Behind me there is time stretching back for ever, on to the unthinkable
beginnings, infinitely. And this is eternity. Ahead of me, where I do
not know, there is time stretching on infinitely, to eternity. These are
the two eternities.
We cannot say, they are one and the same. They are two and utterly
different. If I look at the eternity ahead, my back is towards the other
eternity, this latter is forgotten, it _is_ not. Which is the Christian
attitude. If I look at the eternity behind, back to the source, then
there is for me one eternity, one only. And this is the pagan eternity,
the eternity of Pan. This is the eternity some of us are veering round
to, in private life, during the past few years.
The two eternities are _not_ one eternity. It is only by denying the
very meaning of speech itself, that we can argue them into oneness. They
are two, relative to one another.
They are only _one_ in their mutual relation, which relation is timeless
and absolute. The eternities are temporal and relative. But their
relation is constant, absolute without mitigation.
The motion of the eternities is dual: they flow together, and they flow
apart, they flow for ever towards union, they start back forever in
opposition, to flow for ever back to the issue, back into the
unthinkable future, back into the unthinkable past.
We have known both directions. The Pagan, aristocratic, lordly,
sensuous, has declared the Eternity of the Origin, the Christian,
humble, spiritual, unselfish, democratic, has declared the Eternity of
the Issue, the End. We have heard both declarations, we have seen each
great ideal fulfilled, as far as is possible, at this time, on earth.
And now we say: “There is no eternity, there is no infinite, there is no
God, there is no immortality.”
And all the time we know we are cutting off our nose to spite our face.
Without God, without some sort of immortality, not necessarily
life-everlasting, but without _something_ absolute, we are nothing. Yet
now, in our spitefulness of self-frustration, we would rather be nothing
than listen to our own being.
God is not the one infinite, nor the other, our immortality is not in
the original eternity, neither in the ultimate eternity. God is the
utter relation between the two eternities, He is in the flowing together
and the flowing apart.
This utter relation is timeless, absolute and perfect. It is in the
Beginning and the End, just the same. Whether it be revealed or not, it
is the same. It is the Unrevealed God: what Jesus called the Holy Ghost.
My immortality is not from the beginning, in my endless ancestry. Nor is
it on ahead in life everlasting. My life comes to me from the great
Creator, the Beginner. And my spirit runs towards the Comforter, the
Goal far ahead. But I, what am I between?
These two halves I always am. But I am never _myself_ until they are
consummated into a spark of oneness, the gleam of the Holy Ghost. And in
this spark is my immortality, my non-mortal being, that which is not
swept away down either direction of time.
I am not immortal till I have achieved immortality. And immortality is
not a question of time, of everlasting life. It is a question of
consummate being. Most men die and perish away, unconsummated,
unachieved. It is not easy to achieve immortality, to win a consummate
being. It is supremely difficult. It means undaunted suffering and
undaunted enjoyment, both. And when a man has reached his ultimate of
enjoyment and his ultimate of suffering, _both_, then he knows the two
eternities, then he is made absolute, like the iris, created out of the
two. Then he is immortal. It is not a question of time. It is a question
of being. It is not a question of submission, submitting to the divine
grace: it is a question of submitting to the divine grace, in suffering
and self-obliteration, and it is a question of conquering by divine
grace, as the tiger leaps on the trembling deer, in utter satisfaction
of the Self, in complete fulfilment of desire. The fulfilment is dual.
And having known the dual fulfilment, then within the fulfilled soul is
established the divine relation, the Holy Spirit dwells there, the soul
has achieved immortality, it has attained to absolute being.
So the body of man is begotten and born in an ecstasy of delight and of
suffering. It is a flame kindled between the opposing confluent elements
of the air. It is the battle-ground and marriage-bed of the two
invisible hosts. It flames up to its full strength, and is consummate,
perfect, absolute, the human body. It is a revelation of God, it is the
foam-burst of the two waves, it is the iris of the two eternities. It is
a flame, flapping and travelling in the winds of mortality.
Then the pressure of the dark and the light relaxes, the flame sinks. We
watch the slow departure, till only the wick glows. Then there is the
dead body, cold, rigid, perfect in its absolute form, the revelation of
the consummation of the flux, a perfect jet of foam that has fallen and
is vanishing away. The two waves are fast going asunder, the snow-wreath
melts, corruption’s quick fire is burning in the achieved revelation.
We cannot bear it, that the body should decay. We cover it up, we cannot
bear it. It is the revelation of God, it is the most holy of all
revealed things. And it melts into slow putrescence.
We cannot bear it. We wish above all to preserve this achieved and
perfect form, this revelation of God. And despair comes over us when it
passes away. “_Sic transit_,” we say, in agony.
