This really is a Copernican revolution. Look out over the ocean we were talking about when we set out. The ocean is the window, and the windows are the ocean. We have reached the end of our journey, but our initiation is not yet over. And besides, these are only the first steps on a never-ending journey that is always new and that we always have to begin again. But there are still a few visions on the other side of the ocean: the windows are so similar, with the transparency of their glass, the edges of their frames and the relativity of their viewpoints. But from here, from the ocean, relativizing the windows’ truths is out of the question. That would be as pretentious as claiming to have a monopoly on the one true ‘point of view’. From the ocean, we can only conclude that there are a lot of windows and that we share the same experiences. That is all and that is enough . . . provided that we set out. We have to go, learn and be initiated. With determination, we said . . . and with humility.
In the course of our travels, we have been able to talk about human beings, faith, reason, tolerance, the universal and the quest for meaning. But we have also been able to talk about freedom, equality, women and men, as well as ethics, the sense of belonging and love. In that ocean, there were paths, ways, valleys and mountains, questions, doubts, suggestions and a few theses. We saw broad horizons, and a host of mirrors when we met the spiritualities of Africa and the East, the philosophies of the East and the West, and the monotheistic religions. We have been on distant expeditions, and then returned in cyclical fashion to certain questions or certain issues by taking other paths reflected in other windows that were neither quite the same nor completely different.
This initiation is a mirror. The architecture of the text reflects it. The fourteen chapters represent two cycles of seven. The figure ‘7’ is a universal symbol that is present in almost all traditions. The four cardinal points and the three heavenly spheres make seven: the seven chakras of Hinduism, the seven emblems of Buddha, the seven heavens, the seven days of the week. In the Jewish Kabala, seven is the symbol of completion. Jesus used seven vessels, there are seven sacraments, the seven verses of the Opening (Al-Fatiha) to the Quran, and the seven circumambulations Ka’aba and so on. Twice seven, then, to reflect linearity, evolution and the cyclical return of the same and the different through the universality of the symbol. With mirrors and echoes: the first chapter, which deals with the quest for the universal, echoes the eighth, which deals with the independence and universality of ethics. The seventh, which looks at women and men, echoes the ninth, which deals with love and detachment. Two cycles of seven chapters dealing with time and themes that disappear and reappear. There are correspondences between them, as well as bridges, echoes and repetitions that are not repetitions.
The pages of this book are a strange mixture of analytic thought, Cartesianism, strict rationalism and flights of mysticism, some of them quite ethereal. It really has been a strange journey through the lands of Eastern philosophies, religions, the sciences, psychology and the arts, flying from one to another, weaving links, and opening up horizons by starting out from the one and the multiple, as though the presence of the ocean were enough to reconcile the windows rather than separating them. So it this the work of an Eastern mind or a Western intellect? Is logic more important that the imaginary, structure more important than form, or science more important than art? How can we describe this book and how can we define the mind that conceived and produced it? Surely it has its own window, and through which it could be identified and categorized. Then there are the correspondences, the ‘fourteen chapters’ that make ‘twice seven’, the themes and stages that speak to and complement one another: is that a coincidence, or is it the product of a will that systematically planned the symbolic structure of its quest? Or might it be the coincidence of writing encountering, like a sign, the imperative contingency of meaningful signs? A contingency discovered a posteriori, indeed, but which must have been there, a priori, whether or not the author was aware of it, in his unconscious perhaps or in divine purposes. So who can answer these questions? What textual analysis can have the last word to say about the secrets that guide a consciousness, a mind or a heart, and which are the hidden jewels of spiritualities, philosophies and art?
We said that this initiatory journey is a mirror. In it, the reader will sometimes find doubts, sometimes hopes, and sometimes certainties. Some will take the view that its architecture is pure coincidence, and that it is very flawed. Others will see in it the expression of psychic or psychological determinisms that are veiled by a sublimation that is by definition involuntary. Some will find it inconceivable that this order is not deliberate or planned, and they will find other and deeper correspondences that will enrich the text still further as its dialogue with itself is mediated through the reader. And some will see nothing, or almost nothing, in it. One reads a book as one reads the world, after all. There is what it says objectively and what we project into it subjectively.. There are things there that exist, things that we see, and things that we hope to see.
