ASCESIS (The Saviors of God)

Some extracts of Ascesis: The Saviors of God, which is a series of "spiritual exercises" written by Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis. It was first written between 1922 and 1923, while staying in Vienna and Berlin. The text was later revised on various occasions and reached its final state in 1944.

THE PREPARATION

Second Duty

…The mind is patient and adjusts itself, it likes to play; but the heart grows savage and will not condescend to play; it stifles and rushes to tear apart the nets of necessity.

…I have one longing only: to grasp what is hidden behind appearances, to ferret out that mystery which brings me to birth and then kills me, to discover if behind the visible and unceasing stream of the world an invisible and immutable presence is hiding.

…Beyond the mind, on the edge of the heart's holy precipice, I proceed, trembling. One foot grips the secure soil, the other gropes in the darkness above the abyss.

…"No! No! Never acknowledge the limitations of man. Smash all boundaries! Deny whatever your eyes see. Die every moment, but say: Death does not exist.'"

…"I am the peasant who jumps on the stage to meddle with the course of the world!" I don't keep checks and balances, I don't seek to adjust myself. I follow the deep throbbing of my heart.

...I want to find a single justification that I may live and bear this dreadful daily spectacle of disease, of ugliness, of injustice, of death. I once set out from a dark point, the Womb, and now I proceed to another dark point, the Tomb.

…Yes, the purpose of Earth is not life, it is not man. Earth has existed without these, and it will live on without them. They are but the ephemeral sparks of its violent whirling.
Let us unite, let us hold each other tightly, let us merge our hearts, let us create - so long as the warmth of this earth endures, so long as no earthquakes, cataclysms, icebergs or comets come to destroy us - let us create for Earth a brain and a heart, let us give a human meaning to the superhuman struggle.
This anguish is our second duty.

Third Duty

…The heart cannot adjust itself. Hands beat on the wall outside its dungeon, it listens to erotic cries that fill the air. Then, swollen with hope, the heart responds by rattling its chains; for a brief moment it believes that its chains have turned to wings. But swiftly the heart falls wounded again, it loses all hope, and is gripped once more by the Great Fear.

…Conquer the last, the greatest temptation of all: Hope. This is the third duty.
In my ephemeral backbone the two eternal streams rise and fall. In my vitals a man and woman embrace. They love and hate each other, they fight.

…The man is smothering, and he cries out: "I am the shuttle that longs to tear apart the warp and woof, to leap out of the loom of necessity. "To go beyond the law, to smash bodies, to conquer death. I am the Seed!"
And the other, profound voice, alluring and womanly, replies with serenity and surety: "I sit cross-legged on the ground and spread my roots deep under the tombs. Motionless, I receive the seed and nourish it. I am all milk and necessity.
"And I long to turn back, to descend into the beast, to descend even lower, into the tree, within the roots and the soil, and there never to move.
"I hold back the Spirit to enslave it, I won't let it escape, for I hate the flame which rises ever upward. I am the Womb!"

...Where are we going? Do not ask! Ascend, descend. There is no beginning and no end. Only this present moment exists, full of bitterness, full of sweetness, and I rejoice in it all.

...Our body is a ship that sails on deep blue waters. What is our goal? To be shipwrecked!

…I know now: I do not hope for anything. I do not fear anything, I have freed myself from both the mind and the heart, I have mounted much higher, I am free. This is what I want. I want nothing more. I have been seeking freedom.

THE MARCH

First Step: THE EGO

…I adorn myself with false wings; I shout, I sing and I weep to drown out the inexorable cry of my heart.
I am not the light, I am the night; but a flame stabs through my entrails and consumes me. I am the night devoured by light.
Imperilled, moaning and staggering in darkness, I strive to shake myself free from sleep and to stand erect for a while, for as long as I can bear.

…The Cry within me is a call to arms. It shouts: "I, the Cry, am the Lord your God! I am not an asylum. I am not hope and a home. I am not the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Ghost. I am your General!
"You are not my slave, nor a plaything in my hands. You are not my friend, you are not my child. You are my comrade-in-arms!
"Hold courageously the passes which I entrusted to you; do not betray them. You are in duty bound, and you may act heroically by remaining at your own battle station.
"Love danger. What is most difficult? That is what I want! Which road should you take? The most craggy ascent! It is the one I also take: follow me!
"Learn to obey. Only he who obeys a rhythm superior to his own is free.
"Learn to command. Only he who can give commands may represent me here on earth.
"Love responsibility. Say: It is my duty, and mine alone, to save the earth. If it is not saved, then I alone am to blame.'
"Love each man according to his contribution in the struggle. Do not seek friends; seek comrades-in-arms.
"Be always restless, unsatisfied, unconforming. Whenever a habit becomes convenient, smash it! The greatest sin of all is satisfaction.
"Where are we going? Shall we ever win? What is the purpose of all this fighting? Be silent! Soldiers never question!"

