"Three things have always inspired me: the ideal of Space Travel, the belief that our evolution, as human beings, has only just begun - that we can and indeed should evolve still further, in terms of our abilities and our consciousness - and a feeling concerning our being part of Nature. The first two are really part of one vision - the ideal of a Galactic Empire."

In many ways, my life has been a Faustian, or Promethean, quest - to discover, to know, to experience, the essence of life; to answer the fundamental questions about our existence, as human beings, and about the nature of the Cosmos itself. In the course of this quest, I have experienced many things - both light and dark, of sorrow, and joy, of violence, hatred, love - and from all these things I have slowly, very slowly, learnt, and changed myself, until, after forty years, I have arrived where I am.

Thus it is that these notes represent signs, experiences - only signs, only experiences - along the way that led to such understanding.

 

I learnt a great deal from my involvement with Islam - about myself, and the world. I also came to appreciate, and know, that Islam expresses, or can express, something of the Numen, the sacred, in the modern world, just as Christianity once did, and occasionally still does - although we in the West are increasingly losing the sense of the Divine in our personal lives, and in our society. But was, and is, Islam the answer? I began to doubt it was.

I remember, several decades ago now, my first wife saying before we married that she did not believe in God - except when she listened to some of the music of JS Bach. I loved her for that - for there, in such music, was an intimation of the Divine, an expression of the Numen sufficient to bring us, even if only for a moment, to the feeling of humility we surely need to keep us human, to prevent us from committing the dishonour of insolence, of hubris: that moral crime against reason which the governments of the West, their officials, representatives, and minions, have committed, and are increasingly committing, and which some of the peoples of the West themselves are also increasingly committing in their prejudice and arrogance and support of a new colonialism.

So it was that I found something of this intimation of the Divine, in Islam - or rather, in the striving of some Muslims, world-wide, who saught to be reasonable and honourable, and who sometimes succeed, bringing thus a civilized way of life into this world, just as many Christians, and Buddhists, and those of several other Ways, did and do, and just as many, many, people of the West did, and still do, despite the machinations of their governments, despite the loss of the Numen in the everyday life of the peoples of the West, and despite the increasing dishonour among some of the peoples of the West.

However, I had yet again been following an ideal - or rather, striving to find an ideal in something which was, like many religions and Ways, open to interpretation, and misinterpretation, and whose principles were sometimes, or often, ignored by people who claimed adherence to them, and which thus was, in essence, fallible. That is, I came to realize that I was making the mistake I had made with Christianity, with Buddhism, with a political ideology, with many other Ways and -isms, which mistake was to place some abstraction, some ideal, before being, before life, and thus to wrongly strive to realize, to make real, some abstraction, some ideal, by a striving to have life, and people, conform to, be restricted by, some ideal, some abstraction. This, I came to understand, caused suffering; it was hubris, and thus un-ethical. That is, I came to consider, and strove to answer, ethical questions concerning the causes, and the cessation of, suffering.

Furthermore, and on the personal level, I have only ever felt a true inner peace, a harmony, a oneness, when I am among Nature. I belong among the open hills; by the rivers; in deserts; on mountains; in the forests; on the open sea; in small fields, working with my hands. In these and other such places I have my being - having always felt I do not belong in this modern world with its destruction of night by electric light, with its cars and fast transport; its noise, manic pace, intensive farming, consumer ethos, material greed, cruelty to animals and humans in the name of progress and its almost total lack of manners and courtesy.

What I find real is Nature, as I feel and have come to rationally understand that our very humanity is defined by our awareness of Nature with its slow, quiet, natural, rhythm which modern life and living has almost totally destroyed.

Did - could - Islam express this, and the almost inexpressible feeling of being part of a living being, the being of Nature? I know that I found an aspect of this feeling in Taoism, decades ago; and another during my time as a monk when, for instance, between Matins and Lauds I would walk outside in the quietness, often the darkness, feeling, feeling a beauty, a wordless ritual of joy knowing the centuries for the imposters they were...

Several years ago, and for many months, living alone, in rural isolation, I once again deeply pondered such questions, and many other questions, to arrive at one conclusion, then another - followed by a striving to live one way; then another; and to thus confuse many people about my intentions and beliefs.

