Great Books #4: The Conscious Universe
The Iliad is a war of wills. The epic starts with the battle between Agamemnon and Achilles. They're trying to impose their will on each other, and it leads to disaster for the Greeks because Hector and the Trojans are now about to destroy them. The Greeks, led by Odysseus, come to Achilles's ship and beg him to return to the battlefield. But Achilles wants Agamemnon to come and apologize and kneel before him, which Agamemnon is not going to do. So Achilles says no.
This leads to a conundrum because if Agamemnon doesn't apologize, the Trojans are going to destroy the Greeks. Achilles needs Agamemnon to apologize in order to save face. The Greeks and Achilles are all very anxious. So what Achilles does is he sends Patroclus to get the Greeks to come and beg some more. But Nestor understands what Achilles is doing. He refuses to apologize, but he tells Patroclus, "Listen, we can't get Achilles to fight, but maybe you can fight for us, and maybe that will save the day."
Patroclus is very excited because he has wanted all his life to outshine Achilles, as he's always been in Achilles's shadow. But now his problem is how to convince his superior, his commander Achilles, to go with this plan. This leads to a conflict, a battle of wills between Patroclus and Achilles.
The Three Levels of Psychological Warfare
To understand this battle, we need to visualize how it is being fought. If you read their speech, we discover that this battle is being fought on three levels:
- The conscious, emotional level.
- The calculating, manipulative level.
- The strategic, planning level.
Imagine three different individuals together in Patroclus. The first person is the actor: the person who appears before Achilles and cries like a girl. Then there's the calculating director: "Why am I doing this? I'm doing this because I want Achilles to agree to let me join the battlefield against the Trojans." And then there is the strategic producer, the old wise man sitting in the back: "What I'm going to do is convince Achilles to agree. Then I'm going to join the battlefield and win honor."
Think of this as the actor, the director, and the producer (or the investor asking, "What is my long-term gain from this?").
Achilles is the same. The actor in Achilles is like, "Why are you crying, Patroclus? This is not our war." The director in Achilles is thinking, "Ha, maybe I can trick Patroclus into helping me enter the battlefield." And the producer is like, "I want to win glory for myself."
It's all very subtle, but if you read their dialogue, you'll recognize that this is all happening at once. Not only that, but if you examine your own life and the decisions you make, you will recognize that you're doing all three at once, subconsciously.
Sigmund Freud would say that the strategic level is the Id—the basic desire. You want glory, you want sex, you want money. The conscious level is the Superego, and the calculating level is the Ego. You can also think of this as the conscious and subconscious. We've known for a long time that we as humans operate at many different levels all at once. We don't really know why we do what we do.
They are having this fight, and it's all at a very subconscious level.
Achilles's Subtle Manipulation
Ultimately, Achilles agrees to let Patroclus go, and that's all he has to do. If he had stopped there, nothing would have happened. Patroclus would go, face Hector, realize Hector is stronger than he is, and retreat. That's what should have happened, and that's what Nestor and the Greeks expect to happen. Then Patroclus would come back, and Achilles would recognize that he needs to join the battlefield because Hector is too strong. That's what's being planned.
But what Achilles does is he adds an element to it which changes the dynamic of events, which changes how things unfold. He says something very weird to Patroclus.
Once you have whipped the enemy from the fleet,
you must come back, Patroclus. Even if Zeus,
the thundering lord of Hera, lets you seize your glory,
you must not burn for war against these Trojans,
madmen lusting for battle. Not without me.
You will only make my glory that much less.
You must not, lost in the flush and fire of triumph,
slaughtering Trojans outright, drive your troops to Troy.
What if one of the gods who never die comes down
from Olympus’ heights to intervene in battle?
The deadly Archer loves his Trojans dearly.
No, you must turn back—soon as you bring the light of victory to the ships.
Let the rest of them cut themselves to pieces on the plain.
Oh would to god—Father Zeus, Athena and lord Apollo—
not one of all these Trojans could flee his death, not one,
no Argive either, but we could stride from the slaughter
so we could bring Troy’s hallowed crown of towers
toppling down around us—you and I alone.