We plunged into the ocean. Sometimes we lost our way, sometimes deliberately and sometimes by chance. It depends. The goal of the expedition was to get away from windows and points of view and to become as one with the open sea – the common object observed – and to try to approach the shores of a shared universal and of diversity. We hoped to land upon the shores of that philosophy of pluralism in which the differences between men, religions and cultures are as similar as their experiences, sufferings and hopes. We have been on a journey towards the Whole that took us far away from the ‘self’ and the ‘ego’. The ocean embraced us and revealed its secrets as we were tossed from wave to wave, from shore to shore: the ocean is also a mirror. We see our own image reflected in it. The self went to the self, and the ‘me’ to the ‘me’, and our mirror-voyage took us to the edge of the ocean-mirror. And we watch ourselves, watch the me in the Whole, tossed by the waves that are so close and so ephemeral in the immensity of the vast surface of the sea. That is what happened to Narcissus: he saw himself, rediscovered himself, found himself beautiful, drowned and was lost. The point here is not to drown in the image of our own certainties, to become trapped within them, to delude ourselves or to become lost because we believe we have found ourselves. The dogmatic spirit confuses its exclusive convictions with the ocean of quests and human truths. Dogmatism is to thought what narcissism is to a self-image: a hypertrophic ego that reduces the sea to its mirror. Even at sea, even on the road, we are not safe from anything.
Time is linear or cyclical. The paths are steep, and sometimes there are mountains, plains and vast expanses of desert or water. We go on, in order to make progress or simply to go and then come back, and we learn to be, to live, to think and to love. Inside our being, there is the ego that sometimes traps us, oppresses us and blinds us, and then there are the attractions of the power that colonizes us, our friends or enemies, and sometimes all of us at once. All the sufferings of life, its separations and death hurt us, break us or simply kill us. Poverty, hunger, unemployment and the paths of exile make us strangers to ourselves, to our roots and to the world.
So where should we go, when there seems to be no point in going anywhere? The world is a prison where we amuse ourselves by painting the bars. Life is a prison, life is a game . . . but do we have to be satisfied with playing in gaol? We look around us – at ourselves, our friends, our enemies – and we are overwhelmed with sadness: so little critical thinking, so little curiosity, and so little love. When reflected in the ocean, our convictions may be reason enough for us to drown ourselves: perhaps it is better to be blind to men rather than to watch the depressing spectacle of endless fratricidal struggles, human ambitions and relationships of domination and power.
And yet, in the distance, in the silence of our subjectivity and in that of the infinitive spaces, we hear the murmur or other voices and other hopes. We have to lift up our faces, look towards the open sea and feel a different aspiration to understand the depths of its being. The deep silence speaks to us and summons us. This is a quest, an initiation, and we have to set off. Really set off. Leave our windows, and take the road of questions, truths, beauties, inspiration and love. Seek, with our eyes on the horizon, and plunge directly into the ocean . . . find ourselves within ourselves, rediscover ourselves, know and recognize ourselves in the infinite forces and inestimable wealth of knowledge, communications, gifts and fraternity. Our gaze changes, and the universe has changed. This new gaze has extraordinary power! There is such a thing as meaning, and we must give meaning. And give of ourselves for the sake of meaning.
We must also be able to resist ourselves, Men, all shortcomings and all excesses. The most beautiful words can become the most dangerous of weapons when they are in the hands of human beings. Vigilance and commitment are essential if we are to protect our dignity, justice and the critical spirit as we move from ourselves back to ourselves, from our selves to those who are close to us, and from ourselves to others. The consciousness of all the humanisms born of religions, spiritualities and philosophies is concerned with coherence. And the open sea now adds a new dimension, a new landscape and another gaze to our hearts. Silence and encounters. The winds give birth to a new inspiration and to the strength of intimacy. It gradually gains in confidence. The call comes from the world as well as from the heart, and the two echo one another. The experience of the quest, of the gift of the self, or resistance and coherence will indeed be accompanied by difficulties, doubts, tears and pain, but they open the horizon up to diversity, pluralism, humanity and a shared universal. As we regain confidence, the windows open and love speaks to us of the beauty of the ocean, which is both unique and plural. The ocean-mirror that reflects our image now reflects that of a humanity that is in quest of reason, God, truth, happiness or love . . . always in search of meaning, serenity and peace.
