Carpe Diem

As I was contemplating the article below  once more and the term; ” Carpe Diem” came to mind. For me this term strongly anchors the fact that , perhaps my interpretation is what Horace actually  meant—that is to engage  each moment, do the best we can, for that what God wanted us to do—so as to ensure the best possible outcome of the future—whatever that may be .Though best outcome isn`t always recognizable at the moment, only once view it from ”self or oversoul`s “perspective, as to the perception of the immediate present time of “I” maybe hidden. 

The first thing I ever learnt in Catechism  from Sr. Paschal was the question and answer : Why did God create me? And the answer according to the Catholic Church is—“God created me to  know Him, serve Him and love Him so I maybe happy with Him forever in heaven”. Simple, perhaps but has deep connotations and still true as it was  since Our Lord and even before. We maybe more sophisticated, explain it  a more complex way or try and put some sort of modern theological spin on it—but “Universal Truth”, in any which way we interpreted is “Universal Truth”. This maybe strictly my faith, but as humans we all have it within ourselves in some form, even atheists. 

Maybe it is a need, a longing a hidden code in our DNA  that is imprinted in different ways, but cosmic meaning is just as valid.  I don`t think it is grasping at straws or fear that our life is useless, that we lack some energy source, like “soul” or whatever you may call it and that we physically as well as spiritually simple come to a finite end. Hard for this for the human psyche to register this as sentient beings—infact rather impossible even for Dawkins and most of the “New Atheists” if you really listen to what they try to impart in their atheistic views. 

There is a form of solace at coming to accept this idea of “ I and myself”—it gives a deep sense of  peace, hope and trust in the eternal. I maybe entirely wrong, but its energy of peace is worth  the solace that it radiates. For me it becomes very depressing if I were to  be entwined in a belief that everything passes –which all does, but that it was all in vain and we are merely simply an empty vessel that really contained nothing but emptiness in the end. But that for me is impossible to accept all I need to look at is nature, creation and the unimaginable mystery of the universe and something deep in me innately knows—there is so much more—this is but still nothing, the moment of beginning.

Lesson in the "eternal now"

This is part of an article that I found most profound--and gives me tremendous hope about happenings in life, in  my life and anything or anyone touching us. For me it solidifies the idea that nothing passes away, all within our lives is for a reason and no matter what nothing that we have gained is ever lost, just maybe hidden temporarily. Thus I believe this is what Christ said about"treasures stored in heaven". If it were any other way then life would have no meaning, creation would be simply a futile exercise --God always has a reason which is simply hidden from our limited perception.

Now I realize this article is long, but it touched me and would like to share with you--however worth reading as it gives hope, inspiration and life to faith-and a more deep  understanding for me about existence and God.
Firebird



Br. David Steindl-Rast O.S.B on "Happiness"

Let us begin by asking: For what kinds of happiness are humans longing? Countless different things make different people happy. But our question concerns genuine happiness: that which lasts. We may be glad when this or that makes us happy for a while, but when we ask our heart what it most deeply and insistently longs for, even in the midst of delights, we hear a surprising answer: “Every delight longs for eternity.” Friedrich Nietzsche put it this way, but every man, woman, and child knows that same longing at the core of their being, even if they cannot put it into words. “Eternity?” the voice of reason may sneer, telling us to be a bit realistic. But Blaise Pascal will reply: “The heart knows reasons that reason cannot fathom.” His approach has the advantage that it allows us to start with personal experience. We will only have to ask: What kind of happiness does my own heart desire?

We are born; we want to be happy; we must die. Is there room in this universal scenario for lasting, let alone “eternal,” happiness? It would hardly seem so -- until we begin to examine “eternity” experientially. All of us think that we know what we mean by “now,” but – surprising as it may sound -- this now is eternity. We tend to imagine the now as the short stretch of time between past and future. But as long as it is a stretch, we can cut it in half. When we do, half is not, because it is no more, and the other half is not, because it is not yet. Where, then, is the now? The surprising answer is: The now is not in time.

We can even go one step further. “All is always now,” says T. S. Eliot. This statement implies a profound insight: Not only is the now not in time; time is in the now. When the future comes, it will be now, and any past event becomes now as we remember it. There is only one now. It cannot be multiplied; it simply is. The now is the opposite of time. In fact, this is Augustine’s definition: “Eternity is the now that does not pass away.” A happiness anchored in the now is eternal. This precisely is the happiness our heart desires -- eternal, and unassailable, because it is beyond the reach of “time the destroyer” (as T. S. Eliot calls time).

