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The Brothers Karamazov
Part Two. Book IV. 1.
The sensuality of the ascetic. Reading the monk’s recitation of their ritual fasting along with the account of the monk/recluse’s even more austere diet, I couldn’t help thinking how exquisite each bite of these simple and common foods must be in the circumstances. The most common bread -- or mushrooms -- must taste like ambrosia, like the rarest dish on Lucius Licinius Lucullus’s table. Who is the real voluptuary here?
And here’s another thought I don’t recall having before: What amazing inventions religions are even if there is nothing at all behind them. To have created the most extreme examples of Jewish or Christian or Islamic mysticism out of nothing, that is truly an amazing thing. All the more as there is nothing in nature to really suggest it. Well, honestly, you’d have to push it even further back than that since Christianity and Islam are so derivative. The origin of mysticism is older and probably comes as much from South Asia as from the Near East. But, none of that matters to my point. Wherever it started, the people who got that ball rolling were exceptional. And to keep the ball moving all these millennia with no real support -- nothing visible to the senses. Again, amazing.
Of course there is subjective support for people willing to endure the sensory and dietary restrictions, to put themselves in a self-induced altered state of consciousness. And I suppose this is why David Hume was such a threat to the status quo as he sought to question the relation between cause and effect. The religious attribute their altered states to their God. Is this also why intoxicants are so problematic for the religious? A chemical “cause” for a religious “effect” is a kind of blasphemy.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m wrong there about Hume, it’s not the mystic but the analytic man who has a problem with the breakdown of cause and effect in general. Attributing the cause of spiritual experience to God is a special case.
p184 [Zossima, shortly before his death] “Love one another, Fathers,”... “Love God’s people. Because we have come here and shut ourselves within these walls, we are no holier than those that are outside, but on the contrary, but from the very fact of our coming here, each of us has confessed to himself that he is worse than the others, than all men on earth. . . . And the longer the monk lives in his seclusion, the more keenly he must recognize this fact. Else he would have had no reason to come here. When he realizes that he is not only worse than, but that he is responsible to all men for all and everything, for all human sins, national and individual, only then can the aim of our seclusion be attained. For know, dear ones, that every one of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men and everything on earth, not merely through the general sinfulness of creation, but each one personally for all mankind and every individual man. This knowledge is the crown of life for the monk and for every man. For monks are not a special sort of men, but only what all men ought to be. Only through that knowledge, our heart grows soft with infinite, universal, inexhaustible love. Then every one of you will have the power to win over the whole world by love and to wash away the sins of the world with your tears. . . . Each of you keep watch over your heart and confess your sins to yourselves unceasingly. Be not afraid of your sins, even when perceiving them, if only there be penitence, but make no conditions with God... Be proud neither to the little nor to the great. Hate not those who reject you, who insult you, who abuse and slander you. Hate not the atheists, the teachers of evil, the materialists -- and I mean not only the good ones -- for there are many good ones among them, especially in our day -- hate not even the wicked ones....”
...
p185 When Alyosha happened for a moment to leave the cell, he was struck by the excitement and suspense of the monks who were crowding about. All were expecting that some miracle would happen immediately after the elder’s death. This anticipation showed itself in some by anxiety, in others by devout solemnity. Their suspense was, from one point of view, almost frivolous, but even the most austere of the monks were affected by it...
p186 “We shall see greater things, greater things yet!” the monks... repeated.
p187 ... This Father Ferapont was that aged monk so devout in fasting and observing silence who has been mentioned already, as antagonistic to Father Zossima and the whole situation of “elders,” which he regarded as a pernicious and frivolous innovation... many of the visitors looked upon him as a great saint and ascetic, although they knew that he was crazy. But it was just the craziness that attracted them.
Father Ferapont never went to see the elder. And although he lived in the hermitage his superiors did not make him keep its regulations. He was excused because they thought he was crazy. He was seventy-five or more, and he lived in a corner beyond the apiary in an old decaying wooden cell...
