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THE TEST OF CLOTURE
No man can grow to his fully human stature except by developing his sense of value and his ability to bestow meaning upon all his life-experiences, be they dark or light, oppressive or exalting. True progress for humanity does not consist in building bigger and better social mechanisms, prouder egos and more efficient gadgets, however necessary in the course of human evolution social, psychological, or industrial structures are. Creative progress for man is accomplished through the constant expansion, refinement and expression of values. Only as values and meanings consistently increase in scope and inclusiveness can life repeat over and again its triumph over death, and man emerge, through the experiencing of nature, victorious over all challenges of earthly existence and ready for ever new cyclic rebirths.
Every cycle of human activity and experience should reach its consummation in a "seed". It does not reach it at the zenith of the cycle in terms of collective social achievement, but instead at the very close of the cycle in terms of consciousness of value and meaning. The individual person does not reach fulfillment by "doing" alone, but by the illumined realization of the meaning and the value of what he has done, especially during the high moments of the cycle about to end. This realization is indeed the "seed" of eventual rebirth.
The character of achievement and success demonstrated during the climactic performance of one's basic function in the social and universal Whole depends upon the effective use of form — the structure of one's personality, the pattern of one's intimate relationships, the technical devices of which one has become master. Mastery consists in the perfect use of completely adequate forms to fulfill entirely one's precise purpose, with the purest motive and at the exactly required moment.
Yet, forms bind even him who used them perfectly; for they are the products of a set of activities and of a purpose bounded by the limits of a cycle. Forms — as abstract patterns — will remain forever what they are, unless they be transformed by a new creative act. The substantial body disintegrates; but the pattern of it is not changed thereby. Death destroys organisms, but not the idea or blueprint thereof. The only recourse against the crystallization of forms is the creative modification that renews them from within. Only one thing can effect this creative renewal: a new value. Even mastery is no end in itself; for mastery is bound to the particular set of values of which it gives a supreme and perfect demonstration.
The mastery at whose core does not burn the fire of discontent and the spiral's will for ever-greater inclusiveness through always new cycles — is only a temporary and illusory perfection. The master of any technique, any work, any achievement, is the slave of the forms of his activity, unless he uses these forms as mere tools in the service of a value which he realizes to be in the process of constant renewal and expansion; a value forever becoming more than what it is.
To know clearly, in the light of the universal spirit, the value of all that one has achieved and the meaning of all successes and failures on the way to this achievement; then to feel, in one's consciousness, this value expand and be reborn within the framework of a new cycle and in terms' of a higher, more inclusive level of activity — these are the steps of spiritual growth at the close of any cycle, however brief or vast the cycle. The unfoldment of value is the substance of the spiritual life of man. And there can be no unfoldment of value save through the transformation and renewal of those forms which focused the lesser or less mature value.
Transformation and self-renewal require the overcoming of ancient habits — of thinking, feeling, and acting. More precisely, it demands of every man, and of society as a whole, the repudiation of memories and images that bind to the past the consciousness and the will. He who clings to ghosts (whether cherished, feared or hated) barricades, with the torn fragments of experiences made heavy and dark, the path on which the future comes to greet his living soul. Ghosts must be released from the living with the sword of severance. Only the value, which past encounters had once sought to demonstrate, need be retained; not as a thing in itself, but as a fully understood and appreciated component in the substance of the new purpose. There can be no valid function for the forms- that-were save to be building stones of what is yet to be — or else, sign posts to dangers that may repeat themselves in the future. Any past that does not enter the service of the future turns into poison. It must be purged away from the sacred circle of the new birth.
Yet, much as one must throw off the toxic substances accumulated throughout the ending cycle and renew or transfigure the forms, techniques and attitudes which have served to focus the purpose of that cycle of living experience, one should never repudiate whatever has been an incorporation of the spirit. Spirit is timeless; it dwells at the core of all cycles. A spirit-born realization within a
man's experience is not merely one separate little stone that could easily be missed from the walls of the cathedral of the individual Soul's immortality. It is one in essence and identity with all other manifestations — not only in that Soul's essential being, but within the total spiritual being of humanity as a whole. The substance and the form can be repudiated and left to disintegrate but the spirit cannot. No one can ever really dismiss that which cannot die. Re-embodied it must be, however remote the cycle which will witness this re-incorporation of the spiritual factor long deprived of form and substance.This distinction between what is of the spirit and what belongs to the closely associated realms of form and substance is an essential one. It is never more imperative than at the close of a cycle — be it a personal or a social-cultural cycle. "The "art of dying", which was cultivated diligently in many ancient civilizations, especially in Tibet, is the art of repudiating the substance of earthly existence and of transfiguring the form of individual selfhood, while holding fast to the spirit-revealing experiences of the ending life. It is indeed a supremely important art, for the substance of all new birthing is conditioned by the realizations reached with the experience of death.
