Read this all in one sitting in the poetry room at City Lights after a few Manhattans at Vesuvio's. Amazing.

Kerouac's Spiritual Vision

At the insistence of his friend Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac spent the spring of 1956 in a small cottage in Mill Valley California to make some final revisions to "On the Road" and to begin new projects in a setting free from distraction. According to Kerouac, Snider told him: "All right, Kerouac, it's about time for you to write sutra." The result was Kerouac's small book "The Scripture of the Golden Eternity", first published by LeRoy Jones in 1960. In his novel "The Dharma Bums", Kerouac describes the time he spent with Snyder.

Kerouac is known for his method of "spontaneous prose" which sometimes makes for disjointed, impenetrable reading. He did not write spontaneously in "The Scripture of the Golden Eternity". Rather, this book is carefully and beautifully written and edited. Kerouac seriously thought through the vision he wanted to convey.

The book is a short work in 66 numbered paragraphs which straddles the line between poetry and prose. Kerouac does nothing less than attempt to explain his spiritual vision and outlook on life. The book is eclectic in its sources, drawing heavily on Kerouac's engagement with Buddhism and on Catholicism as well. In addition to the extensive quotations and references, the book relies heavily on Kerouac's own experiences and thoughts.

Kerouac is moving in expressing difficult concepts. The spiritual vision expressed in this book is one of mysticism, shared in a loose way with mystic writers from many traditions and times. Kerouac offers a vision of a unitary, timeless view of the world and of the individual's place in it. He frequently describes individuals and discrete activities in space-time as "illusory", a seemingly paradoxical view shared by some other writers of his overall view, and one which may need to be interpreted. There are elements of pantheism in the book, although I suspect Kerouac might reject the term. The book is also heavily influenced by Buddhist teachings on emptyness and by the Diamond Sutra.

Some of the paragraphs in the book are lengthy and seem to present arguments while others are short and aphoristic. Here is paragraph 10, which seems to me to capture well what Kerouac is trying to convey.

"This world is the movie of what everything is, it is one movie, made of the same stuff throughout, belonging to nobody, which is what everything is."

An important aphoristic passage is offered in paragraph 30:

"Sociability is a big smile, and a big smile is nothing but teeth. Rest and be kind."

Kerouac conveys the mystic's sense of rest and unity in all things in paragraph 36.

"Give a gift to your brother, but there's no gift to compare with the giving of assurance that he is the golden eternity. The true understanding of this world brings tears to your eyes..... Religion is thy sad heart."

Kerouac fought losing battles with drugs, sexuality, and alcohol througout his life. It is too easy to put aside a book such as "The Scripture of the Golden Eternity" based on the troubles and shortcomings of the author. This would be to ignore the voice that comes through the book if not through the life. There is a felt spirituality in this book that informs Kerouac's other writings. Together with other spiritual works similar to this book, Kerouac has difficulty with differentiation and in thinking about evil. This form of spirituality might be viewed as condoning virtually any behavior, as might be suggested by several passages here taken in isolation. But the penultimate paragraph of this book describes the 64 earlier paragraphs as "the first teaching from the golden eternity" while the final paragraph concludes" [t]he second teaching from the golden eternity is that there never was a first teaching from the golden eternity. So be sure."

"The Scripture of the Golden Eternity" is an example of what is frequently described as "the perennial philosophy". It is a way of thinking about spirituality that may be found in other seemingly unlikely sources in addition to Kerouac. The text is available in a short single volume and in a valuable new collection of Kerouac's Collected Poems published by the Library of America. The quote in the first paragraph of this review is drawn from the LOA volume.

Robin Friedman

Ίσως αυτό το βιβλίο να αποτελεί μια βιωματική καταγραφή των σκέψεών του. Ο Kerouac ονειροπολεί ξεκάθαρα στην απομόνωσή του. Γραμμένο σε σχεδόν ημερολογιακή μορφή, τον βλέπουμε να γίνεται παρατηρητής. Του εαυτού του, των συνηθειών και των επιθυμιών του καταγράφοντας έτσι το παρόν και το παρελθόν του ώστε όλα αυτά μαζί να προδιαγράφουν το μέλλον του.
Έχει ενδιαφέρουσα γραφή που αποπνέει σαφή πνευματικότητα, ωστόσο δεν κατάφερε να με συνεπάρει στη διαδρομή του.

Meh. Some of it is vaguely obnoxious. Maybe the kids at Naropa are into it, but is was just a'right for me, dawg.

You just have to love a book that contains the word "blissstuff" (52). And that says "I love you because you're me. I love you because there's nothing else to do. It's just the natural golden eternity." (48)

I shall definitely have to come back to this one.