...It was simply a peasant’s hut, though it looked like a chapel, for it contained an extraordinary number of ikons with lamps perpetually burning before them -- which people brought to the monastery as offerings to God...
Foucault’s view of the mysterious element of madness is evident here.
p188 It was said (and indeed it was true) that he ate only two pounds of bread in three days... The four pounds of bread, together with the sacrament bread, regularly sent him on Sundays after the late mass by the Father Superior, made up his weekly rations. The water in his jug was changed every day. He rarely appeared at mass. Visitors who came to do him homage saw him sometimes kneeling all day long at prayer without looking around. If he addressed them, he was brief, abrupt, strange, and almost always rude. On very rare occasions, however, he would talk to visitors. But what he said was often a complete riddle. And no pleading would induce him to add a word of explanation. He was not a priest, but a simple monk. There was a strange belief, chiefly however among the most ignorant, that Father Ferapont had communication with heavenly spirits and would only converse with them, and was therefore silent with men.
...
...in spite of his strict fasting and great age, Father Ferapont still looked vigorous. He was tall, held himself erect, and had a thin but fresh and healthy face... He was dressed in a peasant’s long reddish coat of coarse convict cloth... and had a coarse rope around his waist. His throat and chest were bare. Beneath his coat, his shirt of the coarsest linen showed almost black with dirt, not having been changed for months. They said that he wore irons weighing thirty pounds under his coat. His bare feet were in old slippers almost falling to pieces.
...
p190 “I went to the Father Superior on Trinity Sunday last year, I haven’t been since. I saw a devil sitting on one man’s chest hiding under his cassock; only his horns poked out. Another had one peeping out of his pocket with such sharp eyes, he was afraid of me. Another devil settled in the unclean belly of one. Another was hanging round a man’s neck and he was carrying him about without seeing him.”
...
“...I can see through them. When I was coming out from the Superior’s I saw one hiding from me behind the door. He was a big one, a yard and a half or more high, with a thick long gray tail. And the tip of his tale was in the crack of the door and I was quick and slammed the door, pinching his tail in it. He squealed and began to struggle, and I made the sign of the cross over him three times. And he died on the spot like a crushed spider. He must have rotted there in the corner and he must be stinking. But they don’t see, they don’t smell....
[A visiting monk] “Your words are terrible! But, holy and blessed Father,” ... is it true, as they noise abroad even to distant lands, that you are in continual communication with the Holy Ghost?”
“He does fly down at times.”
p191 “How does he fly down? In what form?”
“As a bird.”
“The Holy Ghost in the form of a Dove?”
“There’s the Holy Ghost and there’s the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can appear as other birds -- sometimes as a swallow, sometimes a goldfinch and sometimes as a blue-tit.”
“How do you know him from an ordinary tit?”
“He speaks.”
...
“And what does he tell you?”
“Why, today he told me that a fool would visit me and would ask me silly questions...”
...
“Do you see this tree?” asked Father Ferapont after a pause.
...
“You think it’s an elm, but for me it has another shape.”
...
“...You see those two branches? In the night it is Christ holding out His arms to me and seeking me with those arms. I see it clearly and tremble. It’s terrible, terrible!”
...
Though the monk returned to the cell he was sharing... in a bewildered state, he still cherished at heart a greater reverence for Father Ferapont than for Father Zossima. He was strongly in favor of fasting, and it was not strange that one who kept so rigid a fast... should “see marvels.” His words seemed certainly queer, but God only could tell what was hidden in those words. And were not stranger words and acts commonly seen in those who have sacrificed their intellects for the glory of God? ....
Really, I would love to know what Foucault made of all this, he must have read it. And, again, I have to point out that Pavel’s mother exceeded Ferapont in everything that he takes pride in (and he does take pride in his austerities). Of course she most exceeds him in being silent. She seemed much more “saintly” to me and of course much closer to nature. Which makes me wonder what the purpose of monks and “Fathers” really is. She seemed to have been honored and provided for in much the same way the monks are but without the status and mumbo-jumbo.
p192 [Zossima to Alyosha] ...”Are your people expecting you, my son?”
