The Trial Of The Man Who Said He Was God

by Douglas Harding

  Fourth, the reaction. His teachings have so outraged religious people that they have repeatedly committed such breaches of the peace as riotous assembly, arson, unlawful killings - and prima facie murder.

  In applying these four criteria, Your Honour, the Prosecution sets out to prove the Accused guilty of the crime of blasphemy as defined in the Act, Sections 4, 7c, 12, and 13b.

  JUDGE: How do you plead, John a-Nokes? Guilty or Not Guilty?

  MYSELF: Not Guilty, Your Honour.

  JUDGE: I understand that you wish to conduct your own Defence. Indeed I see that the dock has already been fitted with shelves for your books and papers. However, it’s my duty to warn you of the risk that your inexperience may hamper the presentation of your case to the Jury. Are you sure you can do justice to the evidence and the arguments that are in your favour, and can do battle with those that are not? Even at this late hour you may change your mind. There is in court a learned and able King’s Counsellor who is well prepared to take on your Defence.

  MYSELF: While I’m much obliged to Your Honour, I’ve decided to defend myself, notwithstanding the risks. But I do seek Your Honour’s indulgence when, due to ignorance of court procedure and etiquette, I fail to conduct myself properly.

  JUDGE: Have no fear on that score: I shall keep you in order.

  MYSELF: My Defence, Your Honour, I summarize like this:

  None of the four components of the Prosecution’s case against me - what Counsel calls my blasphemy, the extreme form it takes, its dissemination and the public’s reaction - none of these is resisted in principle. I’ll go along with all four once they are stripped of pejorative and prejudicial language. My Defence doesn’t consist so much in combating as in reinterpreting them, in the light of two considerations.

  The first and comparatively unimportant one is that the outrage I have undoubtedly given rise to was unintentional. So far from being deliberate, it was and is much regretted. Alas, it is unavoidable if the truths I publicize are at all important - and I say they are supremely important, indeed critical, for the health and even the survival of our species. Though the Act, as I read it, does little to distinguish between offence that’s given inadvertently and offence that’s given deliberately, it’s hardly a difference which the Judge and the Jury can ignore.

  The second and crucial Defence argument - the pith and substance of my case - I state baldly here. Baldly, but without rancour or complacency. Full supporting evidence will come out in the course of the Trial.

  Here it is: I am the only one in court who is not guilty of blasphemy! I accuse my accusers of this most serious crime!

  It’s you who stand in the dock today!

  The Prosecution Witnesses and the Defence Rebuttal

  Prosecution Witness No. 1

  THE POLICE OFFICER

  Preliminaries over, all is now set in court for the Trial to proceed.

  Counsel for the Prosecution calls his first witness, a police officer in uniform. Prompted by Counsel, he gives evidence of arrest. He testifies how, armed with a warrant, he went to my home, where he cautioned me that anything I said was liable to be taken down and used in evidence.

  COUNSEL: What was the Accused’s reaction?

  OFFICER, consulting his notebook: Paying no attention to my warning, he kept bragging it was impossible to arrest him. He was a sight too big and slippery (vac... vacous? and tenous? are words I’ve got down here) for any officer of the law to handle. Apprehending this suspect would be like taking the West Wind into custody, he told me.

  COUNSEL: You proved him wrong?

  OFFICER: I surely did, sir. He came along quietly, and there was no trouble on the way to the police station. There, he started up again. He kept boasting that no cell was strong enough to hold him, and promised to smash down at least one wall and break out of the building. There was something I didn’t get, about taking off into space.

  COUNSEL: Was he claiming to be an unusually clever magician, or perhaps a second Houdini, an escape artist of the sort you see on the stage?

  OFFICER: Not really. The impression I got was that he was rather mad, and convinced he wielded some kind of divine power.

  COUNSEL, to Jury: Note the words ‘divine power’. You might suppose that the Accused, content with announcing his divinity to the world in season and out of season, would let up a little in prison. But not so. Here we have indeed a blasphemer for all seasons!