Every birth is a solution to problems projected by a previous death. The key to every new embodiment — be it that of a man, a civilization, a solar system or a universe — is always to be found in two simple words, unfinished business. Simple words they are, but they rule all worlds and all cycles. They are stamped within the heart of every living person — to be taken as a challenge by the wise, as a curse by the weary or the ignorant.
To die is to bring a close a definite and measured attempt to deal with unfinished business; which is to bring forth, as the concluding consummation of embodied existence, greater values. A successful death is thus a death in terms of the fullest possible realization of value. This does not mean in a spirit of proud accomplishment and self-glorification in all things that have been done; but in a realization, as inclusive and as complete as possible, or the value of life and of the meaning of the self, of humanity and of God.
It is said in ancient books that the last thought held in death conditions the future birth. What is meant by "thought" here is far more than what we are used to considering as an act of thinking of cognition. It is instead an experience of value. It has been stated also that immediately after physical death the individual's good and bad, spiritual and material deeds, thoughts and feelings are balanced on the divine scales, and that the result determines the subsequent fate of the Soul. But the "balancing" is not a matter of quantity, of plus and minus; for nothing of the spirit is ever expressed by numbers or quantities. What is at stake is the qualitative realization of value. Value - as we use the term here - is a quality of being, an expression of the inherent relationship between oneself and all there is. What is revealed at the close of any cycle is this relationship. It is the quality of one's relationship to all forms of life, to humanity and to God.
The dramatist writing the last scene of his play, the composer bringing melodies, harmonies and rhythms of his symphony to a concluding cadence, the orator impregnating his audience's collective mind with a final utterance which should remain as a determining factor in their lives - these men face consciously and deliberately the "test of cloture". An entire development of human situations, of emotions, powers and thoughts, has to be brought to a conclusion. The significant element in this conclusion is the effect which will be left with the public; that is, the manner in which the relationship of the dramatist, musician or speaker to his audience will have been finally established, and, having been so established, will remain as a value - whether consciously remembered or unconsciously held as a determining factor in future actions or thoughts.
To make an end which will bring all that has been uttered to an unforgettable final situation, tone-quality or statement, is indeed the mark of supreme artistry. A great artist is one who changes the moment that immediately follows his last utterance with an inexpressible and ineradicable quality of emotion or mental vision.
What is most significant in the musical development of a symphonic work is not the formal sequence of its many and varied tones, but the silence after the last tone, the overtones which keep resonating in the souls of men. These overtones, this silence after all speech, the quality of the moment after the heart throbs no longer - this is "value". To end in value is to leave, as a transcendent seed in the soul of the universe, a silence so meaningful that God will forever remember it. This divine remembrance is the substance of immortality.
This can hardly be such a quality of silence where the main emphasis throughout the speech - all living is a speech and a debate between life and death! - has been placed upon either substance or form elements, appealing primarily to the senses or the intellect. If these elements are the ones which remain in the mind of the people who listen to the utterances, the spiritual factor of value is brought down to the level of sensationalism and of technical skill or mere virtuosity.
In the truly spiritual expression of value the elements of substance and form, however strongly developed they may be, are transfigured by the illumination of meaning and the dynamic realization of purpose. Indeed they remain only as frameworks for the value and meaning which are retained as an active essence creative of greater tomorrows. All that, in the process of building up such frameworks for immortal value, served only as temporary scaffolding, or represented side-issues and perhaps relative failures, must be repudiated.
Immortality is based upon repudiation of the unfit as well as upon the transfiguration of the fit, upon severance from yesterday as well as inclusion of tomorrow. This is why there are always more cycles, always new births of time and universe, new unfoldments of absolute space — the point — into the extended trinity of space-energy-substance; for, that which is repudiated eventually will have to be met again and integrated once more into living organisms.
As we began this series of meditations on the basic tests of earth-experience for the individualized consciousness, we stressed the dualism of "man" and "nature". We pictured man passing through a nature unceasingly compelled downward along the line of universal entropy; man, emerging from this embrace of nature and pursuing his ascent toward a state of always greater integration and ever more perfect illumination under the down pour of the spirit. As man becomes increasingly pervaded by the spirit and made into the more complete likeness of God, he reaches a state of ever more inclusiveness and encompassment, a state of fuller relatedness with all there is, was, and ever will be.
In this state, the dualism of man and nature, of self and not-self, while still existing as a fact of objective being, becomes literally transformed. In this state, the necessary act of severance and isolation, which is the essence of birth and rebirth, becomes the realization of the necessity for contrast and proper spacing — a necessity which leads us to realizations that today we can only dimly experience in the realm of art.
