Freedom!

Thoughts on Kairos, the Hour of God, and banning books

The exuberant vibes coming out of the USA will surely remind my American readers of the last time America was equally fired up, which was when Barak Obama ran for president (“Yes We Can”).

The Germans among you (those old enough) may be reminded instead, as I am, of the mood in Germany when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

Then Leonard Bernstein performed Beethoven’s 9th with the word “Freiheit” substituted for the word “Freude.” For at least one day, Schiller’s Ode to Joy became the Ode to Freedom.

Incidentally, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 premiered in Vienna almost exactly 200 years ago, on May 7, 1824.

Once again, the song that captures the mood of the Kairos (καιρός, which to the ancient Greeks meant a right or critical moment) is about freedom:

As an Aurobindonian, I am also reminded of this mantic piece Sri Aurobindo wrote in 1918:

There are moments when the Spirit moves among men and the breath of the Lord is abroad upon the waters of our being; there are others when it retires and men are left to act in the strength or the weakness of their own egoism. The first are periods when even a little effort produces great results and changes destiny; the second are spaces of time when much labour goes to the making of a little result. It is true that the latter may prepare the former, may be the little smoke of sacrifice going up to heaven which calls down the rain of God's bounty. Unhappy is the man or the nation which, when the divine moment arrives, is found sleeping or unprepared to use it, because the lamp has not been kept trimmed for the welcome and the ears are sealed to the call. But thrice woe to them who are strong and ready, yet waste the force or misuse the moment; for them is irreparable loss or a great destruction.

In the hour of God cleanse thy soul of all self-deceit and hypocrisy and vain self-flattering that thou mayst look straight into thy spirit and hear that which summons it. All insincerity of nature, once thy defence against the eye of the Master and the light of the ideal, becomes now a gap in thy armour and invites the blow. Even if thou conquer for the moment, it is the worse for thee, for the blow shall come afterwards and cast thee down in the midst of thy triumph. But being pure cast aside all fear; for the hour is often terrible, a fire and a whirlwind and a tempest, a treading of the winepress of the wrath of God; but he who can stand up in it on the truth of his purpose is he who shall stand; even though he fall, he shall rise again, even though he seem to pass on the wings of the wind, he shall return. Nor let worldly prudence whisper too closely in thy ear; for it is the hour of the unexpected, the incalculable, the immeasurable. Mete not the power of the Breath by thy petty instruments, but trust and go forward.

But most keep thy soul clear, even if for a while, of the clamour of the ego. Then shall a fire march before thee in the night and the storm be thy helper and thy flag shall wave on the highest height of the greatness that was to be conquered.

Still on the topic of freedom, just today I was remined by this substack post of the relation between freedom and book banning:

Interestingly, the Latin words for “book” and “free” are almost identical:

lĭber, bri, m.

• A. Paper, parchment, or rolls of any substance used to write upon.

• B. Most freq. a book, work, treatise.

• C. A division of a work or book; In relig. or pub. law lang., a religious book, scriptures.

• D. A list, catalogue, register.

• E. A letter, epistle.

līber, ĕra, ĕrum

• A. Free, in a social point of view, not a slave.

• B. Free, in a political point of view; said both of a people not under monarchical rule and of one not in subjection to another people.