Thus I considered - as I had years ago in relation to first, Buddhism, and then Christianity - that only the natural, honourable, tolerant, folkish, reasoned, Way which underlies what I have called The Numinous Way of Folk Culture fully answered all the questions about the meaning and purpose of our lives. It seemed impossible to reconcile my belief in the importance of personal honour, and the overriding importance of Nature and folk identity, with the principles of Islam. Yet - and yet there was the question of honour, of the oath I had sworn, as a Muslim, to do my duty. This was Shahadah, the testimony of submission. I felt myself caught between dishonour and dishonour: between betraying the new understanding I believed I had achieved and which I saught to express through The Numinous Way, through poetry, and in some of the personal letters I wrote to friends, and between betraying that oath of submission to a Deity.

Was my foremost duty to Nature? I certainly was inclined toward my life-long belief that we, as a species, had evolved from primitive beginnings and not been created, almost as we are now, by God. Furthermore, I was also inclined - against faith - to accept that Nature and the Cosmos work in a reasoned way and that there are no such things as God-given  "miracles" which contradict this natural order. In addition, I came to the conclusion that underlying the Cosmos was an evolving, changing, Cosmic Being, who (or which) was presenced in us, through us, when we lived honourable lives, and did honourable deeds, and fulfilled our duty to the living beings of the Cosmos, evident to us on this planet in Nature and the diversity of  folk and culture.
 
I further came to understand, from practical experience and personal study, that Islam and the Way of Nature - The Numinous Way of Folk Culture - were different and incompatible ways of living, and that The Numinous Way, as explicated in my most recent writings regarding that particular Way, is an expression of that compassion, honour and empathy which I had come to regard as the essence of our humanity and indeed as the essence of genuine civilization and a beginning of the next stage of our own evolution, part of which is the great Galactic adventure which I had felt for so many decades is our human Destiny

But were these just the inevitable doubts of faith that should - must - be cast aside for the sake of loyalty and honour? To me, it seemed then as now that one of the main differences between monotheism (exemplified by Islam) and the way of Nature is that the way of Nature seeks to create a type of Paradise here on this Earth, believing that this Paradise exists in Nature, as Nature is - wild, isolated places where human beings are at best small communities of farmers or nomads, bound by a common cultural and folk ethos, and at worst travellers who are only passing through. In contrast, monotheism understands Paradise as existing in the life-after-death.

Furthermore, the way of Nature sees us as a part of Nature, dependent on it, whereas monotheism sees us as masters of Nature, with Nature existing to provide for us.  To attain Paradise, through the way of Nature, we have to care for and protect Nature, and restrain our desire for more comfort, more material things.  To attain Paradise, through the way of conventional religion, it seems we can use Nature - build and dwell in large cities; encourage industry and create a modern-type of developed nation with its large farms and meat-producing factories where the urban way of life dominates.

Where can I find peace? In the Gardens of Paradise after my death - or here, on this Earth, among the beauty of Nature? Is our mortal life a test given to us by the Supreme Being who can reward us with eternal life and who gave us reason and free will to pass this test? Or is our mortal life - our reason, our consciousness - the product of evolution, with us as creations of, and dependent upon, our mother, Nature? We seem to have struggled painfully slowly over thousands of millennia to transcend our savage animal past - and yet we are still half-savage; still prey to our savage instincts which can overwhelm our reason, our judgement, our fairness, our honour. I myself had struggled for decades through and because of diverse experiences to a certain insight and understanding - and yet, and yet...
 

Thus, through my diverse experiences, my diverse studies,  I came to understand how the ethics of conventional religion are firmly based upon the morality of the individual; a morality which speaks of the reward for the individual in some after-life, or in the attainment of some Nirvana. In contrast, it seems to me that my Cosmic Ethics are both revolutionary and evolutionary: we do what we do not because we as individuals may be rewarded by some Supreme Deity but because it is the human, the civilized, the empathic, the noble, the honourable, thing to do. Furthermore, I reached out to the perspective beyond this world - toward the Cosmos itself, feeling that there probably was life elsewhere, and, sometimes, I would look at some of the beautiful photographs of the Cosmos taken by instruments such as the Hubble telescope and imagine world upon world of life in Galaxy after Galaxy. How foolish I, we, seemed; how primitive, how childish, for we were but one minute manifestation of life in one part of one Galaxy among millions upon millions of Galaxies.