The painter intent upon portraying a sunrise scene, or its emotional equivalent in terms of more purely psychological symbols, does not flood his entire canvass with golden yellow light; or, if the light is focused upon one section of the painting, he does not cut out and thus totally "repudiate" from his and the onlooker's consciousness whatever space is shielded from this light. He establishes instead significant contrasts between lighter and darker surfaces. He relates them in an all-encompassing perception within which they both have significance.
Likewise, the quasi-divine personage is able to include in his consciousness — which then has reached a stage beyond mere ego-consciousness — both the rise of "man" and the entropy of "nature". He includes them, yet keeps them in their proper relationship, at the proper distance. He establishes within his total being their contrast and their necessary spacing; he does not mix them into a meaningless gray. He uses strong and clear colors; yet so places the colored surfaces that what would be normally considered as harsh conflict between them is seen as significant contrast within the all-inclusive harmony of the whole. Even black surfaces fill their purpose in this harmony, and dark lines may well emphasize the characteristics of form and structure by defining, rather than merely limiting, the colored zones.
He for whom living and dying are actually as one, while being utterly opposite, has reached the threshold of divinity. He is the most distant when the closest; the nearest, when the most isolated. He experiences ever-repeated deaths while most creatively engaged in the business of living and arousing in all he meets life more abundant. His dying moments are paeans to immortal living. He is all things and all trends in separate integrity and purity of being; yet he is also the harmony of their forever contrasting splendors and the silence that follows the ultimate resonance in which all discords are resolved into a "dissonant harmony" which leaves one speechless with the nearness of ecstasy.
Such a person has learned the art of bringing every cycle to a close which is no end, but rather the threshold of an immortal beginning. And "every cycle" should ultimately mean every year, every day, every fleeting moment of time. He who can experience eternity and totality in one ticking of a clock and maintain consistently such a quality of experience is indeed quasi-divine. He is able to meet at once all the tests of human existence. He answers, in one single logos, or utterance of living, all the challenges of the earthly existence.
For us, however, who are still quartered upon the cross of time and must meet one by one the confrontations of a nature which still opposes and weighs upon our efforts toward the full realization of our manhood and our selfhood, the end of every cycle comes as the closing of a long and wearying road. On this road our feet and our understanding have stumbled many a time. Grievous have been our missteps; harsh the reactions of life, love and society to our faltering speech. When we come to the finish of the long debate and we seek to enunciate forcefully and convincingly the last utterance which would sum up all that has been said and felt, we find our minds confused by many and varied reactions that have struck at our uncertain or over-aggressive ego. We find our consciousness filled with fears of the ultimate response of life and of God after all is ended. We shrink from reaching the fateful end, while our speech grows dull and confused, dragging repetitively toward an inconclusive cadence.
It is then that we have to summon the courage to cut short the vacillating speech, the courage of repudiation and of severance, the courage to bring the cycle to a conclusion, whatever might be the type of balance we will have to face. We have to do this final gesture in the knowledge that this cloture is but a prelude to a future birth of cycle; that the ghosts which we dismissed, the memories which the surgeon within us has cut in order to free the spirit-ward striving life in us, will have to be met in days yet to come. We have to allow the cycle to reach its necessary conclusion for the sake of other cycles yet to come, other opportunities and other challenges. Our will must be clearly set upon the one great task of self-renewal.
Self-renewal is the one great task for men still bound by the circumference of an individualistic self unable to die into immortality. Wherever there is an ego that excludes what it dares not meet and contain, there must be deaths which repudiate unassimilated ghosts and eventual rebirths to confront once more these revived remains of an unresolved past. No one can completely overcome the pull of death and division who has not fulfilled life in spiritual victory.
Where death is necessary and near — the death of any cycle, brief or vast — one great challenge nevertheless is left to the individual to meet: that of preparation for rebirth. The challenge is consciously to summon tomorrows which will make more probably, nay, which will make certain, the fullness of man's victory over nature. To die with one's face turned to the light of a new and more glorious dawn aglow with the promise of immortality, to die in the consciousness of that new birth which can also be the last — this is the essence of man's victory.
Death is the final summons. Into it, the whole of man's power to will and image forth the immortal character of his being can be poured. Every man, before the closing moment of the cycle, can call forth the image of the day-to-come. And this calling forth is a creative act. It introduces into the seemingly closed sequence of birth, death and more birthing and dying, a new factor, a new will. It is man's answer to karma, man's challenge.
This challenge is the substance of greater tomorrows, the promise of immortality. Though seemingly defeated by nature, man asserts his power of victory. He becomes victory . . . in seed.