This little speech is almost impossible to see with the naked eye, but it dooms Patroclus. What it does is it tells Patroclus, "You have the opportunity to seek eternal glory. You have the opportunity to be better than me. In fact, you're probably better than me." And that gives Patroclus hubris, which is what's going to get him killed because he will challenge Hector.
Nowhere in this speech does Achilles say, "Be aware of Hector." All he says is, "Hey, Zeus is going to support you, and you'll be better than me." Now, if Achilles is stronger than Hector, Patroclus can be stronger than Hector.
Why does Achilles do this? Achilles understands that Patroclus is young, impetuous, and jealous. If you give him an opportunity, he will seek glory for himself and therefore might get himself killed. And if he gets himself killed, that's good for Achilles, because now he has the perfect excuse to join the battlefield and win all the glory for himself. This is impossible to see. The Greeks don't see this. The gods can't see this. Patroclus himself can't see this. And Achilles himself doesn't know he's doing this.
So, the question for us then is: How does this happen? How are we able to function at three different levels and do things that are invisible to ourselves and to others? How is it that we make decisions and manipulate other people as well as ourselves?
Models of Consciousness
Let's look at the standard understanding of psychology. What happens is this: we have experiences, and then we turn these experiences into memories, and memories are really emotions. Then these emotions are organized in a way that creates an identity. Different memories can create different identities, and together we create a worldview, which is basically our personality or how we perceive the world. Our personality determines our preferences, what we like, how we make decisions, and how we perceive the future.
There are certain issues with this standard model. The first issue is: how do you filter experiences? We can have all the same experiences, but the way we perceive them is different, which leads to different memories. What is the mechanism that allows for filtering?
The second problem is that we know that memories are malleable and flexible; they're always changing. It's possible over the course of your lifetime to go back to the same event, but each time you perceive it differently, which causes a different emotional reaction. For example, maybe when you were young, your dad hit you by accident. At first, you were really hurt and perceived it as your dad not loving you. But maybe when you get older and have your own child, you hit your child accidentally and then you feel sympathy for your father. The memory changes according to your own development. Why does that happen?
The third thing is imagination. We know from memories you can expand them outwards and create new worlds and universes. That's how we create novels and write essays. But how do you do that? Your material is limited, but the imagination is unlimited. There are clearly some issues with the standard model of consciousness.
A New Model of Consciousness
Let's take a new model of consciousness and apply it to the Iliad to explain why they behave the way they do. The model we use is from Kant, who says that rather than being passive observers of the world—meaning that we just absorb experiences and turn them into memories—we are active participants in reality, meaning that we create reality.
Through space and time, which can be influenced by language and media, we turn the noumena (the things-in-themselves, which are just vibrations and energy) into the phenomena (things as they appear to us).
There are certain problems with this model. The first is, where does our space and time come from? We know that we create space and time in our brains, but why do our brains do that, and what's the mechanism? Second, what is the noumena? We can't see it, but what is it? The third thing is, if this is all subjective, meaning that we all create our own reality, how do we know we're creating the same reality?
To solve this problem, Hegel proposes the Geist, or spirit. The Geist is what gives us space and time. As we are interacting with the noumena, the noumena itself responds to us. That's how we can all see the same thing—because it's the same force that we're acting on.
The Greeks have a metaphor for this. Imagine an infinite number of people, and consciousness extends infinitely in different dimensions and waves. On one level, you are just talking to yourself. But on another level, you're talking to another person. On another level, you're talking to more people. This goes on infinitely.
Remember that as you engage the Geist, the Geist talks back to you. Think of the internet, where whatever you produce is stored online, but you also have some memory on your own hardware. This creates memories, and your memories are now part of the Geist. As a result, the Geist is constantly evolving as you evolve as well. It's dynamic, not set. As you engage the internet, the internet changes.
These memories are stored in the Geist. Some are permanent because these memories are extremely visual or very powerful, and that gives rise to new consciousness, like gods.
- The New Gods: These are gods like Zeus, Apollo, and Aphrodite. They actually interfere in human events.
- The Old Gods: These are older gods that have been there since the beginning of time. They are things like Honor, Justice, Fate, and Destiny. They're stronger than the new gods.