...
“Haven’t they need of you? Didn’t you promise someone yesterday to see them today?”
“I did promise -- to my father -- my brothers -- others too.”
“You see, you must go. Don’t grieve. Be sure I shall not die without your being by to hear my last word. To you I will say that word, my son, it will be my last gift to you. To you, dear son, because you love me. But now go keep your promise.”
So Zossima is Alyosha’s other father. The profound one as opposed to the profane one.
p193 [Father Paissy to Alyosha] “Remember always, young man,” ... “that science which has become a great power in the last century, has analyzed everything divine handed down to us in the holy books. After this cruel analysis the learned of this world have nothing left of all that was sacred. But they have only analyzed the parts and overlooked the whole, and indeed their blindness is marvelous. Yet the whole still stands steadfast before their eyes, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Has it not lasted nineteen centuries? Is it not still a living, a moving power in the individual soul and in the masses of the people? It is still strong and living even in the souls of atheists, who have destroyed everything! For even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it still follow the Christian ideal. And neither their subtlety nor the ardor of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old. When it has been attempted, the result has been only grotesque. Remember this especially, young man, since you are being sent into the world by your departing elder. Maybe, remembering this great day, you will not forget my words, spoken from the heart for your guidance because you are young and the temptations of the world are great and beyond your strength to endure. Well, now go, my orphan.”
This is a very interesting passage. The bit about even atheists having Christian values is certainly true for people like Richard Dawkins and I who still have the values we were raised with if not the beliefs. I will have to come back to this reference to Alyosha as an “orphan” and of the significance of the death of his real father at the hands of a person with the values of a Foucault.
Last of October
I also think of this decorating as a female thing, and while I want to support it because I know it is in defense of life and this world, I really would be happier avoiding it all together. Or so I believe. Perhaps there is a retirement home for curmudgeons that guarantees no seasonal decorations or celebrations of trivial calendar based events. I like the idea of this but I wonder if I would find the other curmudgeons too exasperating.
Isn't this the time to open up, as in Lamott's story "The Last Waltz" (which we sill get to soon) rather than bonding with like minded rocks and islands. (That Simon and Garfunkel song raised these same concerns back when I was a teen -- so I really haven't changed at all.)
I don't see myself in one of those places in any case (for one thing I couldn't afford it). I expect to be holding my building together for at least the next 12, maybe 18 years. After that, the way I look at it now, I will have a year to year option to extend my lease on life.
And on a tangent, when rushing through Walgreens around the holiday season, I can't help noticing the weird ass holiday crap they stock. Not only is it weird, but most of it is made in China. What must they think of us? Who are these strange Americans who buy this inexplicable shit? I imagine them coming over here to see just how strange we are in our natural habitat; the way I imagine going to Beijing to see how millions of Chinese drivers get along on their roads.
(I should mention here, for those of you who have joined me since The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft blog, that these little musings are in the spirit of that book by George Gissing.)
...
p185 When Alyosha happened for a moment to leave the cell, he was struck by the excitement and suspense of the monks who were crowding about. All were expecting that some miracle would happen immediately after the elder’s death. This anticipation showed itself in some by anxiety, in others by devout solemnity. Their suspense was, from one point of view, almost frivolous, but even the most austere of the monks were affected by it...
p186 “We shall see greater things, greater things yet!” the monks... repeated.
p187 ... This Father Ferapont was that aged monk so devout in fasting and observing silence who has been mentioned already, as antagonistic to Father Zossima and the whole situation of “elders,” which he regarded as a pernicious and frivolous innovation... many of the visitors looked upon him as a great saint and ascetic, although they knew that he was crazy. But it was just the craziness that attracted them.
