Hymns and Prayers
Presented on: Tuesday, June 13, 1989
Presented by: Roger Weir
Dead Sea Scrolls
Presentation 11 of 15
Hymns and Prayers
Presented by Roger Weir
Tuesday, June 13, 1989
Transcript:
We come tonight to try to understand the central place of hymns and prayers. Why hymns and prayers in sacred poetry are the operative core of the Western spiritual tradition. I think in our day suffer from such disadvantages of not having a coherent civilized presentation in our growing up and in our education. We don't understand how central and traditional the core of prayer and sacred poetry and hymns are. How archetypal is the experience. Even the very form of the image of paradise in Dante, for instance, is that of a celestial rose, a white rose. The petals of which are the wings of the Angels. And that this whole living flower of heaven, of paradise, is abuzz with the choired voices of the angels singing the praises of God. That that is what paradise is. The celestial choir sing to God. Somewhat different from the dogs next door, I assure you.
Why should this be paradise? Is this in fact paradise? And colloquial mine bawks at this and thinks well that might be all right for an hour or an evening but for eternity. How can this possibly be an ongoing eternal show? That we wouldn't get bored with, you see. And this is exactly what's wrong with the world. Is the expectation that the spiritual choir would be boring. It's the perfect foil it's the very demonic threshold that keeps us in chains, as it were, to the shallow shifting miasma of worldliness. It's the antithesis of the glitz that we think we would like. and the boring aspect of the eternal song of praise to God seems to us, at least if not incomprehensible certainly not something desirable beyond maybe two weeks, something like that. This is the essence of the ignorance of our time. It's the very place, the sore spot in the psyche that when we use language like I'm using now and we push against this particular issue, that the soreness reveals itself. This is exactly where the, the psychotic edge of our consciousness comes to rest.
In fact, spiritual prayer and sacred poetry have always been since the time of, oh at least the beginnings of written language, have always been the central core in the Western tradition. That is to say in Ugaritic and Canaanite literature, Sumerian literature of 2000 B.C., already you find the spiritual poem as the, the central experience. The Psalms of David are really the historical beginning point in terms of the development of their religious consciousness. And The Psalms of David as they appear in The Old Testament. And I'm going to use for you A.F. Kirkpatrick's Book of the Psalms published by Cambridge University Press published in 1901 and still in print. Still a very handy, beautiful volume.
And at the very beginning of this, quoting Dean Church who was an elegant 19th century English poet.
In the Psalms the soul turns inward on itself. And their great feature is that they are the expression of a large spiritual experience. They come straight from the heart within the heart. And the secret depths of the spirit. Where in those rough cruel days did, they come from those piercing lightning-like gleams of strange spiritual truth. those magnificent outlooks over the kingdom of God. Those raptures at his presence and his glory. Those wonderful disclosures of self-knowledge. those pure outpourings of the love of God. Surely here is something more than the mere working of the mind of man. Surely, they tell of higher guiding, prepared for all time. Surely as we believe they hear the word behind them saying, this is the way. Walk ye in it. They repeat the whispers of the Spirit of God. They reflect the very light of the eternal wisdom. In that wild time there must have been men sheltered and hidden amid the tumult round them, humble and faithful and true. To whom the Holy Ghost could open by degrees the wondrous things of his law. Whom he taught and whose mouths he opened to teach their brethren by their own experience and to do each their part in the great preparation.
Now the, the traditional understanding on very high sophisticated level is that the experience of Jesus was a coming together. A juncture of all of the patterns of development. Of all of the preparation themes and motifs that had gone on before. And one can see in a psychological sense, and even in a sociological way, that in fact the lifetime of Jesus from about 8 B.C. to about 36 A.D. In that 44-year period, all of the strands of meaning did in fact come together. They came together in such a way that they were put into an integration which is still operative in our psyches. We still have the psyche which was made and fashioned at that time. We are radically different from people who lived in the 1st century B.C. And those people who lived in the1st century B.C. have the same kind of psyches as people who live 1900 B.C. But they have different psyches from people who lived in 2400 B.C.