- God Itself: Then you go up higher and you have God itself. We understand God as the immutable and unwritten laws of the universe. We don't know what they are, but they're like gravity, structuring the universe. Think of them as Good, Truth, and Beauty.
As we engage the universe, the universe evolves, and we implant our memories into it. So even though we die, our memories are still there and they're still living. We can access them at any time. What is interesting about this is that the infinity of the universe is also captured in us. We are a hologram of the universe. The internet is vast, but on our computers, we have a replica of the entire internet because we are connected to it all the time. In other words, whatever we do here impacts the entire universe. Whatever we do here will have reverberations throughout all of humanity. One good act by yourself can impact the entire universe itself because the universe is conscious.
Now we understand why Patroclus and Achilles are able to do what they do. If this is our consciousness, then there are different spirits working within us. We are constantly able to operate at different dimensions. We're able to see far ahead, focus on right now, be strategic, and occupy different personas. We are literally a universe onto ourselves.
The Shield of Achilles: A Universe in the Soul
If you read the Iliad, Homer actually reveals to you how this works. That's what poetry is: a snapshot of this universe in motion. We're going to look at the shield of Achilles.
Patroclus is dead, but he took Achilles's armor to the battlefield, so Achilles has no armor. He talks to his mother, Thetis, who goes to talk to Hephaestus, the great armorer of the gods on Mount Olympus. Hephaestus is going to design a shield for Achilles that will make him invincible. The shield has living images; it's like a movie where the images are constantly appearing over and over.
And he forged a fallow field, broad rich plowland
tilled for the third time, and across it crews of plowmen
wheeled their teams, driving them up and back.
And soon as they'd reach the end of the field
and turned, a man would run up quickly and hand them
a cup of honeyed, mellow wine,
and the crews would turn back down along the furrows,
pressing again to reach the end of the deep fallow field.
And the earth churned black behind them, like earth churning,
solid gold as it was—that was the wonder of Hephaestus' work.
And he forged a king's estate where harvesters labored,
reaping the ripe grain, swinging their whetted scythes.
Some stalks fell in line with the reapers, row on row,
and others the sheaf-binders girded round with ropes.
Three binders standing over the sheaves, and behind them
boys gathering up the cut swaths, filling their arms,
supplying grain to the binders, endless bundles.
And there in the midst the king, scepter in hand,
at the head of the reaping-rows, stood tall in silence,
rejoicing in his heart. And off to the side,
beneath a spreading oak, the heralds were setting out
the harvest feast. They were dressing a great ox
they had slaughtered, while attendant women
poured out barley, generous, glistening handfuls
strewn for the reapers' midday meal.
This shield of Achilles is actually the soul of Achilles. It is his consciousness, what is inside him. And what this is, ultimately, is a universe onto itself. You have lots of different characters: the king, the women, just lots and lots of people.
The soul is composed of memories, but this is telling us that these memories don't just come from our experiences. They come partly from our experiences but also from the universe itself. These memories allow us to access the universe in dialogue with it, and as a result, we're able to absorb memories from elsewhere. Another way to understand this is that we are constantly living and dying. When we die, all we're doing is shedding our bodies and assuming new ones, but our memories and experiences stay with us. The poetry in us stays with us, and it's constantly being rewritten. That's where our power comes from. Our will to live, our will to fight, comes from the fact that we are conscious beings constantly in dialogue with a universe that is both infinite and internal. This is what this poetry represents.
The Guilt of Achilles and the Mandate of Heaven
Achilles jumps into the battlefield and kills Hector. At this point, Achilles should be happy because he's killed the great Hector, which proves that he is the greatest warrior in the world. He's now secured eternal fame. But then he does something really weird: he decides to mutilate Hector's body. He ties Hector's body to his chariot and rides around the city of Troy, which causes Priam and Hecuba, Hector's parents, to go insane.
The Greeks, including Odysseus, are disgusted. For them, Hector is a great warrior, and you respect a great warrior. You do not humiliate and mutilate a great warrior like that. Hector fought well, he never cheated; he was just fierce and great, so he was respected by everyone. Also, when Achilles returned to the battlefield, Hector didn't run away. He stood his ground and died. Everyone else ran back into Troy, but Hector said, "No, I must take responsibility for this defeat." It is the greatest act of bravery in the Iliad because he knows he's going to die.
