Friday, January 06, 2012
Poem by T. S. Eliot
Excerpt from "The Four Quartets" by T. S. Eliot (l888-l965)
Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
T. S. Eliot was one of the major voices of twentieth-century poetry. His life was quite interesting--it involved a major shift of perspective--indeed, a deep spiritual transformation-- rather late in life. In his earlier years, his writing was marked by a sense of despair and also an elitist attitude toward the "lower classes" as well as certain minority groups (especially Jews). He later converted and became a committed Christian (high Anglican), and from that time on his poetry became much more spiritual and compassionate, with focus on the ultimate questions rather than offering a superficial critique of those he considered inferior. He also gave up his earlier sense of impotence and ineffectiveness (as in the famous "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock").
Although he underwent a conversion to the Christian faith, his work from this time also included elements of Buddhism and universal spiritual concerns. If we look at this excerpt from a general spiritual perspective--more specifically as it might be applied to Kundalini itself, with the inner transformation it brings--we note some major parallels. Thus he speaks first (here) of the "intense moment"--and indeed Kundalini awakening is one of the most intense moments we can experience on this plane. And, after the initial shock of awakening, there is a seemingly endless period of moving into deeper and deeper levels of the experience, even when nothing seems to be happening.
He then implies that all of history is involved in this seemingly personal experience (the whole tradition of belief and practice which precedes one's subjective transformation), and causes us to reflect that each moment of our lives is also involved in every other moment of what seems to be the "present." (Eliot was a great believer in the importance of tradition as that might impact one's personal life.)
As for the experience of love--whether or not it is on the human or what is acknowledged as the "spiritual level" (love of God and the divine)--each of us likely has had such moments, when one is so captured by the burning of love within the self that all awareness of time past and time future fade out of consciousness and only the present sense of love/bliss connection is with us. He calls us to move always into "a deeper intensity," a fuller communion with the ultimate, even when we lapse into times of despair and disillusionment.
"In my end is my beginning." Every single experience we have ever had--probably even those we encountered as babes in the womb--has marked us forever--thus my 'beginning" is incorporated into "my end"--where I am now in my life and where I will be at its end.
For those who undergo Kundalini awakening and wonder how it all started--it (the preparation) began at the moment of birth (or before) and all of life since then led to this present expression. We are the sum of each preceding moment, just as our present experience will lead us into ever more complex and comprehensive states of being.
(The above is not a "critical interpretation" such as we might find in an academic tome, but rather my own personal rendering of how this expression of faith might be applied to an experience as deeply transfiguring as Kundalini, which I think of as a totally sacred experience, leading us to ever deeper connection with the divine.)