So that we know from the actual inspection and experience. From looking at the evidence, as it were. From looking at the patterns. That in some large cycle the form of the psyche changes. The way it's put together is different. And that this does not happen gradually so much. There is a preparation which is gradual but that the change comes in a single lifetime. It's like the very principle that we now know is operative in evolution. That there isn't an infinite number of in-between states between species. But that there is at a particular opportune time a jump. This species is different now from the parent generation. It's almost like, a mutation idea in the colloquial mind. Although microbiology is able to explain this phenomenon quite adequately now by the late 1980s.
So that there is a trigger time. That's the idea here. There is a trigger time. The lifetime of Jesus is a trigger time. The main dynamic, the main engine, which powered that trigger time was the use of sacred poetry. The use of hymns. And it was the internalizing of meaning via the Royal Road of thinking about hymns, interpreting sacred scripture, taking into one's meditation passages and words, especially from the Psalms. Or especially from sacred poems which were affine to the Psalms, that was the central dynamic of internalizing the meaning. It was like gathering up, like hands that gathered up the conduits, which were all disparate before. They were woven into a whole different fabric.
And it's like this prayer mode, the sacred poetry mode, the hymn mode, took the ends of all of the threads and brought them together in a new way. And instead of having them woven into a fabric, they were brought together in a single conduit, which was very strong and powered the meaning in one single direction. Almost like a laser. So that in a coherent resonance this meaning triggered a new psyche. A new center of the psyche, which then in its own natural radiant talismanic form gave us the mind which we have today.
Now we know that individuals who are not in this particular tradition do not have our mind. For instance, psychotherapy of American Indians shows that they do not have the mind that we have. Psychotherapy of Chinese show they do not have the mind that we have. They have a totally different mind structure. Psychotherapy of people in India is the same as people in Ireland. Psychotherapy of people in Tibet is the same as people in Egypt. So that there is a mind which is shared in a broad swath of the world. But is the only mind in the world. The Chinese, the Inuit people, the Eskimos, the Indians of the North and South America, the Polynesians, do not have our mind.
Now for our mind, the central experience begins with the Psalms. And the Psalms traditionally were divided into five books. So that there was a five-book law, a Torah of Moses and a five-book sacred poetry of David. so that the prophetic line is the Torah from Moses. And the poetic line are the psalms from David. The one leads to a king ship. The one leads to a royal personality. The other leads to a prophetic personality.
Now Kirkpatrick in here was a very intelligent about this. Quite excellent. Tells us on page 76 of his introduction under the aegis of the title of A Messianic Hope. He writes,
Poetry was the handmaid of prophecy. In preparing the way for the coming of Christ, prophetic ideas are taken up developed, pressed to their full consequences with the boldness and enthusiasm of inspired imagination. The constant use of the psalms for devotion and worship familiarized the people with them. Expectation was aroused and kept alive. Hope became part of the national life. Even Psalms which were not felt beforehand to speak of him who was to come, contributed to mold the temper of mind. Which was prepared to receive him when he came in form and fashion. Far other than that which popular hopes had anticipated. And they were recognized in the event as pointing forward to him. Now this work of preparation went forward along several distinct lines. Some of which are seen to converge or meet even in The Old Testament. While others only we're only harmonized by the fulfilment. Thus, there are some Psalms that pointed forward to the Messiah as the Son of God. or as the King. Or as a high priests. Others prepared the way for the suffering redeemer motif. Others only defined their full meaning and the idea of the perfect son of God, son of man, son of God. Others foretell the advent of Jehovah himself to judge and redeem.
Shall we stop? No? Let's just stop and let's wait for the machines. I want you all to be comfortable and attentive. Let's just stop the machines for a little bit. Let's sit quietly for that.
So, the psalms are divided into five books. And in fact, we can you know we can go through and I can give you all of the detail if you, if you like. Just to have it on your page. Psalms 1 to 41 are the first book. And the psalms 42 to 72 are the second book. And Psalm 73 to 89 are the third book. And psalms 90 to 106 are the fourth book. And psalms 107 to 150 of the fifth book.