But how can my happiness be anchored in the eternal now while I live in time? To answer this question, we must pay attention to a distinction we make in everyday language. Sometimes we say “I,” at other times, “I myself.” There is indeed a distinction between I and Self. Experience tells me that my Self can watch my I. (Again we are building our argument on experience so that you can check it out for yourself.) You can step back and watch what your I is doing, feeling, thinking. The one who watches -- when you step back far enough to be the observer whom no one can observe -- that is your Self. The Self lives in the now; the I lives in time. Shifting your center of awareness from the I to the Self means anchoring your consciousness in the now. At first we can do this only for brief moments. But with practice -- about which we will say more, later -- we can learn to take the temporal happiness of the I lightly and enjoy more and more the “now-happiness” of the Self, the condition that accounts for genuine happiness.

So crucial is this point that a few more words about the relationship of Self and I may be 
helpful. We can become aware that the Self is one. We share it with all humans, indeed with all living beings. Our innermost Self is the Spirit that fills the universe and holds all things together. This Self is so inexhaustible that it finds ever new ways to express itself. My I is one such expression. The I is the mask which the Self puts on for a time to play a particular part on the stage of time. But the I tends to forget that it is merely a temporal mask of the Self; it likes to think that it is all that matters. By this error the I becomes the “ego,” estranged from the Self and entangled in time. But when my I serves the Self as means to express itself, as a mask serves the actor, not even death can affect my happiness.

When my time is up, my Self takes off the I-mask and retains that eternal-now happiness which, as we saw, is the genuine happiness humans long for. But we do not have to wait for the moment of death to experience this. “The moment of death is every moment,” says T. S. Eliot. “The point of intersection of the timeless with time,” he calls it, but also “the unattended moment;” unattended, because we typically pay little attention to what really matters. Once in a while, however, we cannot help but pay attention. The great psychiatrist Abraham Maslow called such moments “Peak Experiences.” He insisted that Peak Experiences cannot be distinguished 
from the experiences described by the great mystics. Thus, in digging for the deepest root of happiness we have touched upon mysticism, a basic religious phenomenon, and can proceed to our second task.



In T. S. Eliot’s “moment in and out of time,” we experience the condition of the human psyche that accounts for genuine happiness. By following Abraham Maslow’s lead we shall discover that this is at the same time the basic religious experience that gives rise to the religions in all their variety. Again, I invite you to pay attention to your own experience as starting point for our investigation. See what resonates in the following with your own memories: Now and then, often early in life, many people experience memorable, though sometimes very brief, moments that transcend our ordinary level of awareness like peaks towering above the fog below. The content of this awareness cannot be put into words, try as we may. We feel that we are one with all there is and this sense of limitless belonging fills us with awe, with profound gratitude, and with the deepest happiness we can imagine. Eliot speaks of:

            … happiness -- not the sense of well-being,
            Fruition, fulfillment, security or affection,
            … but the sudden illumination—“

The great religious traditions recount events in the lives of their founders that might have been such sudden illuminations: Moses at the Burning Bush, the Buddha’s Enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree, Jesus’ Baptism in the Jordan, Muhammad’s Illumination in a cave on Mt. Hira. Many ordinary people say of their Peak Moments: Only through this experience did it dawn on me what religion is all about. What dawns on us is a basic human religiousness. We may prefer to call it spirituality, and this, too, is fitting, for we become aware of the divine Spirit as animating our innermost Self. But “religion” rightly understood is an excellent term. Derived from the Latin “re-ligare” it denotes a mending of broken bonds -- our bonds to the Spirit, to our Self, and to all other beings. To ask if such Peak Experiences are “for real” makes no sense psychologically, as Maslow points out, for these glimpses provide our standard for determining what is “really real.”

How, then, shall we imagine the religions to grow out of this basic religiousness, or Religion (with a capital R)? Again we can use an experiential approach by remembering one of our own Peak Experiences. At the very peak of that event there is mere awareness beyond thought and concepts --“the mind is conscious, but conscious of nothing” (Eliot). But immediately afterwards our intellect clicks in; asks, “What was that?”; and answers its own question, explaining the unknown in terms of the already known. Some people start writing poetry to express their extraordinary experience. Ordinary language finds no words for it, and yet, the intellect will not rest until it makes some statement about our encounter with an actuality that transcends concepts. Here we touch upon one feature of every religious tradition: doctrine.