Thus, and for a long time, I lived troubled by the human dilemma of honour - or, rather, troubled by the dishonour of rejecting an oath sworn before good, noble, people, and troubled by the dishonour of causing suffering in this life through propagating the Way of submission, to some supreme Deity, whose ultimate aim was beyond this mortal life, which aim I was unsure whether I still believed in as I had in those sublime days of that first year of that part of my quest. For my apprehension was not, and now is not, of God as God has hitherto been understood by both Christianity and Islam, but rather of the Cosmic Being: of how Nature, and we ourselves as rational, honourable, empathic, cultured beings, manifest or can manifest this Cosmic Being. Of how we exist on one planet circling one star among millions of stars in one Galaxy among a Cosmos of Galaxies. Of how we evolved, painfully slowly, toward reason, and honour and those other things which express our humanity, and how we still are tainted with our primitive, our barbaric, ancestry. Of how we can and should evolve further by preserving and developing those things which make us human, through a new culture, or many new cultures, with such a new culture or cultures being the genesis of the type of society which really can begin the quest to explore outer Space because the right type of empathic, rational, honourable human being exists to make this possible.

But I strived to persevere, to act according to a certain oath, helped by striving to bring disparate groups together to fight what I then regarded as our common enemy. It helped to write, about Islam, about The Numinous Way, developing the Numinous Way itself, and for over two years I found a kind of peace and contentment in the simple manual labour of a new outdoor job. It is fair to say I had reached a kind of truce, within myself, trying to do what I regarded as the honourable thing by not thinking too deeply about the doubts, the differences; about suffering; about Nature, the folk and the Cosmic Being. Then, one late September day, things began to become more complicated: to change, slowly, unexpectedly, as they often do. The cause, as often in my life, was a woman, for I had fallen in love, again.

For nearly eighteen months, a tempestuous, difficult, sometimes sublime, often ecstatic, occasionally troubling, relationship with such a beautiful woman that seemed to promise so much: that seemed it might fulfil many of the dreams nurtured since youth. Of sharing life in a simple yet profound and joyful way. So many times - so many days - when we talked of new beginnings; of a life in Egypt; or Iran; of travelling; of adventure, shared. She, like I, loved the desert, and we planned so many adventures, so many travels in such places. So many hopes... Which became destroyed during several deeply anguished weeks when her illness of years past forcibly returned to leave me floundering, at times perplexed and at times sure of what she, I - we - should do. But the love I felt and gave was not enough for one day, some hours after I had left to return to my home for a few days, she killed herself.

For days, weeks, many months and more, I knew - felt - my blame, my shame. Remorse; guilt - at what should have been done, said; at what was not said or not done. There was an ever-growing need for faith, for redemption, for something to remove the pain, the dark thoughts of death; the often disabling anguish of such a tragic loss: a loss greater, it felt, than the loss of my second wife from cancer the previous decade; a loss far, far, greater than the turmoil of divorce, than the painful ending of a personal loving relationship. Thus, slowly, there was a return to the simplicity of submission to some Deity - all questions answered; all conflicts resolved. It was helpful and healing - for a while. But I began to feel the dishonour of betrayal: a callous forgetting of the tragedy of her death; a renunciation of my own responsibility, a rejection of where my own experience and thinking has led me; a dishonourable rejection of the presencing that was and is the folk and Nature, and a return to causing even more and possibly greater suffering. Where the empathy? Where the compassion? Where those numinous feelings arising on a warm Summer's day in the fields of a Farm in rural England when I would sit before a pond to hear only the breeze, the birds, to feel only the simple beauty of life, presenced there in such a simple moment? It seemed as if Nature, the very Cosmos, was there, reaching out, there in such places and so many times, as the beautiful matrix of numinous life itself reached out through a piece of sublime music, or some work of Art, or some work of literature whose words, whose very ending left us tearful but suffused with that joy which for centuries has moved so many onwards toward empathy, compassion, and honour.