  [To Witness] So you decided to see whether handcuffs would curb this marvellous power?

  OFFICER: That’s right, just to make sure. It seems they did. Either the power he packed wasn’t Godlike enough to unlock an ordinary pair of darbies (let alone smash walls) or else it didn’t exist at all.

  COUNSEL: So what happened in the end?

  OFFICER: Nothing special at all. The handcuffs soon came off, and John a-Nokes turned out to be a quite normal prisoner. Rather better behaved, I reckon, than most. But every bit as human. That stuff was just talk.

  COUNSEL: There you have it all, Jury. A small man talking bigger than big.

  That’s all, Officer. But stay in the box: I think he has some questions to put to you.

  Defence: My Let-out and My Let-in

  MYSELF: Officer, was my conversation with you abrasive, or humorous?

  OFFICER: More humorous, I’d say. Funny stuff - with an edge to it.

  MYSELF: And casual too, as if something perfectly obvious were being pointed out?

  OFFICER: Well, yes, in a way.

  MYSELF: What made you change your mind and decide to give the impression in your testimony that I was a wild and aggressive prisoner, if not actually raving mad?

  OFFICER: Well, I don’t know... I wasn’t concerned with giving impressions, one way or another, but just answering Counsel’s questions. I didn’t say you were wild and aggressive. Only that you talked that way.

  MYSELF: Thank you. No more questions from me. [The Witness stands down.]

  Ladies and gentlemen of the Jury, let me tell you about a very significant thing that happened in that prison. After the Officer had satisfied himself that I would give no trouble, he took my handcuffs off - as you’ve just heard. Also, at my request, he gave me drawing materials. I wanted to verify how impossible it was to make a sketch of myself from inside that cell.

  If you will please turn to Diagram No. 1 in the pamphlet which the Defence has supplied each of you with, you’ll find a copy of my sketch.

  The ‘cell’ wasn’t a cell (the rear wall was missing) and I wasn’t in what there was of it. All I found of myself was the odd arm and leg thrust in from outside. I was no more held in that cell than in that cracked basin while washing my hands. The truth is that I peek and prod into rooms, advancing a tentative feeler or two, but never O never - like other people - venture inside. You’ll not catch me in one of your mantraps! Not nowadays you won’t!

  What happened to me was this. Having been told from an early age that the word ‘cell’ - or room, or compartment, or chamber, or courtroom - means a space closed in on all sides, I tailored my experience to the language. I hallucinated to order. And was everywhere a jailbird. But one day - O happy day! - I noticed that the poet Lovelace, writing from jail, said truly:

  Stone walls do not a prison make

  Nor iron bars a cage.

  I came to my senses, and saw my way back to freedom. Not just figuratively but literally, saw my way back to freedom...

  The business of this court is to go by the evidence that is clearly presented within its four walls. Correction: three walls. All I ask of you members of the Jury is to look at what’s being displayed at this moment, what’s clearly on show - not what’s imagined, believed, thought up, cooked up, faked up, but actually seen. Namely, three walls - at most. Another glance at my picture may help you to see the given shape of the shapes around you.

  Diagram No. 1

  Look! Ahead of you is the now-empty witness-box, with its telescreen for long-distance witnesses, and you see that it has for ba
ckground an approximately rectangular wall. On your right, His Honour the Judge sitting there on his bench, and below him the Clerk to the Court, have a wedge-shaped wall background; and the thick end of the wedge - your end - is fuzzy. It fades out, On your left, the dock - with me in it - has a second wedge-shaped wall for background, fading out as before. Now can you honestly tell me that, on present evidence, these two wedges join up to make a fourth wall? Or that you have any background at all? Come on! Have you ever, even in the Underground during the rush hour, found yourself hemmed in all round? Aren’t you always, for yourself, wide open at the rear, unconfined, at large, deeper than deep, immense? In this direction the risk, if there were any, would surely be agoraphobia and not claustrophobia.

  COUNSEL: I must protest, Your Honour! Is this a Trial for blasphemy? Or a seminar on perspective? Or - heaven help us! - a game for four-year-olds? The Accused is wasting the court’s time.