Everyone is looking at this and saying this is really terrible. What's happened is Achilles has gone insane. The Greeks try to comfort him by holding funeral games for Patroclus, but that doesn't solve the problem. Now Achilles is depressed. He can't sleep, he can't eat, he can't even cry for his friend. He's so overburdened by guilt.
This is the issue when you are connected with the universe. The universe is conscious; you are the universe itself. So when you do evil—and he knows in his heart he's the one who got Patroclus killed, he manipulated Patroclus into his death—then you know, because the universe knows. And this haunts you for the rest of your life. You cannot escape it. When you do evil, God doesn't have to punish you, because you punish yourself with the memory of it. Your soul burns with regret, despair, guilt, and shame.
Now you have this other conflict emerging. Achilles is about to go insane, but he doesn't know what he did wrong. He cannot admit what he did because he doesn't understand himself.
What happens now is interesting. The gods have a great meeting and decide they're going to broker a peace between Priam and Achilles. Hermes comes and takes Priam into the Greek camp, and then Priam and Achilles meet. The question is, how does that happen? Is this being metaphorical or literal? My argument is that it is literal.
At some point, Achilles's and Priam's thoughts will converge. But this is the universe, so there are other consciousnesses within this universe. They see the conflict and will now engage in a dialogue to resolve the differences between Priam and Achilles. These are called the gods. The universe is full of these different memories that are constantly living, and therefore they can engage in debate, dialogue, and imagination. They say, "Priam and Achilles, you need to come to an agreement."
Subconsciously, Achilles knows Priam is going to come and talk to him. And Priam feels, "I need to go and see Achilles." The universe has come to an agreement, and therefore, the universe will now create a reality around this agreement. This means Priam can now walk directly from Troy to the Greek camp, and the Greeks will walk away and pretend they didn't see him. The universe has instructed them: Priam and Achilles must meet. Therefore, you must make it possible for them to meet. So a guard is sitting around, Priam's walking this way, and the guard thinks, "Hm, I should turn that way," and then Priam walks past him.
Because we are in constant dialogue with the universe, and the universe has a plan, we must obey this plan. In China, we call this the mandate of heaven. It is the will of the gods that Priam and Achilles must meet and reconcile their differences so that the universe can continue. Otherwise, the universe must stop at this point because Achilles is not going to give up Hector's body, and Priam will only suffer. This is how the universe works. It's unbelievable, but if you think about it really hard, it makes a lot of sense. Why do events happen the way they do? Because it is God's will.
How can we explain Mao Zedong in China, a peasant who was able to win a war and establish the People's Republic of China? Not only that, but during this war, he never got injured once. How do you explain that? There is a conscious universe. There's a plan, an intention, a design to it, and we all participate in its design. The conflict now is a great injustice in the world where Achilles refuses to return Hector's body to Priam. So everyone agrees—both the Greeks and Trojans—we are going to pretend that we don't see them meeting.
The Final Battle: Priam's Forgiveness
Now we come to what is recognized as the greatest ending in all of literature. This is the final battle between Priam and Achilles. This is the greatest battle in human history. These are two people who hate each other. Priam saw Achilles murder Hector, his beloved son. Not only that, but Priam also witnessed Achilles kill many of his other sons. And for Achilles, Priam is the great enemy, the person who started this war.
The majestic king of Troy slipped past the rest
and kneeling down beside Achilles, clasped his knees
and kissed his hands, those terrible, man-killing hands
that had slaughtered Priam's many sons in battle.
Awesome as when the grip of madness seizes one
who murders a man in his own fatherland and flees abroad
to foreign shores, to a wealthy noble's host,
and a sense of marvel runs through all who see him.
So Achilles marveled, beholding majestic Priam.
His men marveled too, trading startled glances.
But Priam prayed his heart out to Achilles.
In contrast to Achilles, who slaughtered many of Priam's sons, the majestic king of Troy kneels and kisses his hands. Priam is behind Achilles; he could just take a dagger and stab Achilles in the neck. He doesn't do that. Instead, he kneels before Achilles and kisses the very hand that killed all of his sons.