Thus, the dilemma of honour returned, starker, greater, than before - for I had the memory of her life, her death, before me, to remind. Trapped between dishonour and dishonour. For many months I wavered, trying through will, words and deeds, to dispel the renewed and rising doubts. It did not work, for I remembered the many mistakes of my past. I remembered the beauty of a simple letting-be: of the Numen of Nature, of the slim crescent Moon in the sky before Dawn when the rain of night had gone and I was left to wander down the hill in the warm almost humid night of almost mid-October to feel such joy, such tragedy, such suffering, such promise as brought the tears of life: century upon century of suffering and strife; century upon century of love, one person to another. Such much death, so much hope as when a man olding in years but young waited one late morning in early Spring for her to open her door: then, she was there, with that strange, quixotic smile, half-happy, half-troubled, doubtful still of her beauty, her life; doubts which left her a moment but for only a moment as we embraced to be in that flow the essence of life's meaning, happiness, goodness, and hope...

    In essence, I came to understand - through pathei mathos, through thinking deeply about certain ethical matters, through reflexion upon my experiences, my diverse past - how honour is only and ever personal and relates to, depends upon, empathy and thus is connected to compassion - to the desire to cease to cause suffering - and that such personal honour does not and cannot reside in loyalty and duty to some abstraction, to some-thing, or to some person no longer alive.  Thus there was a knowing that it is the striving for, and loyalty to, some ideal, some abstraction, some dogma, some causal human-manufactured form - be it or they political, or social, or religious, or whatever - which causes or which contributes to personal suffering and which is thus unethical, wrong, dishonourable, and disruptive and destructive of Life itself.  That it is empathy - and its cultivation through a personal living honour, and through compassion - that captures and which can and which does express the essence of The Numen, and thus the essence of our humanity.

But even this personal understanding did not - for over two years beyond the death of a loved one - stop the occasional forays back into the realm of abstractions, for I was, it seemed, still in thrall to my own old nature which bade me, sometimes, to react to some dishonourable event, somewhere, and try to do something to counter such dishonour against others in whatever way I could. Thus did the new compassionate, empathic, Cosmic perspective of The Numinous Way - my new perspective of a numinous living-honour - give way to the old perspective of someone bound by old oaths, sworn years ago, someone reacting to non-personal events, and thus were there, on occasion, more missives, occasional deeds, based upon one particular way where there was an acceptance of a supreme Being, and of revelation from that Being, and upon that old non-living type of honour which was bound to abstractions or to someone long dead. How stupid, how very stupid, was this forgetting of my own understanding, this negation of my own empathy and compassion? How very indicative of one fallible, foolish, error-prone, human being. Thus, it began to seem, to feel, as if the genuine, lasting, transformation, within me which was necessary - which was required for me to always live my own answers, to always be the person born from, transformed by, experience - was rather like falling out of love, of mourning for a lover who has forsaken you, for another: a slow, often sad, lonely process, replete with regrets, suffused with so many memories and feelings of times past. Thus, the dilemma for me became instead: how to remember to not forget, again? To always live the knowing that thinking, that pathei mathos, had brought, wrought? 

    Now, there is a feeling of nearing the end of a four-decade long quest; a hope, within, of having at last found satisfactory, honourable, ethical, answers. A hope that such inner conflict as has occurred these past three years is honourably resolved, so that I will no longer sally forth on behalf of some abstraction, whether religious or whatever. But, as I have written elsewhere, I have believed that about myself before, and been mistaken.

Conclusion:

So it was that I, beyond the tragic death of a loved one, beyond my mistakes and experiences, have come to just be me: this is what I am, beyond the words written, the words said; beyond the many deeds of the past, for there should not be any ideas or ideals or abstractions imposed upon the fragile simple flow of Life, upon individuals, only a going-beyond any and all labels, descriptions or terms. Beyond all words whether written and spoken which do not convey in some way the Numen of life and which thus do not cause or contribute to any suffering to any living being. No more, then, those words which have marked and made the dishonourable barbarism of our present and our past: only a flow that flows, from one beginning to one end; only, here, one finite, mistake-prone being ceasing to cause suffering having learned, at last, and hopefully, from his many errors of experience.

"There is - was - no excuse: the failure, the weakness, the forgetting, was, and is, mine. And so, I ask again: how shall I never forget, again?"   

There need not be any detailed explanations, from me, of the life that now is, of the why that it is, and others can make of this - of me - what they will, for I no longer care about being understood, for the flow of Life goes on, and there is the perspective of the life of Nature, of the life, the being, of the Cosmos - our own smallness - to take us beyond the primitive, selfish, perspective of both our present and our past.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
 

In my end is my beginning...

 
David Myatt
2454825.647

Journeyings