[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/05/sacred-poetry.html[/postlink]
If sacred texts merely books of law without poetry, humans would have been living a long time with barren spirits. The Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, the Koran: in the midst of our contemporary experience, one thing we need is to revive the poetry found within them.
And this doesn't mean merely to translate them with verbal decoration or to read them in a beautiful style. The poetic translation of the Koran pioneered by Mohamad Diponegoro in Indonesia some years back, or Nyoman S. Pendit's attempts with the Bhagavad Gita, proved they did not have to ornament. For we do not need such ornament. More fundamental to the revival of the poetry of sacred texts, is actually to revive our own spirituality. To me this means a renewal of attitude, so as to be able to accept sacred texts as not just a kind of code of criminal law.
For indeed, God spoke in human language, in poetry. And poetry, with its symbolism,its rhythm, with all its energy, does no dictate. Poetry is speech to the soul, which involves the acknowledgement of the other as a person, with all that this implies. Accepting sacred texts as living poetry means to accept the word of God not as a decree, but rather as an invitation to dialogue;not as intimidation, but rather as the bestowal of love. In this way, we free ourselves from a biased, confining view about God and mankind; God as a kind of tyrant, and humans like His colonised subjects, already exiled, and forever distrusted.
Too often we are asked to be in fear of Him, and we all too frequently forget that we can actually be attracted to Him and love Him. Henry Miller, in his autobiography, write that once he suddenly noticed on a wall in Chicago writing in ten-foot high letters: Good News! god is Love! as though this good news had to be made into a headline--even though this 'news' was not actually any new truth. For this not-new truth had been long stifled, and mankind had, for a long time, not known of it. We know the character Hasan in Achdiat K. Mihardja's novel, The Atheis: he suffers because since his childhood God has been depicted to him as the Owner of Hell, speaking only of threats and never of consolation.
A God who does not cheer is a God depicted not as the All-loving and All-forgiving, but rather as the All-hating. And if so, he is a futile creator. For then our life loses its meaning, man is just one absurd product. And then we forget that life is a gift, that the world is not a cursed place of exile, that man is important, a caliph on earth, and not a hunted dog.
To accept the important meaning of man is actually our problem now. If we believe there is no coercion in religion, if we are open enough to live within the poetry of God's words and not merely to live within His threats, then we have to trust man with his freedom. For God bestows upon us what Iqbal calls the 'freedom of human ego'. For the relationship between man and God, which these days is called a relationship between 'I-and-Thou' is a relationship of Subject-to-subject. It is only through the poetry of sacred texts that this kind of relationship can be experienced: my self is not submerged, but rather emerges, with a living spirit, in liberty. In short, a relationship without ambition, where humans can give thanks within a situation of devotion and intimacy, a direct contact without any other person as intermediary--for in the end, poetry cannot be determined by a go-between.
Indeed, in the end, the conversation of God with man in poetic experience is not determined by third party. We can get assistance from someone else to interpret the Word of God, but then it is up to us to determine our attitude. Through poetry, the words of God convey not merely His being, but also His mystery. For in the meeting transformed by poetry, language is enriched, approaching comprehensive depiction, and portraying realities that cannot be completely clarified by analysis. Poetic articulation does not speak of details, bit by bit. Its articulation contains its own ambiguity, and yet can still communicate. Through poetic language such as this God can appear in our hearts,creating an inner experience, which made the poet Chairil Anwar write:
Although it is truly difficult
to remember the all of You
He experienced the mystery of God, which opened up all kinds of possibilities of interpretation, without there ever being fullness of depiction. No one can resemble God, and no one can claim to have found the one and only Truth of Him. That is why God gives each of us the opportunity to relate to Him. In this way, to revive that poetry of sacred texts means to open the door to a free, authentic and individual communication between God and man. To revive that poetry means to avoid the tendency of stasis in our system of belief. Faith cannot be transplanted, religion cannot be regimented, and interpretation about God cannot be monopolised.