What characterizes our time is that we have begun to speak of World Ethics and realize that belonging must be all-inclusive.

Not only our intellect, but also our will -- our willingness as distinct from willfulness -- is aroused by the bliss we enjoy in Peak Moments through our sense of limitless belonging. This happiness that our intellect finds undeniably real, our willingness finds supremely desirable. The desire of the will moves us to action. Our will says, as it were, “If it makes us that happy to be one with all, we must live in a way that expresses our sense of belonging.” And here we touch upon another feature of every religious tradition: ethics. The bottom line of every moral code in the world is the same: This is how one must act towards those with whom one belongs together. Differences result merely from how wide one draws the circle of belonging. What characterizes our time is that we have begun to speak of World Ethics and realize that belonging must be all-inclusive.

The seed for a third and last constituent element of all religious traditions is also accessible to each of us through a Peak Experience. Not only is our intellect aroused by its truth, and our will by its goodness, but our emotions respond to its beauty. And what do the emotions say? “Let’s celebrate!” The response to this invitation is ritual in all its forms. A personal ritual may be for example our periodic return to some place where we experienced a mystical moment -- a pilgrimage to a spot that has become for us a sacred place. Thus we know the origin of doctrine, ethics, and ritual, three pillars of every religious tradition “from within,” as it were, and we know it from an experience of which Abraham Maslow claims that -- to the extent to which we are allowed to generalize in psychology -- all human beings seem to have it.

Mystic communion with the Ultimate is, by their own account, the core of every religious tradition. How this seed grows in a given case into doctrine, ethics, and ritual depends on the widely different historic conditions under which a given tradition originates and develops. Unfortunately, in the course of its history each tradition tends to get rigid. At the start, the function of doctrine is to point to the inexpressible. But soon it takes on a life of its own and, through comment upon comment, hardens into dogmatism. Ethical precepts originally want to foster a sense of belonging, but they, too, tend to become rigid, exclusive, and moralistic. With ritual, the emphasis shifts from celebration of the mystic event to ritualistic preoccupation with traditional forms. The living water of every tradition runs the risk of freezing to rigid ice in the cold climate of religious institutions and, thus, their innate happiness is lost.

At this point the question arises: Can religions recover their religiousness? Can they again become doors to that mystic happiness from which they spring? The answer is given by mystics. They thaw the ice of dogmatism, moralism, and ritualism by fiery joy in their own hearts. Ultimately this is the task of everyone who stands in a given religious tradition. Any tradition is as alive as the mystic happiness in the hearts of its members. And this mystic fervor melts also the barriers between traditions -- celebrating their variety, but strengthening their unity with each other.

It can be done, because mystics are not special human beings; rather, every human being is a special mystic. What distinguishes the great mystics is that they let their lives be transformed by mystic happiness and radiate this happiness into the world. Could all of us learn to do this? Since we have found a common root for genuine happiness -- the experience of the Self living in the Now -- and since we have found this to characterize the mystic experience that is the shared root of religions, it may well be that we can also find one characteristic shared by all successful approaches to happy living.

This article first appeared in 2013 on the  website of the Center of Law and Religion at Emory University, and is posted with their permission.

__._,_.___

Names

As I think of my life I see a pattern. As we live this mortal physical life we pass through numerous incarnations. They say that we are totally renewed—down to the very last cell every seven years. So in a way we get many chances to get our act together from God. Nothing stays the same, all is in constant motion, in an eternal flux. What made me think of this? Well—for one it reminds me of the statement of being born again. This is how. Like clothes—nothing is constant except change—which is fact is God, He whom is eternal, constant but ever expanding. Yet always the same. A paradox.

But the question is still important—who or what are we? Are we simply a moment of change, or just a small breath of God? How about names? There is a resonance to all, thus to names. Do we just have one—or many. Are we known by an eternal name that is constant? Or the vibrations gets generated as we go along giving rise to new names, new forms—but then in actuality we are not whom we really think we are or are we?  Do we form the names, or do names form us? And if we change our name consciously, does the energy change with it? Or changing a letter within a name will it have a certain influence? I have seen it happen. 