Now notice there are five books like five fingers of the hand. So that it's just like the Torah is one hand and the Psalms are the other hand. If you bring those two hands together you have the effective mode of prayer. If you only have one of the five, if you only have the Torah, its inscrutable. It's like the sound of one hand clapping. So that you bring the two together. You bring the prophets clustered around Moses and the Torah and you bring the poets clustered around David and the Psalms together.
Now it's esoteric to us in our time because we live in the junk yard. Nobody knows what anything is for anymore. But there was a time 2200 years ago where this was the very basis of life for that synthesizing core that we're interested in. The 2nd century B.C. Jewish individual, who had found himself completely massacred psychologically by the Hellenistic experience. And had gone off to Qumran and dedicated himself to whatever lay ahead. Understood that somehow these two hands have to be brought together. And he was told that there is a new way to bring these two together. And that a new covenant comes out of this to bring the five parts of the Torah and five parts of the psalms together.
So, the process was to purify the Torah exteriorly and purify the experience of the psalms interiorly. The prophecy was for the outer architecture and the poetry was for the inner psychology. And so, they were putting the Psalms into the Torah in a new way. It's a form of Prayer like this. Where one hand grasps the other. And you'll still see a lot of old rabbis who pray like this.
The radical thing that Jesus did was to change that iconography to the two palms brought together like this. In, in perfect balance.
Now there's a lot of esotericism in here. If the fingers are all touching you have a closed circuit. You have a seal. If you spread the middle fingers just slightly so there's a space there, that's the teaching mode. that's the space of teaching. That releases the energy. And you can, you can generate a tremendous amount of psychic energy. Of spiritual dynamism by, by doing this right. By bringing your interior flush with your exterior and then directing the, the interface.
Now with the Psalms, five parts. And while there are five parts, you'll notice that just like a hand there are four spaces in between the five parts. In The Book of The Psalms there are four spaces in the Psalms where there are passages that allow for a closing of one book and a transition to another book. So that they are punctuations. They are spaces. So, at the end of the psalms, at the end of the 150th Psalm there is no punctuation. Because 150th Psalm itself is the grand coda for all of the preceding 149 Psalms.
So that for instance if we got to, they called these spaces in between, they used to call them Kirkpatrick at the turn of the 20th century. Because of the, the language of background of, of the Episcopal tradition, they called them doxologies. Doxologies.
So that for instance here are the closes, the actual closes in the Psalms. The psalm, the first one is in psalm 41. Starts with verse 13. The second one is in Psalm 72, starts with 18-19. The third one is Psalm 89 starts with verse 52. And the fourth one is Psalm 106, starts with verse 48. In other words, all you need to understand here is that there is a, there was a structure. There was an architectonic to the whole shape of the Psalms. And there were 150 psalms because this was the completed shape.
Now at Qumran were found Psalms that are not in the 150 psalms. There were six Psalms that were found in cave 11 at Qumran. And they simply are other psalms, which are not in the traditional book. they're not, not in the structure. That was given out.
Now this book, The Psalm Scroll was published box at Oxford University in 1965. And it was an enormous expensive tome. And almost nobody has seen it. The public certainly knows nothing about it. And it was edited by a man named J.A. Sanders. And it can contain six non canonical poems interspersed among the canonical psalms.
Now what's important here is that at Qumran these non-canonical poems that are interspersed among the Psalms were definite indication that the psalmic structure was in transformation. They were not adding new Psalms to it just to add to the collection. But that the structure of the Davidian Psalms was in process of transforming. Now we know other than from Qumran that this process was integral with the shift in consciousness. Because one of the books that has survived to give us a cue is The Wisdom of Ben Sira. Now Ben Sira we know was translated in Alexandria and 130 B.C. by the grandson of Ben Sira. Who had written it around 180 A.D., or B.C. just about the time though about the last time before Qumran was founded. Qumran would, would have been founded by the Teacher of Righteousness initially somewhere around the mid 160s. But already at the end of Ben Siras book, when he has already finished his book. and we know he's finished it because we can analyze the structure. And it's been analyzed very well, and the words come to an end at chapter 50.