I think we need awareness like this in our times.
If sacred texts merely books of law without poetry, humans would have been living a long time with barren spirits. The Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, the Koran: in the midst of our contemporary experience, one thing we need is to revive the poetry found within them.
And this doesn't mean merely to translate them with verbal decoration or to read them in a beautiful style. The poetic translation of the Koran pioneered by Mohamad Diponegoro in Indonesia some years back, or Nyoman S. Pendit's attempts with the Bhagavad Gita, proved they did not have to ornament. For we do not need such ornament. More fundamental to the revival of the poetry of sacred texts, is actually to revive our own spirituality. To me this means a renewal of attitude, so as to be able to accept sacred texts as not just a kind of code of criminal law.
For indeed, God spoke in human language, in poetry. And poetry, with its symbolism,its rhythm, with all its energy, does no dictate. Poetry is speech to the soul, which involves the acknowledgement of the other as a person, with all that this implies. Accepting sacred texts as living poetry means to accept the word of God not as a decree, but rather as an invitation to dialogue;not as intimidation, but rather as the bestowal of love. In this way, we free ourselves from a biased, confining view about God and mankind; God as a kind of tyrant, and humans like His colonised subjects, already exiled, and forever distrusted.
Too often we are asked to be in fear of Him, and we all too frequently forget that we can actually be attracted to Him and love Him. Henry Miller, in his autobiography, write that once he suddenly noticed on a wall in Chicago writing in ten-foot high letters: Good News! god is Love! as though this good news had to be made into a headline--even though this 'news' was not actually any new truth. For this not-new truth had been long stifled, and mankind had, for a long time, not known of it. We know the character Hasan in Achdiat K. Mihardja's novel, The Atheis: he suffers because since his childhood God has been depicted to him as the Owner of Hell, speaking only of threats and never of consolation.
A God who does not cheer is a God depicted not as the All-loving and All-forgiving, but rather as the All-hating. And if so, he is a futile creator. For then our life loses its meaning, man is just one absurd product. And then we forget that life is a gift, that the world is not a cursed place of exile, that man is important, a caliph on earth, and not a hunted dog.
To accept the important meaning of man is actually our problem now. If we believe there is no coercion in religion, if we are open enough to live within the poetry of God's words and not merely to live within His threats, then we have to trust man with his freedom. For God bestows upon us what Iqbal calls the 'freedom of human ego'. For the relationship between man and God, which these days is called a relationship between 'I-and-Thou' is a relationship of Subject-to-subject. It is only through the poetry of sacred texts that this kind of relationship can be experienced: my self is not submerged, but rather emerges, with a living spirit, in liberty. In short, a relationship without ambition, where humans can give thanks within a situation of devotion and intimacy, a direct contact without any other person as intermediary--for in the end, poetry cannot be determined by a go-between.
Indeed, in the end, the conversation of God with man in poetic experience is not determined by third party. We can get assistance from someone else to interpret the Word of God, but then it is up to us to determine our attitude. Through poetry, the words of God convey not merely His being, but also His mystery. For in the meeting transformed by poetry, language is enriched, approaching comprehensive depiction, and portraying realities that cannot be completely clarified by analysis. Poetic articulation does not speak of details, bit by bit. Its articulation contains its own ambiguity, and yet can still communicate. Through poetic language such as this God can appear in our hearts,creating an inner experience, which made the poet Chairil Anwar write:
Although it is truly difficult
to remember the all of You
He experienced the mystery of God, which opened up all kinds of possibilities of interpretation, without there ever being fullness of depiction. No one can resemble God, and no one can claim to have found the one and only Truth of Him. That is why God gives each of us the opportunity to relate to Him. In this way, to revive that poetry of sacred texts means to open the door to a free, authentic and individual communication between God and man. To revive that poetry means to avoid the tendency of stasis in our system of belief. Faith cannot be transplanted, religion cannot be regimented, and interpretation about God cannot be monopolised.
I think we need awareness like this in our times.