second draft of FE

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man.
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Not only the worst of my sins, but the best of my duties speak me a child of Adam”
William Beveridge

“Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.”
George Eliot

“We humans do, when the cause is sufficient, spend our lives. We throw ourselves onto the grenade to save our buddies in the foxhole. We rise out of the trenches and charge the entreched enemy and die like maggots under a blowtorch. We strap bombs on our bodies and blow ourselves up in the midst of our enemies. We are, when the cause is sufficient, insane.”
Orson Scott Card

“A good sacrifice is one that is not necessarily sound but leaves your opponent dazed and confused”
Nigel Short

Now that I have wasted most of a page on quotes that should have made my topic clear (or perhaps not) I suppose I will get to the point. Right Action, karma, and Sacred Duty, dharma. These two ideals are so closely interlinked that they cannot be separated, especially not to the expense of my essay. However, while these two ideals are central to my argument, they are not the direct focus. I believe that human beings are the only ones capable of both Right Action and Sacred Duty. Why, you ask?
Sacrifice. Choice.
Let me explain…
Humans are mortal, yes? Which means they only have a good eighty or so years to live. The first five or so are mental to physical developmental, the first twenty are mostly just physical. Then a person spends fifty or so years growing mentally once again (teenage years are not mental growth, they are hormonal stupidity). Then a person starts backsliding both physically (weak bones, loss of muscle mass, eye’s going from bad to worse, etc.) and mentally (Alzheimer’s amongst other things, unless you’re really damn lucky). And then they die. Right? Right.
So, mortal. Divinities are not mortal. Yes, I am talking about gods and angels and demons/Fallen and any other less-than-god-more-that-human type things that are out there. Oh, and animals too. Well, animals are mortal but they don’t have a higher state of consciousness… I think. I could be wrong because, you know, there are times when my cat just does something and I swear he’s laughing at me and thinks I’m a moron.
Right, anyway. Divinities and semi-divinities (I am going to call them angels and demons from now on) are immortal. Well semi-divinities are, gods are outside time, unchanging, everlasting; timeless, really. Immortal, meaning they do not or cannot die, or be killed. That is why they are called immortals. Duh.
Let me try to get back to my point.
The thing that sets mortals from immortals is choice or freewill. Humans choose, angels and demons follow orders, gods decide. In choosing a human must give something up in order to achieve their goal; they must sacrifice in order for the act to become sacred. For me, when something becomes sacred it is because there was great sacrifice, sacrifice of self or those things important to the self. These sacrifices are something that only human beings are capable of. One removes the distractions and attachments to Act “[going] by a way wherein there is no ecstasy… the way of dispossession,” one disciplines ones mind and body for the Act, one removes the physical desires and self to exist (Eliot 29). In that existence a human cannot not act. Humans are always acting, according to Krishna, but not always Right Action. When we act without thinking it is not right, if we think but do not act it is not right. One must both think with discipline and act with sacrifice in order for Right Action to come into fruition. It is a purity of action. And one can never back away from it again. There can be no turning back for the sacrifice, the sacred; once something is lost either in action or duty it cannot be reclaimed. You cannot retreat for action is forward motion, one must “Fare forward” and Act, performing their duty once the decision has been made (Eliot 42). The other paths have been sacrificed an only new choices are laid out.
Let me try to clear this up a little.
The gods are all powerful, meaning they can do whatever the hell they want and get away with it. No one can tell them what to do or guide them along a path. We, or rather, I do not really think gods are limited by choices, they just do. They think of something and do it because they have no limitations. Gods are not subject to human strengths or weaknesses, nor emotions, not physical bodies or time, not any of those things that make humans, human. Gods are all; all that was, is and will be, all that can be and should be and should not be. They are All. They are Will. Gods sacrifice others or are sacrificed to, angels and demons cannot sacrifice. It is a purely human ability. When we choose we give up the other options laid out before us, in order to succeed in the chosen path we must discipline ourselves and sacrifice our wants for the things we must do.