Will calling someone by a new name change them, become a new self—or the whole environment and energy field around them realign to that energy? But what if I am called something else other than my own name by an other, but I call myself something else—what takes precedence. Which is the one that has the most influence?

Firebird 

Power of love

God's wisdom made us lovers of one another.

In fact, all the particles of the world

are in love and looking for lovers.

 ~Rumi

But then Rumi is always right isn`t he?—the eternal lover of love. But then I am the embodiment of the infinite “lover of love”—in a way a mortal sin for the body, but an unfolding process for the soul. Yes—painful. You see one can talk all one wants about love, but to live it is different. Love is a total sacrifice, complete submission—a burnt offering of self . As the song goes—love hurts. 

The more we love, the greater the pain for often the synchronization of two souls is difficult, even twin  flames. The growth process of souls move at different speeds of acceleration towards union with God. Love's essence comes in and out of form in perpetual grace, from grace itself—which is the actual manifestation of God mercy and love. Infinite times in every finite moment galaxies and universes are reborn in love, with love, through love.  All of creation makes love every moment—each atom is a lover of another. Every particle sings the eternal love song—all that IS, is love itself. All that will be, is consummated in love's passion. How sad that so many fail to realize the true essence, the meaning of the language of love.

Only that which is created within the soul itself is authentic love—all else is a mirage, a sin—“missing the mark”. It is an energy that binds souls together with each other through the power of love, which is the only creative force in the mind of God— being in union with God Himself at the same moment. It draws to us the desires of our heart, at the same time it releases all that will not serve love. 

This universal power is what keeps planets, solar systems and galaxies orbiting in orchestrated harmony. The entire universe is born in love, sustained in love and moves in love. Love is the reason for all—which for many who are bound tightly to the physical fail to realize. Love can never be destroyed—all else can.

When we open our soul to love—allow the universal power to flow without hindrance—within as well as without, it becomes a positive creative force through which all is possible. Drawing those who can receive us, those who desire love and releasing those who can not. Soul love is free from limiting assumptions, shame and old patterns.

Love is closer to you than could be imagined. What you are longing for is longing for you.---but it is a blessed gift that only a few possess. So—value it, cherish it and hold it tightly in your hands, for there is nothing else—but love for being created, for existing for being. There is no dying only if one has not loved, but more so is being loved.—Death is not realizing the very power of love.

"I am your moon and your moonlight too. I am your flower garden and water too. I have come all this way, eager for you--without shoes or shawl. I want you to laugh, to kill all your worries-to love you, to nourish you" 
-Rumi
Thus am I all this for you--if you accept!

Be ever vigilant

Pray hard, meditate with all your might and envision with your soul’s eyes the vision of our true inheritance and nature. Call forth from your oversoul, where all is written and all stored .The game, the lessons, the instructions that we have forgotten because of our disconnect from God. Let us be reminded that we are the children of a great, peaceful, merciful and loving God. I know this to be true, it is burned into the very fabric of our soul, even our physical DNA, though we seem to have forgotten this immutable fact of divine revelation. There no escape from sacred truth where there is genuine loving intention. Yes-love God with your whole heart, whole soul and whole mind Catechism 101 from when I was 7 years old-still very fresh in my mind.

We have -sprung forth from the mind, the very consciousness of God, from the ocean of eternity. Anointed with divinity, created from love and blessed with forgetfulness for reasons of our own spiritual growth . We are also marked with forgetfulness so that we may choose our life through the gift of free will.

We have forgotten our true name, our true nature, our true home and our true vocation. Centering ourselves on ourselves we have lost our center in “our authentic being ”. Therefore we do not know who and what and where we really are.

We are lost. Like Prometheus we resort to stealing from God the inheritance of all that is freely and unfailingly given. This confusion creates our existential crisis, our fictitious existence, our deep disorientation, our deep unhappiness, our self inflicted woundedness  to which we are bound. Unable to break the chain that we ourselves have forged, that seems to enslave us, bind us—which is infact of our very own doing, our own choice to be exact. Squandering our treasures in a fragmented disbursement of consciousness, we fall into dysfunctional unconsciousness; a mindless, trustless, fearful, and rapacious pursuit of life, destructive of our own life and that of the Earth's well-being. Like a voice in the wilderness we lament at our self -wrought desolation. Paradise lost! Can it ever be regained? This is the question that the soul faces.

