The Sublime

The  Sublime

Uranda   May 21, 1954  Class

from

Changing Hindsight To Foresight

"We must not ignore our antecedents.

That which was of the past must be connected up with the present

if we are going to accomplish anything."

I believe that Dick [Richard Cable] introduced to you a consideration of the sublime, a treatise concerning sublimity [Longinus, On the Sublime]. I wonder. If some things have gone over your head in the Anatomy Class, I am inclined to think that it is a high possibility that some of this went over your head when it was introduced. That is not in condemnation, but we need to consider something on a different level. We need to have a vibrational contact back to the time of Greece, for instance.

That which is colloquial in its nature certainly is not universal, and unless at every point, all along the way, we are deliberately working to establish the Universal Pattern of consciousness, attitude, vision, understanding, we are not going to achieve. We cannot have narrow, colloquial patterns if we hope to achieve. It must be the development of the universal. And we need to have a sense of our relatedness to the Greeks, for instance. We need to have a sense of the sublime, a personal-relatedness pattern.

Most of us have, without developing it further, a sufficient sense of relatedness with the ridiculous. Now you see, I could come up here and, what shall I say, with a lot of stories about the ridiculous I could touch your sense of personal relatedness without too much trouble, could I not? Good speakers presumably do that to be sure to get a sense of personal relatedness established between speaker and hearer. But the ridiculous. We say, "From the sublime to the ridiculous." Well, I wonder how sublime the sublime was before it slid down the slide to the ridiculous? And then we might point to this factor: If we are going to have the beautiful in our lives, from whence will it come if not from the sublime? We must have an understanding of the means by which the sublime appears. Now this treatise represents the thinking processes of a man who lived many, many centuries ago, the thinking processes on the basis of logic and reason.

Obviously, no matter how good his thinking was back there, we should have a comprehension of something more than he was capable of comprehending. It is highly possible that something in this book is not an exact portrayal of Truth. Actually I do not care. I do not care how many false ideas are presented in this book, how many mis-concepts he may have had, unless we are capable of distinguishing, without condemnation, how shall we serve? I am not suggesting that this author's processes of logic and reason were absolutely perfect or his conclusions always just so.

His level of consideration may not be our Ideal, but what difference does it make? It relates to the sublime. We must not ignore our antecedents. That which was of the past must be connected up with the present if we are going to accomplish anything. Otherwise, we are in the position of doing everything all over again without regard to what anyone else has done. And unless those who have lived before us have achieved something worthwhile, and we profit by it, we are not going to achieve more, but probably less.

The very basis of achievement is to utilize the achievements of the past. If they be ignored we have nothing but to start at the very beginning to try to do the whole thing ourselves. And we make their lives, as far as we are concerned, to be in vain; and God forbid! Unless we can learn and achieve by what they did, and begin where they left off, or close to it, what shall we accomplish but to walk in the same old path that millions of others have trod?

Now, I just opened this book a while ago to a particular passage here on page 74, and it says: "There is nothing which introduces pettiness into sublime passages so much as a broken and excited rhythm." There is something that comes out on the basis of this man's logic and reason, just picking it up in the middle. Now, are all your rhythms in life perfect? If they are, there will be no pettiness. If they are, you will be able to correct for your course without difficulty.

But we know there is altogether too much pettiness still remaining, right here. Now what is it that introduces pettiness? According to this man's thought, his use of logic and reason, "There is nothing which introduces pettiness into sublime passages so much as a broken and excited rhythm." Sublime passages of life. Are you going to think about being a great author and read this book as if you were primarily concerned about being an author? It might apply there. But you are an author of a life, and the passages of life that are supposed to reveal the sublime, what of them? There are those passages which have the keynote of peace, of humor, of joy and gladness, and all the rest, but without the sublime the attempts to produce humour, for instance, will get into the gutter—or had you noticed?

Now, here is another point. I hope he has touched on the opposite factor in the earlier part of the book. I did not look to see. But, "Another means of lowering sublimity is excessive conciseness of expression." Now notice, he did not say conciseness, he said excessive conciseness, so that you do not really say what you mean. Now, on the other hand, there are certain people still living on Sunrise Ranch where the opposite is true. If you undertake to get a little report on some point, you had better be ready to stand, or sit, and listen, for a whole hour while the words come forth expressing something which, when you finally pick out the kernel, could have been said in three minutes. That certainly does away with the sublime and makes the whole utterly meaningless. But there is a Central Way on this course of life, and we must correct for either the excessive expression, the wordiness; or the excessive conciseness, or we will certainly get away from the sublime, and without the sublime the meaningfulness of life is lost. It is up to us what we do with it.

