The Divine Nature of Walter Mitty

I studied for 12 years with a Sufi who called his students "Sons of God," no different from Christ, Buddha, Krishna or Muhammad. Sometime he punned and called us "Suns of God," and reminded us of the gnostic first light that burned in and united us. This radiance, he said, was our "common wealth"--making all of time and creation one day. For him, there was no such thing as "original sin" or "fall from grace," other than, perhaps, our own incessantly inculcated, ignorance-based illusion of alienation from God. How did this happen? He said it happened by being conned into believing we were less than the Creator. In such a self-imposed, self-perpetuating degraded state, men yearn for God and an intermediary like a messiah or a pope or a dali lama to act as broker between the parties. But as the great Zen Master Rinzai said, "Looking for Buddha is like putting a head on top of the one you already have." I remember my teacher telling a Christian zealot who asked him about the Second Coming that there wasn't a first one. "There has never been and never will be a messiah," he told the dumbfounded missionary. His reason for saying so: There is no need for a savior. Our only hope, he said, was ourselves, freed by discovery and reclamation of our divine birthright of fully illumined humanity. This is what Emerson preached and Whitman proclaimed. 

This teaching, sometimes given with succor, sometimes with vehemence, came back to me as I read this poem, "When We Were Here Together," by Kenneth Patchen sent by a dear high school friend this afternoon. Read it and see where Christian notions of "depravity" and "sinfulness" get us. 

When We Were Here Together 

by Kenneth Patchen

When we were here together in a place we did not know, nor one another.
A bit of grass held between the teeth for a moment, bright hair on the wind.
What we were we did not know, nor even the grass or the flame of
hair turning to ash on the wind.

But they lied about that. From the beginning they lied. To the child,
telling him that there was somewhere anger against him, and a
hatred against him, and the only reason for his being in the
world.
But never did they tell him that the only evil and danger was in
themselves; that they alone were the prisoners and the betrayers;
that they - they alone - were responsible for what was being done
in the world.
And they told the child to starve and to kill the child that was within
him; for only by doing this could he become a useful and adjusted
member of the community which they had prepared for him.
And this time, alas, they did not lie.
And with the death of the child was born a thing that had neither
the character of a man nor the character of a child, but was a
horrible and monstrous parody of the two; and it is in this world
now that the flesh of man’s spirit lies twisted and despoiled under
the indifferent stars.

When we were here together in a place we did not know, nor one another.
O green the bit of warm grass between our teeth. O beautiful the hair of our mortal goddess on the indifferent wind.