But there is a chapter 51 to The Wisdom of Ben Sira. And chapter 51 is like a postscript of prayers. Chapter 51 begins with Ben Sierra's prayer and continues then and then. And Ben Sira's prayer is very, very sophisticated. And comes on to the hymn of praise from the time of Ben Sira and then ends with an autobiographical poem on wisdom.
So, at the end of Ben Sira are three hymns, three sacred poems, which come from the man himself that were put as an appendix to his work. Which means that that work, and if one reads through The Wisdom of Ben Sira, it's a presentation of how grand the Hebrew tradition had been at one time. Implying how terrible it is that it has fallen. It's fallen on these kinds of conditions.
Here is a little bit of Ben Siras prayer, I give you thanks Lord and King. I praise you my Savior God. I proclaim your name my life's refuge. Because you have redeemed me from Death. Held back my body from the pit. And feed my foot from the clutches of the Netherworld. So, you see what a fine powerful traditional prayer is here.
And also, the form of, the whole form of Ben Siras Prayer. There are six stanzas. And it has the kind of relationship that the first stanza is op
opposite to the sixth stanza. The second stanza is opposite to the fifth stanza. And the third stanza is opposite to the fourth stanza. So that when one reads the first stanza from beginning to end one can also read the six stands of backwards, in terms of themes. And there would be a parallel. One would read the second stanza through and you could read the fifth stanza backwards and they would be parallel. You can read the third stanza through and the fourth one backwards and they would be parallel. So that at the exact center of the poem is also a psychological meditative fulcrum.
Let's wait. Let's turn off the machines. That's wait.
Now we're talking about Ben Siras poem. We're talking about how the first three stanzas lead into the center. And the last three stanzas in an adverse way work out from the center. So that you could read one and six coming towards the center. Two and five coming closer to the center. Three and four coming closer closest to the center. Close, closer, closest. And the space in between three and four is, is the center.
So that if one uses Ben Siras prayer as a meditation symbol, in the correct way, you will find a way to have a plumb bob in language meditation form to get to your center. That's why it's in the book. It's the first time that it ever occurs in the Jewish tradition. It doesn't occur in the Psalms. When the Psalms get really Esoteric, the way the Psalms get esoteric is they get Acrostic. They call the they call the couplets in Hebrew poetry bicola. Bi meaning two. Cola meaning life. bicola.
So, when you get to a significant pattern in the Psalms you have 22 bicola. And each bicola begins with one of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. And you run through aleph all the way through the Hebrew alphabet. It's the same structure feels like the 22 major cards of the, the Archaean of the tarot deck. it's an acrostic presentation as the , the essential symbolic archetypal pattern of the meaning. And tarot cards are old-fashioned. They're old-fashioned just like the Davidian acrostic pattern.
The pattern in Ben Siras prayer is the pattern that you find later on in the esoteric kinds of prayer that come out. For instance, like The Lord's Prayer by Jesus. And all really sophisticated high-level consciousness sacred poetry that comes out later on. Instead of having an index to the fabric of the mind, you have the focusing to the center of the mind. Not interested in the whole, in indexing the fabric of the mind. You're interested in coming to the pendulum center of the mind. Why? Because that pendulum center of the mind is formed. And I almost have to use an Elizabethan kind of a language here. Its form-ed. The center of the mind has a form. So, it's like a bell. So that if you in your, in your experience get to the center of your mind it's like ringing a bell. And the resonance of the center of your mind goes out through the whole structure of your consciousness and indexes it in terms of the center. Not in terms of the expressive tabs that have gotten at you they're from this world's experience. So that you index the mind by the central experience of God. And not by the correlation of worldly meaning.
Now any language that's in alphabet language is developed in the world. But the language of silence is from God. It's like a whole different outlook. Completely different.