The effect is awesome. Achilles, the great warrior who bows to no one, is stunned by this. He is defeated by this. He is awed by the majesty of Priam. Greatness does not come from defeating your enemies; it comes from forgiving your enemies. This one act of kissing the hands of the man who killed all his sons is going to change the universe forever. One action is going to bring peace and reconciliation to the world.
Not only is Achilles stunned, but so is everyone around him. This is reverberating across the universe. You're far away, but you feel as though an earthquake has happened, something magical has happened, and it changes you for the better. Because Priam has the strength and courage to forgive his great enemy, he's changing his fate. He's changing the fate of the world around him.
The idea here is as above, so below. This is a great secret of the universe. What we do today, at this moment, can change the course of history. Because if what we do is memorable, it will implant itself throughout the universe and be there for all future generations. That's what's happening. Homer is drawing from the universe this memory and showing it to us. That's what the Iliad is: a depiction of the universe in motion, a universe of consciousness.
"Remember your own father, great godlike Achilles—
as old as I am, past the threshold of deadly old age!
No doubt the countrymen round him plague him now,
with no one there to defend him, beat away disaster.
No one—but at least he hears you're still alive
and his old heart rejoices, hopes rising day by day
to see his beloved son come sailing home from Troy.
But I—dear god, my life so cursed by fate . . .
I fathered hero sons in the wide realm of Troy
and now not a single one is left, I tell you.
Fifty sons I had when the sons of Achaea came . . .
nineteen born to me from a single mother's womb
and the rest by other women in the palace.
Many, most of them, violent Ares cut the knees from under.
But one, one was left me, to guard my walls, my people—
the one you killed the other day, defending his fatherland—
my Hector. It's all for him I've come to the ships now,
to win him back from you—I bring a priceless ransom.
Revere the gods, Achilles! Pity me in my own right,
remember your own father! I deserve more pity . . .
Priam is the greatest king in the world because he has been able to humble himself before Achilles. Remember Agamemnon? This struggle started because Agamemnon refused to be humble. But Priam is the opposite. He's begging for Achilles's forgiveness even though he hates Achilles. What gives him the power to do this? The answer is his love for Hector.
What animates and unifies this universe is love. Love is God. To really access this universe, to really know it, you must love. Love makes you invincible. So Priam has the courage to come to Achilles, but he also has the courage to beg Achilles, to forgive Achilles.
Priam says, "Remember your father, Achilles." As he loves Hector, Achilles also loves his father. How does he know that? Because we're all connected by the universe. He's able to imagine the soul of Achilles. He knows how Achilles loves his father as much as he loves Hector. This is what allows them to come together. The love of Hector makes Priam imagine the love of Achilles for his father.
These are the two forces. Love activates the imagination. Love is the unifying force of the universe; it brings us all together. The imagination is the animating force of the universe; it makes the universe alive. That is our purpose in this world: to love each other and then to activate our imagination to create the reality that we live in. A world where the pillar is love is perfect and just.
I have endured what no one on earth has ever done before—
I put to my lips the hands of the man who killed my son."
Those words stirred within Achilles a deep desire
to grieve for his own father. Taking the old man's hand,
he gently moved him back. And overpowered by memory,
both men gave way to grief. Priam wept freely
for man-killing Hector, throbbing, crouching before Achilles' feet
as Achilles wept himself, now for his father,
now for Patroclus once again, and their sobbing
rose and fell throughout the house.
Then when brilliant Achilles had had his fill of tears
and the longing for it had left his mind and body,
he rose from his seat, raised the old man by the hand,
and filled with pity now for his gray head and gray beard,
he spoke out winging words, flying straight to the heart:
"Poor man, how much you've borne—pain to break the spirit!
What daring brought you down to the Achaean ships,
all alone, to face the glance of the man who killed
your sons, so many fine, brave boys?
You have a heart of iron. Come, please,
sit down on this chair here."