Father Ferapont never went to see the elder. And although he lived in the hermitage his superiors did not make him keep its regulations. He was excused because they thought he was crazy. He was seventy-five or more, and he lived in a corner beyond the apiary in an old decaying wooden cell...
...It was simply a peasant’s hut, though it looked like a chapel, for it contained an extraordinary number of ikons with lamps perpetually burning before them -- which people brought to the monastery as offerings to God...
Foucault’s view of the mysterious element of madness is evident here.
p188 It was said (and indeed it was true) that he ate only two pounds of bread in three days... The four pounds of bread, together with the sacrament bread, regularly sent him on Sundays after the late mass by the Father Superior, made up his weekly rations. The water in his jug was changed every day. He rarely appeared at mass. Visitors who came to do him homage saw him sometimes kneeling all day long at prayer without looking around. If he addressed them, he was brief, abrupt, strange, and almost always rude. On very rare occasions, however, he would talk to visitors. But what he said was often a complete riddle. And no pleading would induce him to add a word of explanation. He was not a priest, but a simple monk. There was a strange belief, chiefly however among the most ignorant, that Father Ferapont had communication with heavenly spirits and would only converse with them, and was therefore silent with men.
...
...in spite of his strict fasting and great age, Father Ferapont still looked vigorous. He was tall, held himself erect, and had a thin but fresh and healthy face... He was dressed in a peasant’s long reddish coat of coarse convict cloth... and had a coarse rope around his waist. His throat and chest were bare. Beneath his coat, his shirt of the coarsest linen showed almost black with dirt, not having been changed for months. They said that he wore irons weighing thirty pounds under his coat. His bare feet were in old slippers almost falling to pieces.
...
p190 “I went to the Father Superior on Trinity Sunday last year, I haven’t been since. I saw a devil sitting on one man’s chest hiding under his cassock; only his horns poked out. Another had one peeping out of his pocket with such sharp eyes, he was afraid of me. Another devil settled in the unclean belly of one. Another was hanging round a man’s neck and he was carrying him about without seeing him.”
...
“...I can see through them. When I was coming out from the Superior’s I saw one hiding from me behind the door. He was a big one, a yard and a half or more high, with a thick long gray tail. And the tip of his tale was in the crack of the door and I was quick and slammed the door, pinching his tail in it. He squealed and began to struggle, and I made the sign of the cross over him three times. And he died on the spot like a crushed spider. He must have rotted there in the corner and he must be stinking. But they don’t see, they don’t smell....
[A visiting monk] “Your words are terrible! But, holy and blessed Father,” ... is it true, as they noise abroad even to distant lands, that you are in continual communication with the Holy Ghost?”
“He does fly down at times.”
p191 “How does he fly down? In what form?”
“As a bird.”
“The Holy Ghost in the form of a Dove?”
“There’s the Holy Ghost and there’s the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can appear as other birds -- sometimes as a swallow, sometimes a goldfinch and sometimes as a blue-tit.”
“How do you know him from an ordinary tit?”
“He speaks.”
...
“And what does he tell you?”
“Why, today he told me that a fool would visit me and would ask me silly questions...”
...
“Do you see this tree?” asked Father Ferapont after a pause.
...
“You think it’s an elm, but for me it has another shape.”
...
“...You see those two branches? In the night it is Christ holding out His arms to me and seeking me with those arms. I see it clearly and tremble. It’s terrible, terrible!”
...
Though the monk returned to the cell he was sharing... in a bewildered state, he still cherished at heart a greater reverence for Father Ferapont than for Father Zossima. He was strongly in favor of fasting, and it was not strange that one who kept so rigid a fast... should “see marvels.” His words seemed certainly queer, but God only could tell what was hidden in those words. And were not stranger words and acts commonly seen in those who have sacrificed their intellects for the glory of God? ....