This was an interesting collection. After reading almost all of Kerouac's novels and letters, I finally tried his poetry and was blown away. I think "Golden Eternity" was my favorite because of its prose poetry and haikus, a form which Kerouac worked in quite extensively. For example, the haikus in particular are just lovely and so delicate. It is interesting to read them against an education in beat literature, as they are an obvious departure from the writer's style, and yet so wonderful in their own right. Although I possess no noteworthy proficiency in writing haikus, I do believe that practicing in this form has taught me a great deal about my prose writing. Like many writers, when I first began I had a tendency towards over-elaboration and exposition. I took so much time with the set up, that when it came to the punchline I tended to fall a bit flat. It's really something I still struggle with. Haikus are wonderful because in writing them, one is forced to say what one has to say in restrictive boundaries, which can serve as an important reminder about economy and concision.

Οδηγός ανάγνωσης δεν χρειάζεται. Το κείμενο διαβάζεται το ίδιο εύκολα σαν θρησκευτική διδαχή όσο και σαν πρωτότυπη λογοτεχνία. Είναι η νουθεσία ενός εκστατικού απάχη, ενός αγγέλου που τα φτερά του κόπηκαν με το ψαλίδι της Ιερής Απόγνωσης. (Από την εισαγωγή του Γ.Λειβαδά)

44.
.... Τέσσερις χιλιάδες οκτακοσιες μυριάδες Αφυπνισμένων μέσα στις αμέτρητες περιδίνησης των εποχών εμφανίστηκαν για να εργαστούν σκληρά και να σώσουν έναν κόκκο άμμου, και ήταν μοναχά η χρυσή αιωνιότητα. Και η συνολική τους ανταμοιβή δεν θα είναι μεγαλύτερη ούτε μικρότερη από αυτήν που θα έπαιρνε ένα ξερό σκατό. Είναι μία ανταμοιβή πέρα από τη σκέψη.....

59.
.... Οι γάτες χασμουριούνται γιατί συνειδητοποιούν πως δεν υπάρχει τίποτα να κάνουν....

Emptiness and fullness. Life and death. Nothing and everything. The Scripture of the Golden Eternity by Jack Kerouac is all of those things, and of course none of those things. The book was inspired by a fainting spell, but through sixty-six prose poems, Kerouac tries to explore the vast nothingness of the universe.

This collection, like some of Kerouac's other work, is deeply influenced by Buddhism and other religions. It lets the reader go with Kerouac on an exploration of what our place in this world is, and how everything can be so vast and so small at the same time.

Anyone who enjoys any of Kerouac's other work will be interested in reading this. It's better to approach this book while in a contemplative mood, so if your ready for a spiritual adventure, get on board.

*Received a copy of this book through NetGalley

I like Jack Kerouac. But this one was a bit different. Not the best but not the worst I’ve read.

“While looking for the light, you/may suddenly be devoured by the darkness/and find the true light.”

I needed this book! And I found it just at the right time. I have had writer’s block for a while and have been struggling to organize my work and put words down on a page. My mind felt cluttered and chaotic. This book was a new discovery for me, a book that helped me clear my mind and simultaneously expand my consciousness. It seemed to me as though I was meant to discover this book and the universe just threw it at me. I was doing research for an article and I came across this work online. Then, the ideas from the work were thrown at me while reading a Dylan interview, and the book (which I had never heard of before this day) was found on a new arrival shelf at my favorite used bookstore that same day. I have read a couple of Kerouac’s novels – "On the Road" (which is a favorite) and "Dharma Bums" – and I’d read his haikus in "Scattered Poems," but this was like a rediscovery of Kerouac for me, the first I’ve been really excited about his work since the first time I read "On the Road."

The ideas in this work are clear and simple, a philosophy espoused in his other literary works, but with more clarity and specificity here. Apparently, these poems were written at the advice of Kerouac pal Gary Snyder: “All right Kerouac, it’s about time for you to write sutra.” I began this year by re-reading the "Bhagavad Gita," a work that I was tremendously influenced by the first time I encountered it, but was not so moved by on my rereading. This gave me a renewed appreciation for that work and its central concept – the oneness of all life with the universe, Kerouac’s “golden eternity.” At times, the work seemed a bit tongue in cheek, reminiscent of Ferlinghetti’s "Poetry as Insurgent Art": “When you’ve understood this scripture, throw it/away. If you cant understand this scripture,/throw it away. I insist on your freedom,” but at its root it has a simplistic beauty, a philosophy of eternal truth, of peace, of universality. It is a beautiful collection that deserves to be reread again and again, an understanding of the Beat’s quest for meaning in this oftentimes chaotic world.

I don't know. I think it was written in good conscience and it referred to religions etc etc yet it sounded like badly (sorry, Jack - you are better than that) written bullsh*t.

Αποτελεί εισαγωγή στα βουδιστικά κείμενα, από τη ματιά ενός δυτικού, που τα ενστερνίζεται με σεβασμό και ενδεχομένως μία μικρή δόση άγνοιας.
Εξαιρετική η μετάφραση του Γιάννη Λειβαδά (Εκδ. ΑΠΟΠΕΙΡΑ).