…I am not alone in my fear, nor alone in my hope, nor alone in my shouting. A tremendous host, an onrush of the Universe fears, hopes, and shouts with me.

Second Step: THE RACE

…In this lightning moment when you walk the earth, your first duty, by enlarging your ego, is to live through the endless march, both visible and invisible, of your own being.
You are not one; you are a body of troops, One of your faces lights up for a moment under the sun. Then suddenly it vanishes, and another, a younger one, lights up behind you.
The race of men from which you come is the huge body of the past, the present, and the future. It is the face itself; you are a passing expression. You are the shadow; it is the meat.
You are not free. Myriad invisible hands hold your hands and direct them, When you rise in anger, a great-grandfather froths at your mouth; when you make love, an ancestral caveman growls with lust; when you sleep, tombs open in your memory till your skull brims with ghosts.

…But you must choose with care whom to hurl down again into the chasms of your blood, and whom you shall permit to mount once more into the light and the earth.
Do not pity them. Keep vigil over the bottomless gulf of your heart, and choose.

...For you are not only a slave. As soon as you were born, a new possibility was born with you, a free heartbeat stormed through the great sunless heart of your race.
Whether you would or not, you brought a new rhythm, a new desire, a new idea, a fresh sorrow. Whether you would or not, you enriched your ancestral body.

Third Step: MANKIND

…Look upon men and pity them. Look at yourself amid all men and pity yourself. In the obscure dusk of life we touch and fumble at each other, we ask questions, we listen, we shout for help.
We run. We know that we are running to die, but we cannot stop. We run.
We carry a torch and run. Our faces light up for a moment, but hurriedly we surrender the torch to our son, and then suddenly vanish and descend into Hades.

…The heart unites whatever the mind separates, pushes on beyond the arena of necessity and transmutes the struggle into love.
…What is meant by happiness? To live every unhappiness. What is meant by light? To gaze with undimmed eyes on all darknesses.

Fourth Step: THE EARTH

…It is as though the whole of life were the visible, eternal pursuit of an invisible Bridegroom who from body to body hunts down his untamed Bride, Eternity.
And we, all the guests of the wedding procession - plants, animals, men - rush trembling toward the mystical nuptial chamber. We each carry with awe the sacred symbols of marriage - one the Phallos, another the Womb.

THE VISION

…The essence of our God is struggle. Pain, joy, and hope unfold and labour within this struggle, world without end.
It is this ascension, the battle with the descending countercurrent, which gives birth to pain. But pain is not the absolute monarch. Every victory, every momentary balance on the ascent fills with joy every living thing that breathes, grows, loves, and gives birth.
But from every joy and pain a hope leaps out eternally to escape this pain and to widen joy.

THE ACTION

The Relationship between God and Man

…The ultimate most holy form of theory is action.
Not to look on passively while the spark leaps from generation to generation, but to leap and to burn with it!
Action is the widest gate of deliverance. It alone can answer the questionings of the heart. Amid the labyrinthine complexities of the mind it finds the shortest route. No, it does not "find" - it creates its way, hewing to right and left through resistances of logic and matter.

…We might have given it any other name we wished: Abyss, Mystery, Absolute Darkness, Absolute Light, Matter, Spirit, Ultimate Hope, Ultimate Despair, Silence.
But we have named it God because only this name, for primordial reasons, can stir our hearts profoundly. And this deeply felt emotion is indispensable if we are to touch, body with body, the dread essence beyond logic.
…Life is a crusade in the service of God. Whether we wished to or not, we set out as crusaders to free - not the Holy Sepulchre - but that God buried in matter and in our souls.
Every body, every soul is a Holy Sepulcher. Every seed of grain is a Holy Sepulchre; let us free it! The brain is a Holy Sepulchre, God sprawls within it and battles with death; let us run to his assistance!

…My prayer is not the whimpering of a beggar nor a confession of love. Nor is it the trivial reckoning of a small tradesman: Give me and I shall give you.
My prayer is the report of a soldier to his general: This is what I did today, this is how I fought to save the entire battle in my own sector, these are the obstacles I found, this is how I plan to fight tomorrow.
…My God and I are horsemen galloping in the burning sun or under drizzling rain. Pale, starving, but unsubdued, we ride and converse.
"Leader!" I cry. He turns his face toward me, and I shudder to confront his anguish.
Our love for each other is rough and ready, we sit at the same table, we drink the same wine in this low tavern of life.
As we clink our glasses, swords clash and resound, loves and hates spring up. We get drunk, visions of slaughter ascend before our eyes, cities crumble and fall in our brains, and though we are both wounded and screaming with pain, we plunder a huge Palace.

