By James Saint Cloud
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This story has been published as part of "The Alchemy of Feelings, Reclaiming the Inner Life From Mental Cruelty" by Saint Cloud, available on Amazon.
The Greek philosopher Diogenes is remembered mainly for two things. Chiefly, for going with his lantern in search of an honest man.
If Diogenes ever found an honest man, we are not told. The strange part is, he did this in the glaring light of day. A mystery indeed
He is known also for the time King Alexander came to Athens and all the philosophers met with him --- all except Diogenes. So Alexander went out to visit him instead, where Diogenes had residence in a large tub at the foot of the stairs leading to the Temple of Athena.
Alexander looked down at Diogenes at rest, basking in his tub in the sun and asked, "Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Yes," replied Diogenes, "Stand a little less between me and the sun."
Why was Diogenes such a curiosity, so that Alexander went to him? Was it to ask about his search for an honest man? How might Diogenes have explained to him? "Well, Great King, this is how it came about . . ."
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“Blessings of the Goddess to you,” the women saluted Diogenes each day as they went up and down the temple steps past him. Perhaps concerned for him, his tattered life.
Diogenes seemed content with poverty, saying it gave him time to contemplate. As for this Goddess, surveying all the city on her high pedestal, Diogenes remained incredulous. Wary of the myths that lived in stone.
Why give this Goddess business any due? If there were a goddess living here, indeed, let her descend one day from the statue or the temple stairs! And then he’d know.
Meanwhile, the young women were pretty and
"He's wallowing in self pity," they decided finally, "from things gone awry in years gone by. There is a sorrow there inside, something not quite settled yet."
"I'm coming to terms with my dishonesty," he said when he was pressed, "Examining myself."
"Why so hard on yourself?" was their response. "Men are oblivious, with corruption at their core; what should one expect of them?"
"You expect no honesty from men?" he said, "None at all?"
"Honesty comes with honor. And honor comes from being whole, in touch with what is real, which men are not. So that they lack integrity."
"If what you say is true," Diogenes replied, "when one does wrong it stems from some deep error at his core. As I contemplate myself the error will be shown, and I shall pluck it out."
"Forgive yourself and let it go, that is the better way!" the women said. "Men aren't capable of honesty today. No one honest, none. If you don't believe us, just go look for one!"
So that's just what he did, his lantern in his hand. And what Diogenes found was this: That no two definitions were the same of right and wrong. A heady enterprise, this matter of judging what should be, and what ought not. He tried to understand; but it took a toll, this being in his head so much.
"The mind is such a shallow place to be," one woman told him as she paused along the stairs, "Why not try the heart? Such unlimited possibilities there beyond the self you think you are. Let your heart fill the lantern as you search."
Diogenes scrolled up his eyes at her."Life is a path through storms, Diogenes. Some make that journey with the heart, some with the mind. It is a tempest the heart traverses well, but the mind must travel slowly through, reaching to grasp the lightning before it will let the thunder go.
"The mind cannot hold the lightning long, with it’s hands so full of thunder’s noise. But the heart can."
So cryptic, all that goddess-stuff. Still, what could it hurt? Diogenes let the fire of the lantern stay unlit; filled it with his heart instead. Compassion for the confusion of the populace, and pathos for their suffering. Then went to the marketplace to watch the crowd.
A woman came to view he’d not seen before. How beautiful! She stood at the pomegranate vendor’s stand to take each mottled crimson fist into her hands, tenderly one by one, to ascertain its time: This pomegranate ready, that one still too tightly closed.
She was magnificent! At sight of her the spirit of Diogenes cried out, urgent she might reach out also for his heart, as some bright orb she’d reach for at the marketplace of souls.
He must speak to her! Something, anything, before she went her way, forever out of sight — but to say what? The scarlet seeds inside his heart at very sight of her were crushed, distilled, poured out as offering.
Cruel despair welled up in him. The choicest fruit of all the universe was hanging by this vine in front of him, so near. The one he’d come so far to find, past who knows how many circling fires of space that barred his way, and there he stood by her --- struck mute as stars.
What might he give to her? The ashy residue of thinking's flame would hardly do, that darkness pooling deep in which he daily drowned. He prayed for some great light to hold, as the drowning clutch at clouds with final futile pleas.
As answer to his prayer there was a breeze that came, and then another, then the next, that built to frenzied storm.
With the first he glimpsed a life with her, when she was dear to him. Then the next, and more, when she was sister, daughter, mother, Queen, astride a throne. With each his heart was thundered, torn, and all its content spilled toward her.
Diogenes thrust his puddled mind aside and forced his feet to take a step, another, two; an eternity to arrive by her. One thimble full of stormy breath all that remained in him as, “Who ARE you?” the words rasped out.
The Goddess turned to him, her eyes met his.What was left of Diogenes stretched and snapped then like the shadows in a fire, and he was gone. A spark on its thin wing in the vast expanding emptiness. A husk that fell into some distant sun.
“What could I offer you — you who drink from the sun and feast on the moon at night?” Was it the storm that spoke to her out from his lips? It was no longer him.
She reached out for his hand, that pomegranate fist so tightly closed, to gently peel the fingers back. “What of this vast openness you are?” Her eyes were the sky through which he sailed. "Offer that to me! To keep yourself apart from all that inner noise where shadows overcome the spirit’s possibility, and idols replace what the heart once knew. Go past thought a while, and you will know: The other side of thought there is no fear, and no remorse. Not even Death can hold you then."
Diogenes felt a shift inside, an openness where thought had been.
"Such possibilities the moment holds! Do you feel it now?”
“Yes,” he sighed.
“That quiet is where I'll meet with you, the other side of words. Here in the present is your power. This is your true home, the other side of thought. Why would you leave this pure resting place, knowing I am here? Would you rather flee to fear? Have the Thinker take you in his net? ‘What of me? Will I survive?’ is the game he hopes you'll play, the trap in which he hopes you’ll fall. But you need not.
"You are the Watcher now, out beyond the Thinker’s gates. See how the Thinker seethes at your escape! Words clutter all the air around and beckon you to follow them. But you do not. Calamities are announced! Give no response. There is nothing you must figure out. You can escape the net of thought. You can wake up inside the heart.
“Here in the silence is a comfort sweet, not to be compared with thought's thin noise. See, how the brittle leaves of thought are crumbling into dust against that heart-stone your wide silence is. How the wind blows them away.
“Fear is the trance that overcomes mankind. This is the truth you’re never meant to know: The body is not you! You can let it go, as a dream when it is past, no more than that. This is the death humanity fears so: It is to wake. And why fear that?
“As for this little world, it is illusion’s dream, spinning nets of thought to clutch you to their schemes; but you have gotten under them. Under thought. On the other side of thought you’re free.
“Power. Freedom. Joy. This is the first honesty, your true eternal state. What you are and have always been."
All was still then in Diogenes. Only Seeing, simply what is so, and no self claiming it.
“I watch you as you search each day with your brave lantern lit,” the Goddess smiled, “But that’s only for some practice here a while. It's a far greater lantern you are meant to hold. Not individuals you’ll go to find, to know their hearts --- but entire worlds."
"And then?" Diogenes found his whispered voice, "When some honest world is found?"
"You'll call to me. And we shall go to it."
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James Saint Cloud
TheAliceCode@gmail.com
Very good stuff.
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