Homer on the Limitations of Institutionalized Monasticism:
The Aeolus Episode of the Odyssey
by Eric S. Fallick
The Odyssey of Homer is a great and wonderful spiritual treasure left to us from antiquity. Although it is little appreciated as such now, it is actually an amazing spiritual guidebook and practice manual describing in a symbolic, allegorical, and anagogical manner the journey of the practitioner's soul through successive rebirths in its striving to obtain liberation from the cycle of becoming and return to its home in transcendent Reality. Like all real spiritual texts, the Path it describes and prescribes is that of contemplative asceticism, renunciation and meditation, and knowledge or wisdom. In fact, the asceticism and renunciation and mysticism it commends is of the most severe, pure, world-denying, uncompromising, abstract, and transcendent nature. (This, of course, does not mean it recommends the sort of self-torture practices that are sometimes included, unfortunately and incorrectly, under the rubric of asceticism.) No compromise is made with this world and ordinary human attachments and desires, which ultimately have to be transcended and given up completely to reach the Goal, difficult as this may be. So pure and austere and transcendent is this renunciation and contemplation, that it recognizes that institutionalized, ritualized, organized, corporate renunciation is not really full or true renunciation since, while incorporating some of the absolutely essential renunciant practices such as celibacy, vegetarianism, teetotaling, lack of personal possessions, devotion to practice, etc., it otherwise merely reproduces different forms of the same social structures of this world and caters to and provides for the same human emotional needs, desires, and attachments (all of which need to be transcended) within institutional monastic structures. Actual liberation, according to Homer, requires a long and painful process of totally stripping away the burden of the lower self and its needs and desires and totally reorienting the soul towards the Absolute. Institutionalized monasticism and renunciation does not, according to Homer, accomplish this, but ineffectually attempts to achieve transcendent contemplation while leaving the burden of the lower self and passions intact. Thus, it doesn't really work and must be considered as at best a way station towards more complete, full, independent, unsupported, and untethered renunciation and contemplative asceticism and complete otherworldliness.
The Aeolus episode at Book 10, lines 1-76 of the Odyssey relates Homer's view of the inadequacy of institutionalized monasticism and may serve as an example of relatively manageable size for an attempt at illustrating the symbolic, anagogical meaning of the text. I would, therefore, like to try here to give a literal prose translation of the text followed by an exposition of its undermeaning.
And we came to the Aeolian island: and there dwelt Aeolus son of Hippotas,
dear to the deathless gods, on a floating island: and, indeed, around it all was
an unbreakable bronze wall, and smooth stone runs up.
And of him twelve children have been in the halls, on the one hand six daughters,
on the other hand six sons being in the prime of youth:
there he indeed gave the daughters to the sons to be wives.
And they always dine beside their dear father and devoted mother, and a myriad good things
lie beside them, and indeed the house full of the savor of roasting fat resounds around
the courtyard during the days: and during the nights, on the other hand, they sleep beside
their revered wives in both blankets and perforated beds.
And we came to their city and fine house.
And for a whole month he held me dear and inquired about each thing, about Ilium
and the ships of the Argives and the return of the Achaeans: and I, for my part, related everything to him in due fashion.
But when then I also asked for the way and bid him to send me, he did not
at all refuse, but fashioned a conveyance.
But he gave me a leather bag having stripped it off of a nine year old bull,
and there he tied up the ways of the roaring winds: for the son of Kronos
made him manager of winds, both to make to cease and
to set in motion, which wind he would want.
And he tied it up in the hollow ship with a shining silver cord, so that
nothing would blow past even a little bit: but for me he sent forth a breath of the West
Wind to blow, so that it would bear both the ships and ourselves: nor then was
it going to be brought to completion: for we were lost by the senselessness of ourselves.
For nine days then we sailed both night and day alike, but on the tenth already
the fatherland country appeared, and then being near we were seeing the
people tending the fires: then sweet sleep came upon me having toiled,
for always I wielded the lower part of the sail of the ship, nor gave it to another of
my companions, in order that we would quickly come to the fatherland:
but my companions began addressing each other with words, and they said that I was
bringing home for myself both gold and silver as gifts from great-hearted Aeolus son of Hippotas.
And thus one was saying, seeing, to another one near:
Ah me! How this person is dear to and honored among all peoples,
of whomever he would come to both the city and the land.
Many are the fine treasures of spoil he is bringing for himself from Troy, but
we on the other hand having completed the same way come back home
together having empty hands: and now Aeolus showing
favor has given these things to him with love.