The perfect form was not achieved in time, but in timelessness. It does
not belong to today or tomorrow, or to eternity. It just _is_.
It is we who pass away, we and the whole flux of the two eternities,
these pass. This is the eternal flux. But the God-quick, which is the
constant within the flux, this is neither temporal nor eternal, it is
truly timeless. And this perfect body was a revelation of the timeless
God, timeless as He. If we, in our mortality are temporal, if we are
part of the flux of the eternities then we swirl away in our living
flux, the flesh decomposes and is lost.
But all the time, whether in the glad warm confluence of creation or in
the cold flowing-apart of corruption, the same quick remains absolute
and timeless, the revelation is in God, timeless. This alone of
mortality does not belong to the passing away, this consummation, this
revelation of God within the body, or within the soul. This revelation
of God _is_ God. But we who live, we are of the flux, we belong to the
two eternities.
Only perpetuation is a sin. The perfect relation is perfect. But it is
therefore timeless. And we must not think to tie a knot in Time, and
thus to make the consummation temporal or eternal. The consummation is
timeless, and we belong to Time, in our process of living.
Only Matter is a very slow flux, the waves ebbing slowly apart. So we
engrave the beloved image on the slow, slow wave. We have the image in
marble, or in pictured colour.
This is art, this transferring to a slow flux the form that was attained
at the maximum of confluence between the two quick waves. This is art,
the revelation of a pure, an absolute relation between the two
eternities.
Matter is a slow, big wave flowing back to the Origin. And Spirit is a
slow, infinite wave flowing back to the Goal, the ultimate Future. On
the slow wave of matter and spirit, on marble or bronze or colour or
air, and on the consciousness, we imprint a perfect revelation, and this
is art: whether it reveal the relation in creation or in corruption, it
is the same, it is a revelation of God: whether it be Piero della
Francesca or Leonardo da Vinci, the _garçon qui pisse_ or Phidias, or
Christ or Rabelais. Because the revelation is imprinted on stone or
granite, on the slow, last-receding wave, therefore it remains with us
for a long, long time, like the sculptures of Egypt. But it is all the
time slowly passing away, unhindered, in its own time.
It passes away, but it is not in any sense lost. Our souls are
established upon all the revelations, upon all the timeless achieved
relationships, as the seed contains a convoluted memory of all the
revelation in the plant it represents. The flower is the burning of God
in the bush: the flame of the Holy Ghost: the actual Presence of
accomplished oneness, accomplished out of twoness. The true God is
_created_ every time a pure relationship, or a consummation out of
twoness into oneness takes place. So that the poppy flower is God come
red out of the poppy-plant. And a man, if he win to a sheer fusion in
himself of all the manifold creation, a pure relation, a sheer gleam of
oneness out of manyness, then this man is God created where before God
was uncreate. He is the Holy Ghost in tissue of flame and flesh, whereas
before, the Holy Ghost was but Ghost. It is true of a man as it is true
of a dandelion or of a tiger or of a dove. Each creature, by some
mystery, achieved a consummation in itself of all the wandering sky and
sinking earth, and leaped into the other kingdom, where flowers are, of
the gleaming Ghost. So it is for ever. The two waves of Time flow in
from the eternities, towards a meeting, a consummation. And the meeting,
the consummation, is heaven, is absolute. All the while, as long as time
lasts, the shock of the two waves passed into oneness, there is a new
heaven. All the while, heaven is created from the flux of time, the
galaxies between the night. And we too may be heavenly bodies, however
we swirl back in the flux. When we have surged into being, when we have
caught fire with friction, we are the immortals of heaven, the invisible
stars that make the galaxy of night, no matter how the skies are tossed
about. We can forget, but we cannot cease to be. Life nor death makes
any difference, once we _are_.
For ever the kingdom of Heaven is established more perfectly, more
beautifully, between the flux of the two eternities.
One by one, in our consummation, we pass, a new star, into the galaxy
that arches between the nightfall and the dawn, one by one, like the
bushes in the desert, we take fire with God, and burn timelessly: and
within the flame is heaven that has come to pass. Every flower that
comes out, every bird that sings, every hawk that drops like a blade on
her prey, every tiger flashing his paws, every serpent hissing out
poison, every dove bubbling in the leaves, this is timeless heaven
established from the flood, in this we have our form and our being.
Every night new Heaven may ripple into being, every era a new Cycle of
God may take place.
But it is all timeless. The error of errors is to try to keep heaven
fixed and rocking like a boat anchored within the flux of time. Then
there is sure to be shipwreck: “_Die Wellen verschlingen am Ende
Schiffer und Kahn._” From the flux of time Heaven takes place in
timelessness. The flux must go on.