  JUDGE: I think he may be coming to the point.

  MYSELF: I’m right there, Your Honour.

  If you and the Jury will please turn to Diagram No. 2 in the booklet, it may help to bring out my meaning.

  Diagram No. 2

  When overlooked and avoided, this Missing Wall or Rear Gap or Absence reads as useless and boring, the shadow of a shadow, a dead loss. Or worse: as more terrifying than any ghost or devil. When taken in and taken on, however, it becomes the Presence that is my treasure. This despised No-thing at my back turns out to be far more real than any of the things in front of me. This neglected Place is a truer one than any on the map for, in contrast to them, it’s infinitely wide and deep, uniformly itself through and through, all on show at once, always accessible, unchanging and - ah! - my Native Land. The Big Country. the Country of Everlasting Clearness. This is what I see it is, not what I imagine it is. Above all, it’s vividly aware of itself as all this, and free from every limitation. Described negatively, it’s my way out of the tightest spot, my escape route from the most secure of prisons. Described positively, it’s my way in to the absolute Liberty that I am. It didn’t forsake me when the Officer thought he had me cooped up in his cell. It doesn’t forsake me now in this sombre courtroom, of which it is the fourth side - the bright side which is God’s side.

  Yes! Every room - every place I am ever supposed to be ‘in’ - has its God’s side. Which is my side. My let-out from the world, and my let-in to its Source. Here’s the silver lining to the darkest cloud that ever gathered.

  For thousands of years the wise have been siding with God and taking this way Home; and recommending, with all the eloquence at their command, this royal road from human bondage back to divine freedom. Now, at last, instead of being told about it by experts, we are being shown it. We are invited to see our own way through to God’s own country. The Clear Country we’re coming from and returning to.

  COUNSEL, slicing the air with his brief: Did you hear what he said, members of the Jury? Graciously, Mr John a-Nokes takes God’s side! Not, as you might think, out of need or reverence, but because of Who he thinks he is, because it’s naturally his side. This, you’ll agree, is blasphemy without qualms, the laid-back sort. And stupid: to find all four walls at once, he has only to mount a pair of steps and look down from the ceiling.

  MYSELF: And then the room is ceilingless. There, on high this time, is his let-out from man’s world into God’s. In drawing plans of four-walled rooms open to the sky, the architect sides with the Architect of the Universe.

  For God’s sake let’s come to our senses and give ourselves a break. We’re all in business, the difficult business of living. What’s the use of being upfront if our rear’s in disarray, if our pants are down? Our success, our very survival depends ultimately on the Backup our enterprise draws on. Is it some mushroom corporation, with a confidence-inspiring logo and title and address in the City, sprung up overnight in the financial jungle? Or a half-hardy perennial like our High Street Barclays? Truly there’s only one Bank I can always bank on, only one Firm that stays firm through all crises, only one Underwriter that never comes out from under, only one Resource that’s infinitely resourceful. That’s the one I have for backing, right now. I can count on this Thing because it isn’t a thing at all, but the Origin and Receptacle of all things, the Source of all resources. Itself free from everything, its ability to come up with the things that are needed (including this description of itself right now) is astounding. It has a knack. My God, what a knack!

  Call It what you like. The Void, Essence, Spirit, Awareness, Reality, the Treasury of the Kingdom of Heaven: or the true Banco di Santo Spirito. Only don’t go on overlooking It. Look back without looking round. There’s Nothing to It, It’s that easy to appeal to and draw upon. And Everything’s from It, It’s that generous. Here’s a Pocket infinitely deep and well-lined and perfect for picking. Our Source isn’t playing hard to get. It’s begging to be noticed and taken advantage of and cashed in on, positively tearing the courtroom apart in the effort. Tell me now, what more could It do to announce Itself?

  COUNSEL, with a sneer: And these huge advances are quite interest-free to the great Mr Nokes, the divine bank customer, no doubt.