This form of this form of sacred prayer is so traditional. It is such a mainstay in the core of Western civilization at its highest level that we can come to an example of a sacred poem, sacred prayer. I'm going to read you this sacred prayer. And then I'll tell you what its date is and who it's from. It's simply entitled By Silence. And it's as traditional as you can get on the sophisticated real level of indexing the mind by the ringing of the bell of the silent divine within, at the center. No letters. No numbers. The all. Here's the poem. Comes out of the same experience that your people did with Hermetic wisdom liturgy.
Father in Heaven. Thou dust speak to man in many ways. Thou to whom alone belongeth wisdom and understanding. It desirous thyself to be understood by man. Even when thou are silent, still thou speakest to him. For the one who sayeth nothing yet speaketh in order to examine the disciple. The one who saith nothing yet speaketh in order to try the beloved one. The one who saith nothing yet speaketh so that the hour of understanding be more profound. Is it not thus father in heaven? Oh, in the time of silence when man remains alone. Abandoned when he does not hear thy voice. it seems to him doubtless, but the separation must last forever. Oh, in the time of silence when a man consumes himself in the desert in which he does not hear thy voice. It seems to him doubtless that it is completely extinguished. Father in heaven it is only a moment of silence in an intimacy of conversation. Bless then this silence as thy word to man. Grant that he never forgets that thou speakest also when thou art silent. Give him this consolation. If he waits on thee that thou art silent through love. And that thou speakest through love. so that in thy silence as in thy word thou art still the same father. And that it is still the same paternal love that thou guide us by thy voice. And that thou dost instruct by thy silence.
Now you can see while I was reading it, appropriately the demonic resistances through a fire engine. It's just part of the way things are. This poem was written by Soren Kierkegaard around 1840. It is completely within the tradition. It's exactly resonant to the hymns of the Teacher of Righteousness some 2,000 years before. Exactly.
Now I brought in two other points so that you can, you can draw the line in your mind. This is The Omnibus of Sources of Writings of Saint Francis of Assisi. And the poem I'm gonna read to you from Saint Francis was written around the year 1215. Saint Francis did a liturgy just like I've done for you that has Psalms in it and so forth. And he, his, and it's called the Office of the Passion and it starts on page 140 in this omnibus.
But I want to read for you his little poem of Praises of God. Now one of his closest companions was brother Leo. And brother Leo very frequently went meditating with Saint Francis out in the mountains. And out in the countryside. and sometimes just in the ends or the places that they would find himself sometimes just on the road. And brother Leo had wanted to ask Saint Francis for a poem. For a prayer. And couldn't quite bring himself to say anything. But Saint Francis being a first-class religious consciousness knew already. And so, one day asked brother Leo to bring him paper and ink. And he wrote this poem for brother Leo to carry around for himself. and he did. And it survived all this time brother Leo kept it. It's entitled Praises of God written by Saint Francis of Assisi.
You are holy Lord. the only God. And your deeds are wonderful. you are strong. You are great. You are Most High. You are Almighty. You Holy Father are king of heaven and earth. You are three and one. Lord God all good. You are good, all good, supreme good. Lord God living and true. You are love. You are wisdom. You are humility. You are endurance. You are at rest. You are at peace. You are joy and gladness. You are justice in moderation. You are all our riches and you suffice for us. you are beauty. You are gentleness. You are protector. You are our guardian and defender. You are courage. You are our haven and our hope. You are our faith, our great consolation. You are our eternal life, great and wonderful Lord. God Almighty merciful Savior.
And then he appended a blessing for brother Leo to this praises for God which reads, God would bless you and keep you. May God smile on you and be merciful to you. May God turn his regard toward you. And give you peace. May God bless you brother Leo.
Now what is so powerful about Francis's loveliness in here, is his complete round robin circle of delineating God as every aspect that you could possibly conceive and hope that he would be. And then the ability to say that all of this comes into focus for you. No matter how grand and broad the sweep of God is and really is, it includes the ability to come completely into focus all of it to you. God bless you brother Leo. This God who is all of these things this is Saint Francis's exquisite wonderful honest way of showing this **inaudible word**. So that when one goes into one's own interior you have the full scope of God.