Angels and demons however have no will of their own; they are subject to their gods’ will. Err… Will. Anyway, they also do not have human frailties but when I think about it, it makes them seem weaker. They do not have themselves. They do not really have a self, more so, they seem to be mere extensions of the gods. Yet they change, perhaps also according to gods’ Will. So going by that thought Lucifer did not ‘fall’ because he, himself was jealous and prideful; he ‘fell’ because he was made to be thus by his god, because his god decided that he should fall. Wow, old school YHWH, as in “I shall smite thee…” for whatever sinful action performed. What a reason to ‘fall’ for. Perhaps it was envy that drove Lucifer and his brothers form heaven, yet envy is a human emotion, one of the seven sins and sin is human. It leaves questions.
Anyway, so angels and demons perform according to the will of the gods. They have no freewill and therefore cannot choose to act or not act. It sounds quite a bit like being a puppet. Immortal, ‘perfect’, close to their gods, it sounds like they have a lot going for them and yet they do not have the love that the gods give mortals. As a human I say I would feel cheated (Lucifer) were I in their position, and it cannot be said so. I am human, they are not. Angels and demons do not have human emotions and frailties (I am going off my own interpretation of angels).
Now humans, on the other hand, are incredibly frail on so many levels. Mortal, emotionally chaotic, prone to ‘sinning,’ etc. Humans are terribly curious and, as Crowley (my favorite character ever) would say “They’ve got imagination… And just when you’d think they were more malignant than Hell could ever be, they could occasionally show more grace than Heaven ever dreamed of. Often the same individual was involved.” (Gaiman and Pratchett 38). Yeah, that’s humanity in a nutshell. We do have that one thing going for us and do you know why? Here’s my theory: we can choose. Yes, choose, as in choice and freewill, as in we choose to be good, moral citizens or nasty, evil denizens because we want to be. Humans are subject to change, angels and demons are unbreakable sculptures. Which leads to the crux of the problem with my two VITs (Very Important Topics); yes, the malignancy/grace thing in coordination with eastern thought. Sacred Duty and Right Action.
I suppose I should lead with Right Action since one can realize one’s duty before acting but one cannot really do said duty without acting, even if that act is not what would be considered morally acceptable. This is not about morals, it is about choice, sacrifice and transcendence.
Right Action is a discipline. One must strip oneself of earthly pleasures and senses in order to look with clear sight. One must, according to Krishna, “Be intent on action,/ Not the fruits of action;/ Avoid attraction to the fruits/ And attachment to inaction!// Perform actions, firm in discipline,/ Relinquishing attachment;/ Be impartial to failure and success-/ This equanimity is called discipline” ( Bhagavad-Gita 38). One must give up attachments to family and friends and become utterly objective and disciplined. Angels and demons are objective only in the fact that they lack human emotions, but they cannot choose to be, they simply are. They follow divine will, humans follow their own will. A human will sacrifice in order to better his or herself, these other beings cannot. Also gods, angels and demons all look toward what will happen once the act has been completed, if they have reached the ends they acted in order to achieve, following divine law and justice.
However it is the action itself that is the most important. One must act, all humans must act, “A man cannot escape the force/ of action by abstaining from actions;/ He does not attain success/ Just by renunciation.// No one exists for even an instant/ Without performing action;/ However unwilling, every being is forced/ To act by the qualities of nature” (Bhagavad-Gita 44). Everyone will act, whether or not it is Right Action. One must, however, I believe, consciously choose Right Action. In being “Disciplined by understanding,/ One abandons both good and evil deeds;/ So arm yourself for discipline-/ Discipline is skill in actions” (Bhagavad-Gita 39). In choosing this discipline and acting one could be freed of many causes of pain. These acts become right because they are without thought of the self or the past, or the present. One acts purely on a divine level and perhaps beyond it, choosing to act as is Right. I am not talking about good and evil, it is more like acting with knowledge that the course chosen is the correct one. “Action imprisons the world/ Unless it is done as sacrifice;/ Freed from attachment, Arjuna/ Perform action as sacrifice!” (Bhagavad-Gita 44)
I think I will leave this for the time being.
Sacred Duty (capital D, thank you) is sort of the end all of all. It is beyond the duty a human being gives to their family, beyond materialistic concerns, it is beyond divine command. Though it is also not beyond divine, that is kind of implied. It is sacred because it is holy as it comes from sacrifice. A human being will “shun external objects” focusing internally and wholly on cutting away the weaknesses and the muck that infests humanity in order to perform their duty (Bhagavad-Gita 63). They will renounce family and friend, the past and present, becoming “Impartial to joy and suffering,/ Gain and loss, victory and defeat,” through discipline, through burning away the malignant, I suppose one could say, part of oneself ( Bhagavad-Gita 37). Human weaknesses are cast aside and burned clean away so that the strengths of mortals may grow stronger and purer because of it. Humanity improves