Agony on the Path



The Ball Roller

Disappointment and struggle are to be known but not held as an identification. When we think of Sisyphus, we think of him as the poor guy who was cursed for eternity, a mortal who took his misery personally and permanently. 

We tend to think of Sisyphus as a tragic hero, condemned by the gods to shoulder his rock sweatily up the mountain, and again up the mountain, forever.

The truth is that Sisyphus is in love with the rock.

He cherishes every roughness and every ounce of it.

He talks to it, sings to it.

It has become the mysterious Other.

He even dreams of it as he sleepwalks upward.

Life is unimaginable without it, looming always above him like a huge gray moon.

He doesn’t realize that at any moment he is permitted to step aside, let the rock hurtle to the bottom, and go home.

Tragedy is the inertial force of the mind.

The Myth of Sisyphus, Stephen Mitchell Retrieved 2/20/2013 http://www.stephenmitchellbooks.com/poetry/parablesExcerpt16.html

Disappointment and struggle are to be known in order to learn to love. But when we identify with it, when we see it as a curse rather than a heavenly message we remain cursed by it.

We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there are dangers, we must try to love them.

Rilke, "Letters to an Artist..." Retrieved 2/2013 http://www.swans.com/library/art10/xxx108.html

Struggle and disappointment wake up agony for all sentient beings. Find the treasure in them and be intimate with the heavenly message as Christ was in the Garden. When you are intimate with them they will drop away for they have nothing more to teach you.

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart...Rilke