The reality that is within us-call it soul, spirit, Atman which is the reality within us, which due to our physical existence fails to grasp-or more precisely refuses to grasp the whispers of its secrets which it is trying to tell us-which is "truth"; if we really listen we can hear it clearly—for the answers are always given if we sincerely ask with an open heart. However, if we do not ask it remains hidden and all remains a mystery, an unexplained myth—deep in the very existence of love itself. Paradise; with moments of happiness, of joy, of contentment, of awareness, of enlightenment , of God realization all lie within –these treasures are never without, but entwined and grounded in the soul—excavated and unearthed through prayer, union and conversations with God. This is only found in silence, solitude and total consecration to God.

One is One

Words—they come in many ways, their meaning interpreted by the recipient in various ways, but whether they are conveyed in a most complex way where you have to use the dictionary for every word or the most simple of terms,  it often will still convey the same meaning . The # “1 is still # 1” –in any which way, be it just as a simple #1 or a complex  # 1 which may be derived  through a most difficult process of  a mathematical formula that may take hours of calculation of a most complex equation –but eventually the answer will still be #1. 

Jesus had the same idea when He spoke about prayers—and all the babbling of the one`s who wanted to attract God`s attention, --or rather  in order to look important  and holy in the eyes of man.  A form of pride, self importance and separation from others. Chosen ones. We are all created equal—the only way we can and be differentiated is through our actions most often without the world knowing.  I read somewhere a statement once that rings true for me—“ if the world knows about it , it dosn`t count”. I believe that.

God is perfect and in His wisdom He has given us all the tools that we need to be united once more within Him. This thought conjured up many things in my mind, not that I am a great thinker, but neither were many of the great saints or people who have made a huge difference in the battle for the soul of man. From the dawn of creation till now it has always been the humble, the simple , the meek that have made all the difference in the world relating to spirit—all one needs to do is read the Beatitudes or look at the simplest of saints who were giants. Humility does not equate with stupidity.

 Now, I don`t mean to say that the great philosophers, great poets, writers, spiritual thinkers, contemplatives did not make their mark; but the marks that had the greatest impact were made by the small, little pebbles  that just make a tiny ripple which eventually expanded and encompassed the entire pool—the rings ever expanding to, if it were possible to infinity. Mother Teresa was told one day—“Mother you are such a great social worker’. Mother Teresa in a most angry voice replied—”me a social worker? No—I am a contemplative  in action”.  Thus we should all be.

The Holy Spirit  moves in mysterious ways, but not in a complicated way within the soul—all that is needed is just to allow it to guide, work and  move through us  in a way that is different in each created soul. Some need a complicated demonstration of its action, some just simplicity, but that does not mean that one is superior to the other.  To God all His creation is equally loved, cherished  and  guided back to Him.

Thus says a teacher whom I greatly admire—“You only need to pray the rosary—for within its heart lies all. It contains all the  Gospels, the  `good news`. The entire collection of Gospels are within those tiny beads, in all its simplicity—for the Gospels are not just mere inspired, divine words, they are the story of our living God—Christ ”. Search all you want and you shall find nothing more— all one needs to do is simply open up one`s heart to the rosary , and one has found God and Our Lady, the Most Holy Theotokos.

Romantic egoists

There are many stories in the world with a moral to it—apart from Aesop`s Fables,  “The Great Gatsby” being one. Well according to my mother`s observation after watching it last night –actually what she said was, ”Every man should watch this movie  and learn from it. Let it be a lesson to those who love”. Well, goes both way dosn`t it? Men can be equally as cruel as women for we as humans are ruled by ego mostly—or perhaps call it “selfishness” —and Ayn Rand is entirely wrong! Nothing virtous about it at all.  Love does not come cheap, never did if it is real—the cost is great, as well as the human heart being rather fickle.  But most of all we always hurt the one`s we love the most. The greater the love, the greater the infliction of pain. 

Why is that?—perhaps it is wanting to destroy the other so as no one else shall have them—deform them in a way, in a fit of passion, all in the name of love naturally. Like the artist who destroys his work once he has glimpsed its beauty and is jealous lest an other will see it. Having said this—then the question arises-  “is love a blessing or a curse”?