itself thus, not just on an individual level, though the responsibility is individual, but the masses improve as well. Such humans devoted to discipline and duty are rather highly influential (Mother Theresa comes to mind). It gets passed on to those willing, choosing, to take it up. It is taught from one who has achieved discipline to those who wish to learn it, or perhaps need to learn it as with Arjuna. Polonius comments to Hamlet‘s Uncle “I hold my duty as I hold my soul,/ Both to my God and to my gracious king” Shakespeare 80-81 2.2.44-5). Polonius will serve, even if he is a somewhat weak person, his god and king sacrificing everything for them. And he does. He dies by Hamlet’s hands in what is perhaps a wasted way for a poor cause. But his devotion and sacrifice were real. Not necessarily sacred but it was a step in the right direction.
Hamlet is another matter entirely when it comes to duty and action. Hamlet, as wishy-washy as he is in the actual act of deciding, is quite willing to sacrifice everything in order to perform his duty. He willingly wipes all thoughts but the memory of his father and the act of vengeance from his mind, focusing solely on finding a way to revenge his father’s murder. He has chosen his duty, sacrificing people, sanity, morals, memory, his own life; now he must act… yeah, that part takes awhile. He drives Ophelia to madness and suicide, he kills Polonius with his own hands, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are put to death by his orders, manipulations, acts; Hamlet will bungle along until he must act, or rather when he realizes what his sacrifice must be in order to act upon his duty. He walks into a fixed match expecting to die but resolves that Claudius will join him thus completing his duty.
What I find interesting is that most would consider it a duty to punish Gertrude as well for her immediate remarriage (which could be seen as unfaithfulness), yet Shakespeare, through the ghost of the previous king of Denmark, says that only heaven may judge her. Her punishment, something any child would insist upon, is not within the realm of Sacred Duty for Hamlet. Her judgment involves no sacrifice on his part and is wholly selfish. He lacks objectivity and discipline in concerns with her, and therefore cannot act according to the ‘laws’ of Right Action and Sacred Duty. Perhaps he also sees her as not worth the sacrifice necessary to act accordingly. However, there is a justice in her drinking from the poisoned cup through no means of Hamlet, but her own husband. Poisoners are not exactly the hands-on type, it is an inaccurate assassination method because of the numerous variables. Especially poisoned objects.
Fortinbras is the symbol of action in the play, though he is never actually heard from until Acts IV-V. He marches to war because it is his duty, for his honor demands it in revenge for what his father lost in battle, and he acts decidedly in all the things he does no matter the cost(or so we’ve heard). Hamlet is much more reticent when it comes to sacrifice “Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats/ will not debate the question of this straw./ This is th’impostume of much wealth and peace,/ that inward breaks, and shows no cause without/ why the man dies” (Shakespeare 4.4.26-30 191). Hamlet will not sacrifice his men for land with no value, it would not be a sacrifice merely a waste of lives. Fortinbras acts without thinking all the way through, Hamlet cannot act until he has thought everything through.
This duty is also chosen, or rather one chooses to act on it, and it is also enhanced and achieve through sacrifice. Arjuna’s duty is to fight in that battle. His action will be to ride his chariot down onto that field and fight. He will slay kin and kind, fathers and sons, teachers and students, and he will do so out of a duty he chose. Krishna can only teach and urge, he cannot force his will on Arjuna or play him like a puppet, though there is a certain amount of manipulation going on here, but it is the manipulation of all teachers.
Choosing to sacrifice is more that being ordered to sacrifice. Again it comes down to choice. Gods do not have to choose, angels and demons cannot choose, man must choose. And in his choice there is sacrifice as he abandons what was and is for what will be. Thus the sacred and sacrifice are one and the same, so closely interlocked that they cannot be separated, and it is man’s choosing that makes them so.
Friedrich Von Schlegel:
“The innermost meaning of sacrifice is the annihilation of the finite just because it is finite. In order to demonstrate that this is the only purpose, the most noble and beautiful must be chosen; above all, man, the fulfillment of the earth. Human sacrifices are the most natural sacrifices. Man, however, is more than the fulfillment of the earth; he is reasonable, and reason is free and nothing but an eternal self-determination toward the infinite. Thus man can sacrifice only himself, and that is what he does in the omnipresent sanctissimum of which the masses are not aware. All artists are self-sacrificing human beings, and to become an artist is nothing but to devote oneself to the subterranean gods. The meaning of divine creation is primarily revealed in the enthusiasm of annihilation. Only in the throes of death is the spark of eternal life ignited.”