The Energy of Delight
William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
‘Man has no Body distinct from his Soul. For that called Body is a portion of Soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.
Energy is the only life, and is from the Body; and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.
Energy is Eternal Delight.’
I am prone to fits of ascetism. It’s been many years since my last serious episode, but I can feel one coming on. They can take many forms: shave off my long hair; donate all my favourite clothes to charity; carry a massive cross; get a barrel to live in; give away my CD collection; Bible binging; and fasting, fasting, and more fasting. I must confess, I thought I was over such puritanical posturing – but the reality is, I have a deeply rooted tendency to separate my soul from my body. Possibly years of youth groups and church camps that seemed to summarise Christ’s teachings as: don’t masturbate.
‘Imagine Jesus is in the bedroom with you’, was a classic piece of practical advice in this regard. Poor Jesus! I wish it was just funny – but, sadly, this dualistic, separatist, and severing, spirituality – that degrades our fleshy bodies to corrupted, twisted, and perverted wreckages (or terrible nuisances, at best), makes for problematic relationships with ourselves, each other, and the divine nature itself. It also forms a warped filter for our perception of pleasure, delight, and energy. We can end up with all manner of toxic logic: if it feels good, it must be bad. And so, the ‘safest’ way to wire such a confused circuit is to split the spiritual and the physical; the soul and the body; the mind and the flesh; the sacrifice and the delight; the meaning and the pleasure; the good and the bad; the saint and the sinner...
We all know what happens when we split Matter: mass destruction.
Conversely, we all know what happens when Energy is freely given: mass creation. Energy and Matter are transferable.
E = MC2
What if we use Blake’s definition of Energy (E) here? (sorry scientists)
‘Energy is the Eternal Delight’
It makes sense to me - that the event we call The Big Bang (which was in fact that miniscule moment of intense Energy that magically transferred into Matter) was a marvellous display of divine delight; a firework, party popper, or an absolute banger-of-a-tune, that kicked off the sonic soundscape for our divine dance in this time and space we call cosmos!
And as this energy and matter dance in this epically evolving choreography, their moves tell a story of divine delight. Observe the decadence, exuberance, and lavishness of our vast universe: its stars, its planets, its moons, and galaxies - and the delightful particularities of our own small speck of dust, floating on a tiny sunbeam in one little corner of spacetime. Imagine stumbling upon such a wonderfully idiosyncratic, infinitesimal, and eccentric little world in our seismic cluster of galaxies we call The Local Group; we would surely all exclaim words to the effect of: ‘how simply delightful’.
But delight is not so simple, even for those folk who didn’t grow up with Soul vs Body Wars (although I suspect St. Augustine’s sexual hang-ups, and subsequent doctrine of Original Sin, cast quite a large shadow across the Roman world).
Of course, as soon as you start enthusing about Hedonism, people immediately assume you’re promoting ten course meals, drunkenness, and orgies. Indeed, when the Ancient Greeks heard that Epicurus (341 BC – 270BC) had set up a philosophical school centred on the pursuit of pleasure, the rumours went off the roof: ‘apparently Epicurus orgasmed eighteen times in one night... in a bed full of virgins!’ Not true. Epicurus was more sober than all the monks I’ve ever met. He owned only two cloaks. He lived on a simple diet of bread and olives (with a bit of cheese, for an occasional treat). When it came to the bedroom, he ‘married philosophy.’
The rumours of sex and feasting reflect the disconnect between the fantasy of pleasure and the reality of pleasure. Epicurus’s life and teachings show us that we’re not so great in living a life of pleasure. For example, he observes how we confuse luxury with peace-of-mind. We fantasise about dreamy houses in serene locations because we want a sense of inner calm – but does luxury bring a feeling of calm? Epicurus wasn’t so sure. We find the pleasure of peace within. It doesn’t matter how luxurious our life is (car, house, watch, fridge, clothes, holidays, boats, wines, lingerie, perfume, aftershave) if our inner lives are riddled with fear. And luxury, money, power, popularity, fame, status... have a funny habit of inflating our core fears. Do these people really like me, or do they just like my big house? Are they just friends with me for my connections? Or my money? Or the holidays? What do they really think about me? Do they actually respect me, or fear me? Do they really find my jokes funny, or am I just rich? Do we need more security? Is the silver safe? Is it my personality or my position they adore? Will ‘other people’ be there? What if people knew what I really think?
As Epicurus points out:
“It is better for you to be free of fear lying upon a pallet, than to have a golden couch and a rich table and be full of trouble.”
Epicurus advises us to invest in real friendships, meaningful work, and the pleasure that is found in nature, reading, writing, making, serving, reflecting, philosophising, and gratitude – but above all, friendship:
“Of all the means to ensure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.”
It’s not about sex, money, luxury, and status, according to our original Ancient Greek Hedonist – although he has absolutely no moral problem with these - he’s a hedonist!! He just doesn’t think they deliver on the high level of expectation we afford them, and the costly levels of sacrifice we perform to acquire them. And let’s face it, we mainly pay for such fantasies with our inner lives: our souls. As the Flesh-Spirit, Water-to-Wine, Human-Divine, Reason-Delight, I AM the Wine, I AM the Bread, Fresh Fish, Perfumed Feet, Life in all its Fullness, Wheat and Weed, Jesus the Christ, says:
‘For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?’
Perhaps, instead of trying to be good, the next time we fall into the fantasy of pleasure, we should surrender to The Energy of Eternal Delight, and embrace the realities of pleasure. Pleasure Matters. Energy Matters. (E = MC2. Science!!). It’s just a lot easier, freer, and simpler, than our religious and secular institutions and industries would have us believe. Take it easy…
‘My yoke is easy, and my burden is light,’ says Christ.
Let there be light
Let there be delight
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
Amen
