At The Human Level

I made a friend in England recently … here on WC. He's a younger man … and I know what you all are thinking … its on the up and up … no funny stuff … just the usual … c**k and bull thing. He's a man after my own heart … at least I think so ... and he gives me great pleasure in sharing what we know about life in the world. The man's a whip on account of his young age … so he responds to things like a soldier. But he's the best goddamn man that 5,000 years of Greek civilization ever produced.

We feel an admiration for each other … but are in the throes of discovering … that adoring another man is also like loving oneself … without the pretense and hidden agendas … that self vanity brings to the mind of the introvert. We discovered the bard in ourselves … and along the way … I think we discovered a whole lot about other people … enmeshed in the web of our relationship … who represent to us the love and affection of the world.

I'm reminded at this time of such relationships that came to pass between men such as ourselves. Emerson and Thoreau had a collaboration in their literary career that spoke volumes of the issues involved. In recent times … the sage Ramana Maharshi shared a close relationship with Paul Brunton … an Englishman. Hercules and Iolus … Vasudeva and Balram … make up the classics portion of the conveyance of this experience.

It brings me to the realization of what a man is … something my father couldn't bring himself to tell me. That a man relies on another … for his sense of sight … at what resembles himself … so that he may know what he is … both in his passions and his physical natures. It is an improvement on the mirror. Its related to high individualism … and the peculiar difficulties presented by two peacocks coming to meet each other.

Individualism supposes an experience of inquiry and understanding … in which the man stands alone ...in an experience as big as the world. In discovering himself he has to identify … name ...define … and tests the thesis of what he perceives as the truth about himself. It is therefore highly unlikely that he will come to meet another … who understands and affirms … his spoken word to the letter. My young friend may well grow to a full individualistic identity someday … but for the time being I'm grateful for his English civil manner.

My own responsibilities require that I have been true … and that I have … to the best of my knowledge. Having said that I'm reminded of the hero Archilles … who … despite the diehard loyalty of the army of the Myrmidons … fell on account of a false heel … that hid a secret only God could have known. That is my concern for my young friend in England. I wish I could heal his disposition on that level.

Archilles had challenged Hector to a duel and killed him … so say the legends. However what is less clear about the soldier is that … as a Greek he had traveled to Troy … that is in Asia Minor … to fight Priam. On the map … Troy is in the territories of the old Asia Minor … and would properly have represented the Persians. Hence the expedition to Troy … would have represented the effort … to bring back the Greek wife that was seduced into running away … by an associate of the Persian empire.

Our past comes back to haunt us always. The Greeks had won the war … by a ruse. This consist in understanding the Gods' weakness for activity … as represented by the horse. Man it appears … created a pretense of offering to the Gods his physique … and thereafter entered the sublime halls of the divine … and utterly crushed them. This may have produced a response from the sleepless dreams of the Gods in recent times.

If its any comparison to the relations I have with my English friend … it is simply this. I think I represent in thought and communication … what he has always felt in his passions. That has certainly peaked his interest … as it does mine. I am pleased to accept his compliments and to respond to his appreciation … with a responsibility to ensure that I remain simply what I am. It brings itself therefore to impact on our sexuality … and births an enlightenment to a thorny and highly contorted issue … at a personal level. I find that I understand my relations with women better as a result … and moderates my individual vanity.

The West … with its many instruments of science and innovation … brought the promise of an understanding of the physical natures … to the world. Mot … in representing to me an individual in the Western persuasion … helps me to fulfill and understand that world reality at the human level. To the Gods … it brings a new lesson in the qualities of the human … which is more than a prancing horse. Its the joy of activity … that is founded on completing the human experience … and understanding the laws of physical reality. It fulfills the oracle of Apollo.