But come, quickly let us see what thing these things are,
how much certain both gold and silver are present in the bag.
Thus they said, and evil counsel overcame the companions:
they loosed the leather bag, and all the winds rushed out.
And at once snatching them up a storm wind bore them seaward wailing,
from the fatherland.
But I myself awakening turned over in my blameless spirit,
whether falling from the ship I should perish in the sea,
or quietly should bear it and still be among the living ones.
But I endured and stayed, and covering myself I lay in the ship.
And the ships were borne by an evil storm of wind back again
to the Aeolian island, and the companions groaned.
But there we went onto the land and drew water, and at once
the companions took dinner by the swift ships.
But when we had partaken of bread and drink, then I myself taking with
me a herald and a companion went to the famed house of Aeolus:
And I found him dining beside his wife and his children.
But coming into the house we sat down on the threshold by the
doorposts: but they were astonished in spirit and asked right out:
How have you come, Odysseus? What evil spirit assailed you?
Surely indeed we cordially sent you off, so that you would come to
your fatherland and house and if anywhere is dear to you. Thus they said, but I spoke among them feeling pain at heart:
Both my evil companions injured me and besides them stubborn sleep.
But cure it, friends: for the power is in you.
Thus I said addressing them with soft words, but they became silent: but the
father replied with a word: go quickly from the island, most reproachable of the
living: for it is not lawful for me to provide for or send forth that man who would
become hateful to the blessed gods: go, since then you have come to this place
becoming hateful to the gods.
Thus saying he sent me away from the house moaning heavily. …
Odysseus, the true divine soul or self and the contemplative ascetic and renunciant practitioner, is struggling to return to Ithaca, his true home, the higher transcendent realm of the Divine Mind-Thought and ultimately the One Itself, from which he has fallen into the ocean of genesis, of becoming, of birth and death, of individuated subjective experience in space-time. He is aware of being lost, but at this point doesn't know exactly how to get back, although he does know where it is he wants and needs to return to. He also at this point still has his ships and most of his crew, which represent the lower self or soul involved in the psychophysical complex and the accompanying passions, emotions, defilements, etc. He still is attached to this lower self and its faculties and still identifies with them and wants to bring them back with him. He doesn't yet understand that these are a great burden binding him to the prison of this world and preventing his return, and that he will have to get rid of or lose all of them and everything, however painful he may experience the process of doing so to be, before he can go back to Ithaca, that is, awake to true Reality. To return to the One, the Simple, the Pure, the Good, the Beautiful, one must oneself become unitary, simple, pure, good, and beautiful, stripping away everything that has accumulated around the true divine soul, so that it can become like the One it is returning to and realize that it is in fact the emanation of that One. Odysseus has, however, at this point already blinded the eye of the cyclops, made the initial separation from the senses and the bestial self involved wholly in the senses, which, while bringing all the karmic obstructions of matter, Poseidon, against him to be worked through, means that his eventual return to Ithaca, to Reality, alone, stripped entirely of the lower self, is already fated.
Now he comes to the island of Aeolia, of Aeolus son of Hippotas, which represents organized, institutionalized, ritualized monasticism. Incidentally, it may be noted that the course of spiritual practice described in the Odyssey is more iterative than necessarily linear, and one may go through the same episodes repeatedly in the course of the many lifetimes of the Path in various ways and at various levels. Aeolus and Aeolia imply in the Greek quick-moving, swift, wriggling, nimble, shifty, slippery, glittering, changeful of hue, and the like. This indicates both the cleverness of legalistic maneuvering and manipulation of ritual, along with politics, that tends to characterize institutionalized renunciation, and also the colorful and impressive appearance created by uniforms, corporate ritual, art and architecture, etc. He is the son of Hippotas, son of a horseman, because he 'descends' from a religious founder who instituted means and/or structures to try to tame the lower, bestial self and the beast of the body, the horse. He is dear to the gods because such are all sincere spiritual strivers. He lives on a floating island representing the fact that the institution is somewhat separated from the rest of the world but is still subject to various historical, temporal, and cultural vicissitudes like any institution in this world. It is surrounded by an unbreakable bronze wall and sheer stone cliff because it is cloistered and self-contained with its own corporate and administrative existence. His symmetrical even dozen six sons and six daughters married to each other show the uniform and uniformly, ritually reproduced disciples constituting the monastic order and indicate, along with Aeolus and his wife, the sort of non-biological procreation that maintains monastic orders and actually, and unfortunately, replicates worldly family structures within them. (There is, of course, no actual sexual implication in the symbolic description here using the language of ordinary conjugal arrangements.) Their continual dining represents the ongoing organized routine, largely centered on obtaining and preparing and consuming meals, maintaining the physical plant and income generating activities and services, and performing corporate ritual, that much constitutes cenobitical monastic life, and winds up really taking the place of individual spiritual striving. These activities visibly and audibly fill the monastery, so the savor of roasting fat resounds through the courtyard during the day, and at night they rest together in their uniform, appointed accommodations, their blankets and perforated beds. A myriad good things lie beside them suggesting the relative economic and physical security of institutionalized, corporate, and especially cenobitical renunciation, as opposed to the great insecurity of individual renunciation.