The Relationship between Man and Man

…God is never created out of happiness or comfort or glory, but out of shame and hunger and tears.
At every moment of crisis an array of men risk their lives in the front ranks as standard-bearers of God to fight and take upon themselves the whole responsibility of the battle.

…Today God is the common worker made savage by toil and rage and hunger. He stinks of smoke and wine and meat. He swears and hungers and begets children; he cannot sleep; he shouts and threatens in the cellars and garrets of earth.
…This identification of ourselves with the Universe begets the two superior virtues of our ethics: responsibility and sacrifice.
It is our duty to help liberate that God who is stifling in us, in mankind, in masses of people living in darkness.
We must be ready at any moment to give up our lives for his sake. For life is not a goal; it is also an instrument, like death, like beauty, like virtue, like knowledge. Whose instrument? Of that God who fights for freedom.
We are all one, we are all an imperilled essence. If at the far end of the world a spirit degenerates, it drags down our spirit into its own degradation. If one mind at the far end of the world sinks into idiocy, our own temples over-brim with darkness.
For it is only One who struggles at the far end of earth and sky. One. And if He goes lost, it is we who must bear the responsibility. If He goes lost, then we go lost.
This is why the salvation of the Universe is also our salvation, why solidarity among men is no longer a tenderhearted luxury but a deep necessity and self-preservation, as much a necessity as, in an army under fire, the salvation of your comrade-in-arms.

…Everyone has his own particular road which leads him to liberation - one the road of virtue, another the road of evil.
If the road leading you to your liberation is that of disease, of lies, of dishonor, it is then your duty to plunge into disease, into lies, into dishonor, that you may conquer them. You may not otherwise be saved.
If the road which leads you to your liberation is the road of virtue, of joy, of truth, it is then your duty to plunge into virtue, into joy, into truth, that you may conquer them and leave them behind you. You may not otherwise be saved.
We do not fight our dark passions with a sober, bloodless, neutral virtue which rises above passion, but with other, more violent passions.

…We leave our door open to sin. We do not plug up our ears with wax that we may not listen to the Sirens. We do not bind ourselves, out of fear, to the mast of a great idea; nor by hearing and by embracing the Sirens do we abandon our ship, and perish.
On the contrary, we seize the Sirens and pitch them into our boat so that even they may voyage with us; and we continue on our way.

…Love man because you are he.
Love animals and plants because you were they, and now they follow you like faithful co-workers and slaves.
Love your body; only with it may you fight on this earth and turn matter into spirit.
Love matter. God clings to it tooth and nail, and fights. Fight with him.
Die every day. Be born every day. Deny everything you have every day. The superior virtue is not to be free but to fight for freedom.
Do not condescend to ask: "Shall we conquer? Shall we be conquered?" Fight on!
So may the enterprise of the Universe, for an ephemeral moment, for as long as you are alive, become your own enterprise.

The Relationship between Man and Nature

....With the light of the brain, with the flame of the heart, I besiege every cell where God is jailed, seeking, trying, hammering to open a gate in the fortress of matter, to create a gap through which God may issue in heroic attack.
Lie in ambush behind appearances, patiently, and strive to subject them to laws. Thus may you open up roads through chaos and help the spirit on its course.
Impose order, the order of your brain, on the flowing anarchy of the world. Incise your plan of battle clearly on the face of the abyss.
Contend with the powers of nature, force them to the yoke of superior purpose. Free that spirit which struggles within them and longs to mingle with that spirit which struggles within you.

…A stone is saved if we lift it from the mire and build it into a house, or if we chisel the spirit upon it.
The seed is saved - what do we mean by "saved"? It frees the God within it by blossoming, by bearing fruit, by returning to earth once more. Let us help the seed to save itself.
Every man has his own circle composed of trees, animals, men, ideas, and he is in duty bound to save this circle. He, and no one else. If he does not save it, he cannot be saved.
These are the labours each man is given and is in duty bound to complete before he dies. He may not otherwise be saved. For his own soul is scattered and enslaved in these things about him, in trees, in animals, in men, in ideas, and it is his own soul he saves by completing these labours.

THE SILENCE

…The soul of man is a flame, a bird of fire that leaps from bough to bough, from head to head, and that shouts: "I cannot stand still, I cannot be consumed, no one can quench.

…All at once the Universe becomes a tree of fire. Amidst the smoke and the flames, reposing on the peak of conflagration, immaculate, cool, and serene, I hold that final fruit of fire, the Light.

…Silence means: Every person, after completing his service in all labours, reaches finally the highest summit of endeavour, beyond every labour, where he no longer struggles or shouts, where he ripens fully in silence, indestructibly, eternally, with the entire Universe.
There he merges with the Abyss and nestles within it like the seed of man in the womb of woman.

(Translated by Kimon Friar)