Let's change our cassettes
END OF SIDE ONE
No matter what the sweep of God is, Saint Francis tells us, he comes together in you. But only exactly at your center. It's not a dead center it's the only live center there is you.
Now notice that 1400 years before Saint Francis here's how The Hymn of praise from Ben Sira runs. This is 1,400 years before Saint Francis.
Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. Give thanks to the God of our praises, for His mercy endures forever. Give thanks to the Guardian of Israel, for His mercy endures forever. Give thanks to him who formed all things, for his mercy endures forever. Give thanks to the Redeemer of Israel, for his mercy endures forever. Give thanks to him who has gathered Israel's disper
dispersed, for His mercy endures forever. Give thanks to him who built his city and his sanctuary, for his mercy endures forever. Give thanks to him who makes a horn to sprout for the house of David, for his mercy endures forever. Give thanks to him who was chosen the sons of Tzadik as his priests, for his mercy endures forever.
So, you can see. And it ends with, Praise the Lord. You can see the resonance 1400 years later in Saint Francis with this Hymn of Praise from the time of Ben Sira.
You can see also when you come to Saint Ephrem. Saint Ephrem is the, is the great genius in the Syriac of tradition. The Armenian Syria Christian tradition. Saint Ephrem lived in the 4th century, about 305 to about 373 A.D. notice how close to Søren Kierkegaard some 1500 years later is Saint Ephram's Hymn on faith. I'll just read a little bit of it.
To you Lord do I offer up my faith with my voice. For prayer and petition can both be conceived in the mind and brought to birth in silence, without using the voice. Blessed is your birth for your father alone is aware of it. If the womb holds back the child and both mother and child will die, may my mouth Lord not hold back my faith with the result that the one perish and the other be quenched. The two of them perishing each because of the other. The tree that holds back its buds withers up. And the birth now the green bud miscarries. But if fruit buds appear from the womb of the tree full of sap then let my faith rejoice. The seeds swollen with moisture bursts asunder. Its covering of soil and out peers the blade of wheat full of symbols. So, faith whose bosom is filled with goodly fruits is a blade bearing praise. Fish are both conceived and born in the sea. If they dive deep, they escape those who would catch them in luminous silence within the mind. Let prayer recollect itself so as not to stray. Petition that has been refined is the Virgin of the inner chamber. If she passes the door of the mouth, she is like one astray. Truth is her bridal chamber. Love her crown. Stillness and silence are the trusting eunuchs at her door. She is betrothed to the king's son, let her not come wanting me out. but let fate who is publicly the bride be escorted in the streets in the back of the voice, carried from the mouth to the bridal chamber of the ear. Jonah heard a prayer and prayed a prayer that had no sound. The herald was put to silence in the fish's belly. And out of the dumb creature did his prayer creep forth. And God on high heard for his silence served as a cry. In a single body are both prayer and faith to be found. The one hidden the other revealed. The one there for the hidden one the other to be seen. Hidden prayer is for the hidden ear of God. While faith is for the visible ear of humanity.
So, you can see here are two examples. Ben Sira and Saint Francis of Assisi, 1400 years apart. Saint Ephraim and Søren Kierkegaard, 1500 years apart. You can see the resonances. And these are just two examples for you out of literally thousands. I could have chosen hundreds myself and I'm sure someone even more educated and deeper than me could have chosen thousands.
It's the central core of the Western spiritual tradition. Notice that the core is not in mastering diagrams. It's in being able to plumb your depths to the focus. And that the focus is the resonance of the real. And its resonance indexes in terms of the real the entire field of consciousness. The entire spectrum of life. This was the central message.
Now here is a poem from The Dead Sea Scrolls. This is Asseriac Psalm, which was found at Qumran. And let's, let's just have part of this so that you can get the flavor of it. This would have been from the 1st century B.C. Very close to the time of the birth of Jesus. Probably within 20 years of the birth of Jesus. This characteristic of, in other words this is characteristic of the Qumran community around the time when the mother of Jesus was born. Mary. She was born about 23 B.C. This is on page 210 of Giza Vermes The Dead Sea Scrolls in English.