Odysseus, then, comes to this pleasantly accommodated monastic institution, and is cordially welcomed since he is, at least initially, recognized as a fellow renunciant, even if an independent one. In fact, they question him at great length concerning Ilium, the initial attempt to wrestle noetical beauty away from the material realm, the ships of the Argives, the means by which independent renunciants traverse the ocean of becoming, and the return of the Achaeans, how fully focused renunciants have attempted to return to awakening. Odysseus, the true contemplative ascetic, does not, however, wish to be retained here long, however nice it may be, but asks to return to the aim of his spiritual practice, Ithaca, and for help and conveyance in getting thereto. Aeolus gladly obliges him since, although he has not returned himself, he has various traditional methods that he believes are effective in suppressing and controlling and altering the passions and defilements, the son of Kronos has made him manager of winds, that is, passions and defilements. He teaches Odysseus the methods, which Odysseus diligently practices. He binds the winds, passions, in a leather bag made from a bull nine years old, that is, suppresses the passions and defilements by a long practice of physical restraint of the bestial self through regulated, ritualized activity, and secures it with a silver cord, that is, the practice of the mundane constitutional virtues without actual wisdom. He sends forth the West Wind, the positive emotion and enthusiasm generated by communal ritual, to help them on their way. But it can't actually work in the long run. The passions and defilements have only been suppressed and mitigated, not destroyed, and the whole lower self has not been gotten rid of and the process of doing so has not been gone through.
They set sail for Ithaca, that is, Odysseus, with the passions temporarily bound and with his lower self mostly still intact, diligently practices contemplation or meditation and comes within sight of the higher realm, Ithaca. Then he suddenly falls asleep, that is, he enters a state of deep contemplation or samadhi as would be necessary for contacting that higher Reality. But, alas, in this case it is only a temporary glimpse and meditative state. The elements and faculties of the lower self still being there unchanged and now being released from the control of the higher, divine self which is occupied in its meditative state, erupt into their characteristic greed, envy, egotism, etc. They think Odysseus has gold, silver, and gifts in the bag, that they are being deprived of the pleasures and gratifications of the ordinary emotions by the ritualized ascetic practice Odysseus has been following under Aeolus's guidance. So they open the bag, while Odysseus is in samadhi he can't attend to the ritualized mundane practice of keeping the defilements and karmic habit patterns in check, sitting on them, so to speak, without having actually destroyed them with real wisdom and true practice and knowledge, and release all the suppressed passions, the blustering storm winds that blow them back out into the sea of material existence and back to the ultimately mundane temporospatial realm of the monastery. Even the faculties of the lower self now realize their mistake and are upset, and Odysseus, the higher soul, having now emerged from the meditative state and rejoined with the lower self and still identifying with it is so distraught that he briefly considers giving up the Path altogether, perishing by falling entirely into the sea of material existence, but of course he endures and they come back to the island of Aeolus.
At first, upon arrival, they pause to draw water and take dinner. Sadly, even in the midst of spiritual crises we still have to maintain and tend to the basic needs of the body. Odysseus then goes back to the famed house of Aeolus where he finds them dining as ever. They are shocked to see him because, although they have never actually returned yet themselves, they have never doubted that their traditional methods should allow one to do so, and ask what happened. Odysseus, still distraught, but also still not realizing that the methods he has been given are not efficacious, especially when he still has the whole apparatus of the lower self which he still doesn't understand that he must be rid of, explains what happened, perhaps not even realizing that entering samadhi was really a good thing, and asks for them to help him to try again. They, however, are unable to understand the limitations of their system, and so the only thing they can conclude is that the individual renouncer and soul they have tried to help must be cursed, have heavy karma, and be a bad soul, even though he is actually better fated than they are, and send him away. So sad Odysseus leaves with much of the Path and many trials through a number of lifetimes ahead of him leading to his eventual success and freedom.
© 2011 Eric S. Fallick platonicascetic (at) (gee) mail (dot) com