Really, I would love to know what Foucault made of all this, he must have read it. And, again, I have to point out that Pavel’s mother exceeded Ferapont in everything that he takes pride in (and he does take pride in his austerities). Of course she most exceeds him in being silent. She seemed much more “saintly” to me and of course much closer to nature. Which makes me wonder what the purpose of monks and “Fathers” really is. She seemed to have been honored and provided for in much the same way the monks are but without the status and mumbo-jumbo.
p192 [Zossima to Alyosha] ...”Are your people expecting you, my son?”
...
“Haven’t they need of you? Didn’t you promise someone yesterday to see them today?”
“I did promise -- to my father -- my brothers -- others too.”
“You see, you must go. Don’t grieve. Be sure I shall not die without your being by to hear my last word. To you I will say that word, my son, it will be my last gift to you. To you, dear son, because you love me. But now go keep your promise.”
So Zossima is Alyosha’s other father. The profound one as opposed to the profane one.
p193 [Father Paissy to Alyosha] “Remember always, young man,” ... “that science which has become a great power in the last century, has analyzed everything divine handed down to us in the holy books. After this cruel analysis the learned of this world have nothing left of all that was sacred. But they have only analyzed the parts and overlooked the whole, and indeed their blindness is marvelous. Yet the whole still stands steadfast before their eyes, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Has it not lasted nineteen centuries? Is it not still a living, a moving power in the individual soul and in the masses of the people? It is still strong and living even in the souls of atheists, who have destroyed everything! For even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it still follow the Christian ideal. And neither their subtlety nor the ardor of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old. When it has been attempted, the result has been only grotesque. Remember this especially, young man, since you are being sent into the world by your departing elder. Maybe, remembering this great day, you will not forget my words, spoken from the heart for your guidance because you are young and the temptations of the world are great and beyond your strength to endure. Well, now go, my orphan.”
This is a very interesting passage. The bit about even atheists having Christian values is certainly true for people like Richard Dawkins and I who still have the values we were raised with if not the beliefs. I will have to come back to this reference to Alyosha as an “orphan” and of the significance of the death of his real father at the hands of a person with the values of a Foucault.
Last of October
As the October calendar is coming to an end, Halloween decorations are showing up everywhere. I've never been fond of this decorating for seasons and events fetish. Occasionally someone truly talented will be behind such decorations and that I do appreciate, but mostly it's just something people do by rote. It reminds me of the way the people at the Berghof in The Magic Mountain would do the same in a desperate attempt to gain some control over the unreal passage of time there. And really it is the same thing. Do people really care about Halloween or are they just trying to grasp a moment in time before another year hurdles past. I'm sure "retirement" homes -- of all sorts -- are heavily into decorating for all possible occasions.
I also think of this decorating as a female thing, and while I want to support it because I know it is in defense of life and this world, I really would be happier avoiding it all together. Or so I believe. Perhaps there is a retirement home for curmudgeons that guarantees no seasonal decorations or celebrations of trivial calendar based events. I like the idea of this but I wonder if I would find the other curmudgeons too exasperating.
Isn't this the time to open up, as in Lamott's story "The Last Waltz" (which we sill get to soon) rather than bonding with like minded rocks and islands. (That Simon and Garfunkel song raised these same concerns back when I was a teen -- so I really haven't changed at all.)
I don't see myself in one of those places in any case (for one thing I couldn't afford it). I expect to be holding my building together for at least the next 12, maybe 18 years. After that, the way I look at it now, I will have a year to year option to extend my lease on life.
And on a tangent, when rushing through Walgreens around the holiday season, I can't help noticing the weird ass holiday crap they stock. Not only is it weird, but most of it is made in China. What must they think of us? Who are these strange Americans who buy this inexplicable shit? I imagine them coming over here to see just how strange we are in our natural habitat; the way I imagine going to Beijing to see how millions of Chinese drivers get along on their roads.
(I should mention here, for those of you who have joined me since The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft blog, that these little musings are in the spirit of that book by George Gissing.)
Jump to Next: TBK. Bk IV. 2-7.
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