which facets we call man. 'The truth is that this earth is the scene of a drama of which we only perceive scattered portions, and in which the greater number of actors are invisible to us while we are inside our bodies.' Thus speaks the theosophical writer, Mabel Collins, the author of Light on the Path, in a small book. Illusions*. And this is very true; we see extraordinarily little. But art goes further than ordinary human vision; consequently there are sides of life of which only art has the right to speak. A remarkable attempt to portray our relation to the 'noumenal world', to that 'great life', is contained in the 'Dialogue of the Cave', in the VIIth book of Plato's Republic.** Behold' human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den, here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way, and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sons of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners Like ourselves, I replied, and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave? True, he said, how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads? And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows? Yes, he said And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them? Very true And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow? No question, he replied To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images That is certain And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains, the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he has seen the shadows, and then conceive someone saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision, - what will be his reply? - will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him? Far truer And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him? True, he said And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities Not all in a moment, he said He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves Last of all he will be able to see the sun He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold? And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them? Certainly, he would And if they were in the habit of conferring honours among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together, and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honours and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner? Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner Imagine once more, I said, such a one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation, would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness? And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable), would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes, and if anyone tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death No question, he said This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument, the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world Moreover, I said, you must not wonder that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs, for their souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they desire to dwell And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner? Anything but surprising, he replied Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coining out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees anyone whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other. . . .