F.Scott Fitzgerald`s biography is called: “The Romantic Egoists”—which is a wonderful title, filled with scores of  photos, copies of newspaper articles of the time, letters and such of his and Zelda`s entire life—I was hoping to give it to you for years now, but the time never seemed right. At the time when I first paged through it seemed that our story had a lot in common with theirs—ofcourse minus the grand lifestyle, money and  their fame. But—love chooses the prince as well as the pauper if one is blessed—or cursed? —Maybe it`s  karma as a good Buddhist would confess.

Rather funny—you seem to reside in my heart and head all the time –I think I am the one tied with invisible threads to the ”Escape me? Never…” clause of Browning, though I often wonder about the ”beloved” part. The truth probably lies with the words of Elizabeth I have to admit with great trepidation and fear. My lot in this life.

Divine rain

 


........and then there is rain. Below is a small excerpt from a longer piece, summarised partly, but not written by me of course—but non-the-less my love for it is as intense as that of the author. 

Perhaps I am a child of rain, of the ocean, of water itself. I, through this realization, or more precisely; revelation— have come to terms with my very existence. So, in a way rain, as is the ocean, is a symbolic anthem of my faith, my belief, my love - the song of my actual soul. The longing of my spirit for my home; homesickness perhaps. 

Our life is a short journey of mystery, an adventure, a quest of the eternal, but having true meaning only in being aware of the—“eternal now”. Rain being a symbol of the  very moment of awakening for me. Drip, drip, drip;  a constant reminder of being, a messenger of thoughts with wings—each drop having a significant  meaning, an actual implication for the very essence of  my spirit—a  special communication from God to me, as not to forget whence I have come from and whence I; as all living things shall return. 

Each rain drop is a song of thankfulness, of gratefulness and a joyful offering to Him from whom all things spring forth; from that eternal  fountain of  divine love. Indebted beyond measure for all the gifts I have and which I am ever receiving.......I am so blessed indeed for being loved! I am truly undeserving. My school`s motto was; Quid retribuam- "What shall I render?"-says it all.

 

Yes—rain is the eternal festival of God.

      Let me say this before rain becomes a utility that they can plan and 
distribute for money. By "they" I mean the people who cannot understand that rain is a festival, who do not appreciate its gratuity, who think that what has no price has no value, that what cannot be sold is not real, so that the only way to make something actual is to place it on the market. The time will come when they will sell you even your rain. At the moment it is still free, and I am in it. I celebrate its gratuity and its meaninglessness.

      The rain I am in is not like the rain of cities. It fills the woods with an immense and confused sound. It covers the flat roof of the cabin and its porch with inconsistent and controlled rhythms. And I listen, because it reminds me again and again that the whole world runs by rhythms I have not yet learned to recognize, rhythms that are not those of the engineer.

     The night became very dark. The rain surrounded the whole cabin with its enormous virginal myth, a whole world of meaning, of secrecy, of silence, of rumor. Think of it: all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves, soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood with water, washing out the places where men have stripped the hillside! 

     What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows!

     Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, this rain. As long as it talks I am going to listen.

     But I am also going to sleep, because here in this wilderness I have learned how to sleep again. Here I am not alien. The trees I know, the night I know, the rain I know. I close my eyes and instantly sink into the whole rainy world of which I am a part, and the world goes on with me in it, for I am not alien to it. I am alien to the noises of cities, of people, to the greed of machinery that does not sleep, the hum of power that eats up the night. Where rain, sunlight and darkness are contemned, I cannot sleep. I do not trust anything that has been fabricated to replace the climate of woods or prairies.

     I can have no confidence in places where the air is first fouled and then cleansed, where the water is first made deadly and then made safe with other poisons. There is nothing in the world of buildings that is not fabricated, and if a tree gets in among the apartment houses by mistake it is taught to grow chemically. It is given a precise reason for existing. They put a sign on it saying it is for health, beauty, perspective; that it is for peace, for prosperity; that it was planted by the mayor's daughter.

     All of this is mystification. The city itself lives on its own myth. Instead of waking up and silently existing, the city people prefer a stubborn and fabricated dream; they do not care to be a part of the night, or to be merely of the world. They have constructed a world outside the world, against the world, a world of mechanical fictions which contemn nature and seek only to use it up, thus preventing it from renewing itself and man.