Priam has defeated Achilles. Remember, Achilles's great problem is he can't cry. He doesn't know what he did wrong or how to express his guilt and shame. But now that Priam has forgiven him, Priam has actually liberated Achilles. Before, Achilles's soul was trapped in evil. By forgiving Achilles, Priam has let his soul loose to reconnect with the universe and therefore to return to its poetic self. This is the epiphany of Achilles. He recognizes his guilt, and because Priam is able to forgive him, he's able to forgive himself. He's become wiser, more gentle, more poetic, more generous. This is what life is. This is what it means to be human: to do battle with our own heart.
The Power of Empathy: The Iliad's True Legacy
In the Buddhist and Hindu traditions, the idea is that we are constantly reincarnating. This world that we live in is one of pain and suffering, but it's one that gives us insight. It trains us to be wise and allows us to have the memories to create a more divine universe. We do that because we incarnate and assume different roles. Maybe in this life, we are the murderer; in the next life, we are the murdered. Maybe in this life we're a human, the next a plant, then an animal. It goes on infinitely until we've achieved wisdom. In other words, the point of this life is to develop empathy, because empathy leads to wisdom and enlightenment.
The great thing about a great book is that it's a universe onto itself, and therefore you can actually speed up the process of wisdom and enlightenment. By reading the Iliad, you can assume different lives. You can have different lives all at once. What makes the Iliad so powerful is that you're constantly switching perspectives. One day you're Agamemnon, then you're Achilles, then you're Hector.
What's amazing is that Homer is a Greek, speaking for the Greeks, but the epic ends from the perspective of the Trojans. It ends with Priam getting back Hector's body, taking it back to Troy, and everyone in Troy coming to see the body and crying, especially Hector's wife, Andromache.
So he called and the crowds fell back on either side,
making way for the wagon. Once they had borne him
into the famous halls, they laid his body down
on his large, carved bed and set beside him singers
to lead off the laments, and their voices rose in grief,
they lifted the dirge high as the women wailed in answer.
And white-armed Andromache led their songs of sorrow,
cradling the head of Hector, man-killing Hector,
gently in her arms: "Oh my husband,
cut off from life so young! You leave me a widow,
lost in the royal halls—and the boy only a baby,
the son we bore together, you and I so doomed.
I cannot think he will ever come to manhood.
Long before that the city will be sacked,
plundered top to bottom! Because you are dead,
her great guardian, you who always defended Troy,
who kept her loyal wives and helpless children safe.
All who will soon be carried off in the hollow ships,
and I with them . . ."
This is how it ends: with a prophecy that will turn out to be accurate. The son of Hector will die because that's the way of war. When a city is conquered, all the men and children are killed, and all the women are enslaved. This is the coming of the Trojan horse. The great hero of the Trojans, Hector, is now dead, so the Greeks are going to come and destroy all of Troy.
You're a Greek, and all your life you've heard about the great victory of the Greeks against the Trojans. The Trojan War is the most famous story in your life. Now, suddenly, this guy Homer asks you to imagine what it's like to be a Trojan woman, knowing that in a few months your entire city will be sacked. Your husband will be killed, your children will be murdered, and you'll be put on a ship to be enslaved while you watch your city burn.
Think about the power of that. Think about what's happening in Gaza, in Palestine today, where the Israelis are bombing the Palestinians. They're killing a lot of children, and they think it's right that they do so because they are defending their land. Now imagine one day they have a dream and they imagine themselves as the Palestinian who's being attacked for no reason, as a child who's lost his mother, as a mother who's lost her child. Think about the emotional impact of that.
This is the big bang of civilization. Because when you read this, when you're forced to switch perspectives, it's a violent assault on your own consciousness. Your prejudices, your beliefs, your values are all being destroyed at once, which allows you to access the entirety of the universe. Only through trauma, only through pain, only through suffering can you access empathy and wisdom. That's a great truth of the Iliad.
This is also why the Iliad has to be a lifelong journey. It will take you an entire life to appreciate the nuance, the beauty, the power of the Iliad. It will take you a lifetime to understand the motivations and the psychology of all the characters. These are all living beings. But if you were to spend your entire life doing so, I guarantee you, you will come out a much more wise person who now has a universe in your soul. And that will make you invincible and eternal. But it's your choice.