Lord I have called to thee, hear me. I have spread out my hands towards thy holy dwelling place. Turn thine ear and grant me my request and my plea. Do not withhold from me. Construct my soul and do not cast it away. And do not leave it alone before the wicked. May the true judge turn from me the rewards of evil. Lord do not judge me according to my sins. For no living man is righteous before thee. Lord cause me to understand thy law and teach me thy judgments. And the multitude shall hear of thy deeds. And people shall honor thy glory. Remember me and forget me not. And bring me not to unbearable hardships. Put away from me the sin of my youth. And may my sins not be remembered against me. Lord cleanse me from the evil plague and let it not return to me. Dry up its roots within me. Permit not its leaves to flourish in me. Lord thou art glory. Therefore, my plea is fulfilled before thee. From before thee O Lord comes my trust.
And so, you see this this powerful characteristic internal.
Now at the very same time, and we need to emphasize this, at the very same time there were many people who did not in fact do this. They did not do this process. They did not go completely within. In other words, there were a lot of approximations and not everyone got to perfection. Even within these secret communities. Even with the, the camps of the, of the elect. Remember now that from, even from the time the Teacher of Righteousness there's always dissent within. It isn't everyone who's involved who gets there. Many are called, few are chosen. It's just a fact. Very, very few actually do it.
The emphasis I must say to you, that I've discovered is not based upon intelligence. It's not based upon dynamic. It's based upon the simple fact, did you do it? And there were almost. I didn't want to put a percentage on, but I would say 90% of the people played with it and didn't really do it. I'd be surprised at 10% of the questing community ever really did it. But that was enough.
So that you find along with these fine prayers and these additional Psalms, you find all kinds of material that show approximations. That show a peculiar kind of mentality developing. A kind of a false association. A kind of a use of high-powered imagination. In other words, beautiful fictions proliferated. Daydreams proliferated. Metaphysical systems proliferated. You find angelologies. Demonologies. All kinds of schemes. All kinds of highfalutin imaginations. That it's like a surrounding whirlwind. And you find it here in the Qumran material too.
Here for instance. I'll just read you some of the contemporaneous language. I won't go into it all the way.
At their marvelous stations are spirits. Many colored like the work of a Weaver. Blunted and engraved figures in the midst of a glorious appearance of scarlet colors of the most holy spiritual light. They hold to their holy station before the King. Spirits of pure colors in the midst of an appearance of whiteness. The likeness of the glorious spirit is like a work of art, a sparkling fine gold. All the pattern is clearly mingled like the work of art of a weaver. These are the princes of those marvelously clothed for service. The princes of the Kingdom. The kingdom of the Holy Ones of the king of holiness. And all the heights of the sanctuaries of his glorious Kingdom. The princes in charge of offerings have tongues of knowledge. And they blessed the God of knowledge among all his glorious works.
Now in Hollywood we call that a scam. Thats scam language. You see the ideas have been cropped. And a lot of feeling tones and images have been cropped, clipped and pasted together. But it's how it's all imaginative in a fictive sense. There's nothing there. That mind is not spiritual. That mind is like a psychic chaos. But integrated together by a false sense of order. It comes from an ego. This is a egotistical. It doesn't come from the deep self.
I'll give you one more example. These are all contemporaneous. This is Liking The Soul To A Prostitute.
A soul that goes astray is like a prostitute. She is ever prompt, to oil her words and she flatters with irony deriving with iniquitous lips. Her heart is set up as a snare. And her kidneys as a fowlers nets. Her eyes are defiled with iniquity. Her hands have seized hold of the pit. Her legs go down to work wickedness and to walk and wrongdoings. There are fountains of darkness in a multitude of sins is in her skirts. There are darkness is of night. And her garments her clothes of the shades of twilight. And her ornaments plagues of corruption.