Now, "Pettiness of words"—this is another passage—"Pettiness of words, again, is strangely potent in making fine passages mean." And it does not say, "mean something." "Pettiness of words, again, is strangely potent in making fine passages mean." Now the meanness of life, the inelegance of living, comes so much from the fact that we use petty words in the passage—our passage along the Way, if you want to put it that way—along the Way of Life. There it deals with the other extreme, does it not? The Central Way we call it, is so important, and to be able to correct a course, not to have something stilted, arbitrary, not to get into too much rhyming rhythm because that could turn into a Mother Goose proposition and be utterly ridiculous. We can have rhyming rhythm in a Mother Goose poem they call it; or a rhyme, or something. On the other hand, there must be rhythm. What about rhythm in life? To what degree are you aware of the factors of rhythm in your life? Do you know where you break the rhythm? If you do, you can do something about correcting it; if you do not, how shall you fly the course and enjoy the passage? That is what I want to know. It means some agitation of grey matter, some thinking.

We might turn in random anywhere here, I suspect. Well, it says, "An excellent and stirring effect is often given by the concurrence of figures, when two or three mingled in one company throw into a common fund their force, cogency, beauty." Now you understand that. From one hearing I doubt if you fully grasp the author's meaning, but, when two or three of you get together and start talking, what tends to happen? Do you bring together, into a common fund, the force of your being and expression? Are your expressions cogent, having relevancy, or are you, every time you open your mouth, producing a tangent in relationship to something someone else says? I have heard that. Someone attempting to build up a basic pattern of consideration into which all might well pour their fund of whatever wisdom they have, and the beauty of expression. But, someone wants to be brilliant, someone wants to show off, so every time that person opens his or her mouth—a tangent factor. It never fits. It never belongs.

But if "two or three mingled in one company throw into a common fund their force, cogency, beauty," not to develop something which will make the individual, as such, on a segregated basis shine as being the primary exponent of sublimity, but one who has shared in producing something beautiful in company of others. And therein there is a great deal of satisfaction. Here is another passage: "At this point, I must not omit, my dear friend, to state one of my own conclusions. It shall be given quite concisely and is this: As though by nature, the figures ally themselves with sublimity, and in turn are marvellously supported by the alliance. Where and how this is so, I will explain." We will not go into that. I will save that for Dick and you. But from cover to cover this little book, originating back in relationship to the days of Greece, when there was great intellectual achievement, when logic and reason were held to be of great importance, this can be of value to us, not that we would worship logic and reason as gods, but that we would let them be true servants of the Spirit of God.

Now, you will have an opportunity to consider meanings of words. You may say, "Well, I won't remember all of them." Probably you will not, but you will begin to have a sense of familiarity with them. And if you are familiar, the word will not leave you absolutely blank if you hear it again. Gradually you develop a sense of the meaning of words, a sense of your own expression. Suppose you are afraid to use a word because you are not quite sure how it is pronounced, and someone might criticize your pronunciation. So you feel around for some other words, or just never say it. I am not suggesting that we should develop sloppy habits in pronunciation, but I am suggesting that if you think you must be letter perfect in pronunciation, etc., in order to use words, your vocabulary will never expand. Dare to use them, especially where you have an understanding hearer. And the hearer should not be too quick to say, "You mispronounced that word." You are going to produce a self-consciousness? Let that person alone. Suppose he did? Some day he will find it out, if he is alert. Now some people can go on making wrong expressions over and over again and they never notice it. Some people think I do. Well, that is all right. If I always did exactly what everybody expected me to do, and said everything just the way everybody expected me to say it, I doubt if I would make much impact on your consciousness. And I believe, from your attitude and expressions, that at least I have been able to help you to think, at least a little, and to love it.

But you are not completely subject to the attitude outlined by the Persian king: "If you make people think that they think, they will love you; but if you make them think, they will hate you." It tends to be that way in the world, but our job is to make people learn to love to think, and if you have not developed the habit it will be very difficult for you to help others attain it. God Bless you, and Class dismissed.

© Emissaries of Divine Light