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The Scripture of the Golden Eternity

jack kerouac

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These classic Kerouac meditations, zen koans and prose poems express the poet’s beatific quest for peace and joy through oneness with the universe. " The Scripture of the Golden Eternity is fueled by Kerouac's discerning meditation on the nature of impermanence & consciousness, subtle like the dharma it invokes. We're here to disappear, therefore let's be as vivid & generous as we can. The intelligence & compassion behind this text is still alive."—Anne Waldman, The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics Scripture of the Golden Eternity is Jack Kerouac's statement of confidence in his oneness with the universe of energy and form, a confidence to which his whole being swelled. His was not the search for the ecstasy of the mystic or psychedelic or the Artaud-mad. He sought a recognition in philosophy of his early sense that his body participated in the universal forms of energy with a quality of exuberance—that 'serious exuberance' which he so accurately called jazz."—Eric Mottram, Introduction Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) was a principal actor in the Beat Generation, a companion of Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady in that great adventure. His books include On the Road , The Dharma Bums , Mexico City Blues , Lonesome Traveler , Visions of Cody , Pomes All Sizes (City Lights), Scattered Poems (City Lights) and The Scripture of the Golden Eternity (City Lights).

72 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1960

This edition

Format
72 pages, Paperback
Published
January 1, 2001 by City Lights Books
ISBN
9780872862913
ASIN
0872862917
Language
English

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About the author

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jack kerouac

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Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac, known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation.
Of French-Canadian ancestry, Kerouac was raised in a French-speaking home in Lowell, Massachusetts. He "learned English at age six and spoke with a marked accent into his late teens." During World War II, he served in the United States Merchant Marine; he completed his first novel at the time, which was published more than 40 years after his death. His first published book was The Town and the City (1950), and he achieved widespread fame and notoriety with his second, On the Road, in 1957. It made him a beat icon, and he went on to publish 12 more novels and numerous poetry volumes.
Kerouac is recognized for his style of stream of consciousness spontaneous prose. Thematically, his work covers topics such as his Catholic spirituality, jazz, travel, promiscuity, life in New York City, Buddhism, drugs, and poverty. He became an underground celebrity and, with other Beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements. He has a lasting legacy, greatly influencing many of the cultural icons of the 1960s, including Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Jerry Garcia and The Doors.
In 1969, at the age of 47, Kerouac died from an abdominal hemorrhage caused by a lifetime of heavy drinking. Since then, his literary prestige has grown, and several previously unseen works have been published.

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Rating(4 / 5.0, 92 votes)
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92 reviews All reviews
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Azolaan
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I read this online and had no idea how long it was when I started, but I read it start to finish in that, because I could immediately tell this was the kind of writing you lose track of the moment you break away from it. I do like the format, all these interconnecting ideas stated separately. And the subject too, it's a really interesting way of presenting the world. I probably agree with a lot of different would views and I'd say this is one of them. As I was reading, in the back of my head, a "yes, that sounds right" often chimed it.
So, I enjoyed this and would recommend.
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JaceSienna98
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Sinceramente me pareció puro caos, en los pequeños instantes que podía ver algo que tuviera un mínimo sentido se sepultaba rápidamente por la verborragia de palabras. Me terminó aturdiendo.
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Jamesml9411
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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The Scripture of the Golden Eternity by Jack Kerouac is a personalized collection of Beat interpreted Buddhism. The Open Road Integrated Media ebook version of the book uses their own typesetting which keeps the lines together and in their original format when you change text size. Many poems read better when the lines are presented when intended. In other ebooks, I am forced to go into landscape mode to retain line format. Unlike prose line breaks are important in many poems and can change the meaning of a line when the breaks are not in the right place.

The Scripture of the Golden Eternity is a collection of sixty-six poems written in what seems to me a prayer book. Each short poem is self-contained and is meant to be read and pondered on. Kerouac and the Beat version of Buddhism takes on its own unique form. Anyone with a knowledge of Buddhism who has read Dharma Bums understands this. It is not bad, but just a different Americanized, Beat interpretation.

Kerouac presents a compact version of his exploration into Buddhism and like many Americans he comes from a Christian or Catholic culture and attempts to reconcile his family religion with Buddhism. The Scripture of the Golden Eternity is a more mature view than the sometimes satirized Beat view that can be seen in Dharma Bums. A nice collection that is meant to be read and meditated upon.
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douglas04
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This is a book of spiritual "poetry" or meditations written by Jack Kerouac, famous for his work, On The Road. It was a fairly short read, being under a hundred poems in the entire collection but it was quite difficult to navigate as I was reading an uncorrected proof (ebook) and the lines of poetry were spliced in odd places. The language just didn't flow as I believe it was intended to.

Other than that, I had mixed feelings about it. Some of the poems read like The Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caulfield became a Buddhist and rambled on and on (i.e. "In other words, nothing can compare with telling your brother or your sister that what happened, what is happening, and what will happen, never really happened, is not really happening and never will happen, it is only the golden eternity." - #42 or "Cats yawn because they realize that there's nothing to do." - #59) while others were quite beautiful (i.e. "Perfectly selfless, the beauty of it, the butterfly doesn't take it as a personal achievement, he just disappears through the trees. You too, kind and humble are not-even-here, it wasn't in a greedy mood that you saw the light that belongs to everybody." - #57)

I'm quite analytical when I read, and to a fault sometimes, so I think that might play into my apathy for this book, but it just wasn't my cup of tea. I did not get any great spiritual enlightenment from reading this but perhaps others will appreciate it more than I did.

*I received an advance reading copy from the publisher in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.*
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Diachealsn
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This volume is everything and nothing and the same time, it is a buddhist modern mantra that leads you to "golden eternity." Whatever that means, this volume contains:

Some sensical non-sense(?):
"The form of emptiness
which is emptiness having taken the form of form,
is what you see and hear and feel right now, and
what you taste and smell and think as you read
this."

Some positivity(?):
"There is a blessedness surely to be believed,
and that is that everything abides in
eternal ecstasy, now and forever."

Some advice(?):
"Stare deep into the world before you as if it were
the void: innumerable holy ghosts, buddhies,
and savior gods there hide, smiling."

Some neuroscience(?):
"Discard such definite imaginations of phenomena
as your own self"

Some theology(?):
"sin is only a conception of ours,
due to long habit."

Some science(?):
"All things are different forms of the same thing."

Some philosophy(?):
"the emptiness of everything has no beginning
and no end and at present it is infinite."

Some truth(?):
"the world is undisciplined
Nature endlessly in every direction inward
to your body and outward into space."

Some poetry(?):
"Do you think the emptiness of the sky will ever
crumble away?"

Some manners(?):
"Even in dreams be kind, because anyway there is
no time, no space, no mind."

Some wisdom(?):
"When you’ve understood this scripture, throw it
away. If you cant understand this scripture,
throw it away. I insist on your freedom."

Some psychology (?):
"You cant even grasp your own pain let alone
your eternal reward."

Some humor(?):
"Everything’s alright, cats sleep. [...] Cats yawn because they realize
that there’s nothing to do."

Anyway, note 64 is the essence of this volume and the best of all of them...
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nickharold
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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“Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world."
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Piushae
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Primero del año y primero de Kerouac que leo. ¡Grata experiencia! Puedo vislumbrar lo profundo y experimental del estilo de Kerouac, del cual he escuchado mucho, mas me gustaría aproximarme a algo diferente suyo, con lo que de seguro podré conectar mucho mejor. Este ha sido un libro increíble de reflexiones muy profundas... no me suscribo mucho al pensamiento budista, pero lo he disfrutado bastante.
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