  MYSELF: Certainly not. Backing like this invariably costs something. Interest has to be disbursed, attention has to be paid. I draw on the Bank’s unlimited reserves to the extent that I’m awake to Its presence, and to the central position It occupies in my life. To be genuinely intrigued, to stick with It because I want to and not because I’m told to do so, is to cash in on It, to tap Its power, to be It. And just now It’s revealing Itself as the Gap between the wedge-shaped walls of this courtroom. How vast and deep this Rear Gap is, how clean, how appreciative of Itself! Wonder-struck and delighted, I would say. The Gap is agape!

  There are two pronunciations and two meanings of this word - the adjective ‘agape’ and the noun ‘agapë’, or love-feast - and both apply here. This wide-open-mouthed Appetite for the world is what I AM right here and right now, and It is infinitely mysterious. Truly I can’t say what It is but only that It is. Here is not a case of I am this or that or the other, but plain I AM. And, back of the I AM, the I AM NOT from which It arises without reason and without stint. A case of Being, without being someone or something. By contrast and with respect, I’ve only to glance across at Counsel to see what it’s like being someone - an object which isn’t backed by the Source of the world, or even by the world, but by a tiny bit of it. A man-shaped patch of courtroom.

  What a relief to be backed by the One whose name is I AM, the name that precedes and introduces every other name! What a relief to merge into and be upheld by the Unlimited. In that police cell, in the dock of this court, in the condemned cell if you send me there, I find at my back only the Everlasting Freedom and the Incomparable Safety. For I am in none of those dim and poky places. They are in me who am Brightness itself, and I can take them.

  God is my let-out.

  My let-out into what place? My witnesses speak for me:

  Into what place? Into the Place where place itself finds no admittance, where nothing exists save the lightning-flash of the Moon of Allah. It is far beyond all conception and imagination. It is the Light of light of light of light of light of light.

  Rumi

  True places are not found on maps.

  Herman Melville

  The lover has no back... He receives everything clean from Him.

  Rumi

  Let us be backed with God.

  Shakespeare: Henry VI, Part 3

  Bodhisattvas have their minds set to working without anything behind them... The Bodhisattva floats like a cloud in the sky without anything at its back.

  D. T. Suzuki

  The Sage all the time sees and hears no more than a young child sees and hears.

  Tao Te Ching

  I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.

  Jesus

  Prosecution Witness
No. 2

  THE HUMANIST

  COUNSEL: The court would like to hear about your relationship with the Accused, in so far as it bears on the crime he stands accused of.

  WITNESS: I’m a University Lecturer in Philosophy, and my special interest is the history of humanism. Some twenty years ago John a-Nokes attended a course of lectures I was giving on the ideas behind the French Revolution. I knew him vaguely as some kind of mystical freethinker, with a lively mind much given to enthusiasms. An oddball, you could say, if not a screwball. Since then we’ve bumped - and I mean bumped - into each other occasionally. From early days it was clear that we had little in common. Whenever our paths crossed, we crossed swords. This only resulted in our positions hardening and drifting even further apart. Gradually it dawned on me that he wasn’t just ordinary religious, or Bible-thumping prayer-meeting religious, but what I can only call God-awful religious. I read as much of his stuff as I could take, which was very little. I listened to rather more than I could take on the subject of Who He Really Is. I concluded that we don’t live in the same universe. We’re mutually out of earshot. This deification syndrome, with its delusions of grandeur, leave me numb and practically speechless anyway.

  COUNSEL: ‘Deification syndrome’, you say. Can you enlarge on that?

  WITNESS: He’s got so far above himself that he’s out of my reach. If I could get to the man, I would challenge him to produce anyone who seriously regards him as divine. Why can’t he see that his true dignity is to accept the world’s view of him as only human after all? I’d like to see him stop posturing and, with Alexander Pope, admit his limitations:

  Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,

  The proper study of mankind is man.

  Defence: The Divinist

  MYSELF, to the Witness: This is ridiculous! It just isn’t true that everyone says I’m essentially human. You must know about the Perennial Philosophy, according to which you and I are essentially divine - like it or lump it.