Belly of the Whale

Devil or Seraph

I think this is one of the most important parables I have ever read.
Not that it is true. To me that isn’t the point, but understanding what it does to our daily awareness of the world: where is our attension?
Is it truly here, or are we projecting to an afterlife of dubious veracity?

Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence: [from “the Gay Science”: the heaviest weight]

What if a demon crept after you one day or night in your loneliest solitude and said to you: “this life, as you live it now and have lived it, you will have to live again and again, times without number; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and all the unspeakably small and great in your life must return to you, and everything in the same series and sequence—and in the same way this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and in the same way this moment and I myself. The eternal hour-glass of existence will be turned again and again—and you with it, you speck of dust!”

Would you not throw yourself down and gnash you teeth and curse the demon who spoke? Or have you experienced a tremendous moment in which you would have answered him: “You are a god and never did I hear anything more divine!” If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, “Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?” would lie upon you actions as th egreatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?