Surveying the Sacred Mountain

We’ve been traipsing into this trackless desert for two days, when at once a mountain rises before us. There is no way around it, nor can we even see the top. There are scattered campsites below, with paths leading upward. Some paths are well worn, while others haven’t been used in years and are overgrown with vegetation (e.g., Camp Positivism). 

There are even some crazy people pretending their basecamp is the peak. Others are praying for the mountain to disappear. Still others say the mountain is just an illusion, and that any place is relative to any other: up and down are just your opinion, man.  

What? Our companion has something to say:

Most philosophies are obstacles to avoid en route but a few are mountain ranges that one is forced to cross (Davila).

Looks like we’ve found the latter. 

As mentioned, we haven’t brought along much for the trip, but we do have a volume of Schuon that suggests this is no ordinary pile of dirt and rock, nor can it even be measured or quantified. 

Rather, it is simultaneously real and symbolic: what Germans call a realsymbol. Turns out much of the Bible consists of realsymbols, but in any event, Schuon writes that

The sacred mountain, seat of the Gods, is not to be found in space even though it is visible and tangible.

There are also sacred rivers, forests, and springs, but we’ve got enough on our plate with this damn mountain.   

Certain geographical accidents, such as lofty mountains, are connected through their natural symbolism with great primordial sanctuaries, and it is for this reason that the most diverse peoples -- especially those whose tradition takes a "mythical" or "primordial" form -- avoid climbing to the very summit of mountains for fear of provoking “the anger of the Gods” (ibid.).

Noted.

My son ambles in and asks me what I’ve been doing. “The usual. Climbing up the cosmic mountain.” He doesn’t even roll his eyes.

By the way, about this so-called "anger of the Gods.” It is reflected in a host of myths from Icarus to Babel to Lord of the Rings. Is there a more particular lesson in there, i.e., that only certain kinds of ascent piss off this host of busybodiless meddlers?

What if we promise to leave our ego below and approach the peak with the purest of motives, with no self-interest or presumption or cosmic narcissism? Can't we be trusted with the ring?

Which reminds me of a conversation with a coworker, back when I was working in the supermarket and mentioned that I was studying to become a psychologist. He burst out laughing: You are going to help people? 

He had a point: C’mon, Bob. You, of all people. I get it. But at the same time, someone’s gotta do it -- by which I mean hike up the mountain. I never pretend I’m qualified, only that I can’t think of anything else to do with my life. Nor do our companions claim to be qualified, rather, just doing the honorable thing and avoiding the imbecilic thing: 

Any goal different from God dishonors us.

To speak of God is presumptuous; not to speak of God is imbecilic (Davila).

Also, no agenda:

I do not speak of God in order to convert anyone but because it is the only subject worth speaking of.

For

The moment arrives when one is only interested in stalking God.

Which, at the same time, is the only moment. It is all we are given. That and this mountain.

For the man of the golden age to climb a mountain was in truth to approach the Principle (Schuon).

Well, good. What about this -- the not-even-plastic age?

In our day to climb a mountain -- and there is no longer a mountain that is the “center of the world” -- is to “conquer” its summit; the ascent is no longer a spiritual act but a profanation. Man, in his aspect of human animal, makes himself God. The gates of Heaven, mysteriously present in nature, close to him.

Which means you’ve pissed off the gods, precisely.

Let’s bring this discussion down a notch or two from allegory. There’s a reason why Bob leaves fiction to the experts. He’s no better at it than he is at helping people.

I brought along one of Schuon’s most compact books, Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism, which is a helpful summary of the whole existentialada. Come to think of it, “survey” is the operative word, in the sense that we aren’t just here for kicks, but more like surveyors who are mapping the vertical cartography. Here's the three of us, but who on earth took the picture?