This is sin, this tying the knot in Time, this anchoring the ark of
eternal truth upon the waters. There is no ark, there is no eternal
system, there is no rock of eternal truth. In Time and in Eternity all
is flux. Only in the other dimension, which is not the time-space
dimension, is there Heaven. We can no more _stay_ in this heaven, than
the flower can stay on its stem. We come and go.
So the body that came into being and walked transfigured in heavenliness
must lie down and fuse away in the slow fire of corruption. Time swirls
away, out of sight of the heavenliness. Heaven is not here nor there nor
anywhere. Heaven is in the other dimension. In the young, in the unborn,
this kingdom of Heaven which was revealed and has passed away, is
established; of this Heaven the young and the unborn have their being.
And if in us the Heaven be not revealed, if there be no transfiguration,
no consummation, then the infants cry in the night, in want, void,
strong want.
This is evil, this desire for constancy, for fixity in the temporal
world. This is the denial of the absolute good, the revocation of the
Kingdom of Heaven.
We cannot know God, in terms of the permanent, temporal world; we
cannot. We can only know the _revelation_ of God in the physical world.
And the revelation of God is God. But it vanishes as the rainbow. The
revelation is a condition in the whole flux of time. When this condition
has passed away, the revelation is no more revealed. It has gone. And
then God is gone, except to memory, a remembering of a critical moment
within the flux. But there is no revelation of God in memory. Memory is
not truth. Memory is persistence, perpetuation of a momentary cohesion
in the flux. God is gone, until next time. But the next time will come.
And then again we shall _see_ God, and once more, it will be different.
It is always different.
And we are all, now, living on the stale memory of a revelation of God.
Which is purely a repetitive and temporal thing. But it contains us, it
is our prison.
Whereas, there is nothing for a man to do but to behold God, and to
become God. It is no good living on memory. When the flower opens, see
him, don’t remember him. When the sun shines, be him, and then cease
again.
So we seek war, death, to kill this memory within us. We hate this
imprisoning memory so much, we will kill the whole world rather than
remain in prison to it. But why do we not create a new revelation of
God, instead of seeking merely the destruction of the old revelations?
We do this, because we are cowards. We say “The great revelation cannot
be destroyed, but I, who am a failure, I can be destroyed”. So we
destroy the individual stones rather than decide to pull down the whole
edifice. The edifice must stand, but the individual bricks must
sacrifice themselves. So carefully we remove single lives from the
edifice, and we destroy these single lives, carefully supporting the
edifice in the weakened place.
And the soldier says: “I die for my God and my Country”. When, as a
matter of fact, in his death his God and his country are so much
destroyed.
But we must always lie, always convert our action to a lie. We know that
we are living in a state of falsity, that all our social and religious
form is dead, a crystallised lie. Yet we say: “We will die for our
social and religious form”.
In truth, we proceed to die because the whole frame of our life is a
falsity, and we know that, if we die sufficiently, the whole frame and
form and edifice will collapse upon itself. But it were much better to
pull it down and have a great clear space, than to have it collapse on
top of us. For we shall be like Samson, buried among the ruins.
And moreover, if we are like Samson, trying to pull the temple down, we
must remember that the next generation will be none the less slaves,
sightless, in Gaza, at the mill. And they will be by no means eager to
commit suicide by bringing more temple beams down with a bang on their
heads. They will say: “It is a very nice temple, quite weather-tight.
What’s wrong with it?” They will be near enough to extinction to be very
canny and cautious about imperilling themselves.
No, if we are to break through, it must be in the strength of life
bubbling inside us. The chicken does not break the shell out of
animosity against the shell. It bursts out in its blind desire to move
under a greater heavens.
And so must we. We must burst out, and move under a greater heavens. As
the chicken bursts out, and has a whole new universe to get into
relationship with.
Our universe is not much more than a mannerism with us now. If we break
through, we shall find, that man is not man, as he seems to be, nor
woman woman. The present seeming is a ridiculous travesty. And even the
sun is not the sun as it appears to be. It is something tingling with
magnificence.
And then starts the one glorious activity of man: the getting himself
into a new relationship with a new heaven and a new earth. Oh, if we
knew, the earth is everything and the sun is everything that we have
missed knowing. But if we persist in our attitude of parasites on the
body of earth and sun, the earth and the sun will be mere victims on
which we feed our louse-like complacency for a long time yet: we, a
myriad myriad little egos, five billion feeding like one.
The thing in itself! Why I never yet met a man who was anything but what
he had been _told_ to be. Let a man be a man-in-himself, and then he can
begin to talk about the _Ding an Sich_. Men may be utterly different
from the things they now seem. And then they will behold, to their
astonishment, that the sun is absolutely different from the thing they
now see, and that they call “sun”.