And it goes on in this in this manner. This is a superficial allegory and has nothing to do a spiritual insight. Its association on very, very simple level. It's also egotistical. It comes from the ego. Doesn't come from, from
there no spiritual resonance that is there.
One of the keys was to see that the language was well-formed. One of the ways to tell the scam from the hymn, was the form perfected? Did it come into a shape which had a bell like resonance? Because the interior, the center, the soul, has a shape. A very different shape. Not ambiguous at all. And so, any language that was resonant from it would have a shape like its parent. And that's why the form of the sacred hymn, the form of the song, the form of the prayer, the form of the poetry, was always an indication of its legitimacy. Of its actuality. It isn't a form which is superficially literate. Like for instance, they wouldn't have to take a French sonnet form. It wouldn't have to take some kind of an iambic pentameter rhythm. That's not the issue at all. The form would be a wholeness to each individual work of, of, of itself.
So that for instance if you took a real spiritual poem, say like a Psalm. Same like, say like the a palace of Alexandria didn't in 52 A.D. When he realized that there was a lot of false proselytizing going on by people who didn't have any kind of interior experience. Had no meditative prayer experience. And so, he went to Ephesus. And he went to places like this to try and teach the, the correct way. And he took in The Epistle to the Hebrews, he took the 104th Psalm as an example of a spiritual bell like wholeness. And wrote a letter which is a spiritual exposition on Jesus shaped on the 104th psalm. So that The Epistle to the Hebrews said, then be technically a Midrash on the 104th Psalm, showing that its integrity was such that you could explain the entire universe in terms of this form. And you can do so for any spiritual hymn. Anything that comes from the deep self eventually we'll have a cosmic, can be amplified to a cosmic level. Can explain everything.
It was like one of the famous statements of aesthetics in a high moment of inspiration in the 20th century. Someone said well how do you, you know when a work of art is good? When it's a great work of art? And the reply was, when your analysis can go on forever. When you come to understand that you could talk about this forever in increasing application. When you realize that all the avenues are still open, then that work of art is a great work of art. For instance, one will never run out of things that you can say about Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. You can go on and you can use that as a starting point and investigate almost any aspect of the universe.
Well it's like that in spiritual prayer. A good prayer is a prayer that will open you up to the all. Why? Because the all is at the very center of the expressive radiance of that poem. It comes from all. It can go back to the all. And in man firing that path back he learns to unfold himself completely. Opens, learns how to open himself up from the center out to the all. This is, Plotinus called this, the flight of the alone. To be alone. Nothing to do with loneliness. It has everything to do with God returning to God by way of man learning that he is the vehicle of this return. Of this opening up. That is what he really is.
What is man? He is the Royal Road by which God at the center becomes God at the cosmic circumference. What a reality for man. It's not so unimportant as those in the world have you think. A human being, every single human being, is really this kind of royal vehicle, which the charioteer can ride back home. The divine charioteer. The only one that there really is.
So, you can see that this quality made prayer and hymn making and sacred poetry making, that is one single activity. And it was the central activity in the Western spiritual unfoldment and tradition. Right up until our time in our age. It holds. Rainer Maria Rilke in the early 1920s said that he was convinced that real mystical poets were the angelic beings of our time. And in The Sonnets to Orpheus one finds this same uncanny accuracy of someone who had gotten to their center and the words that came out from the center were so spectacular that it took him by surprise. And only on thinking of them later he realized what of what a vast opening had been made. The same with Kierkegaard. The same the Saint Francis. The same with Saint Ephrem. the same with Ben Sira. The same with The Psalms of David. The same with the hymns, Thanksgiving Hymns of the Teacher of Righteousness. The same with the way in which Jesus spoke. One of the aspects of Jesus's words is that the center of his person is always there in everything he says. And it's one of the tell-tale signs of the spiritual legitimacy.
So, we have, I think only to remember, the first Logan from The Gospel of Thomas, according to Thomas. He who understands the Herminia of these words will not taste death.
And I think that's enough for this evening. Thank you.
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