Great Books #6: The Intimacy of Love

The Odyssey is about a homecoming—about three members of a family, Odysseus, Penelope, and Telemachus, who after a 20-year separation must come together again and rediscover their love for each other. As we've discussed, all three suffer from depression.

Odysseus suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder because war has shattered his identity, his sense of self, his worldview, and his purpose. Penelope is depressed because the love of her life has disappeared, and she doesn't know if he's dead or alive. Telemachus is a young man who cannot inherit his father's legacy or his mother's wealth. All three are depressed. Today, we will discuss how love brings the three together and resurrects them all.

A major topic we will discuss is the idea of love. What is love? How does it manifest itself, and why is it so important?

Consciousness, Ego, and the Unifying Force of Love

Remember that consciousness is the universe. Our consciousness is infinite, but we don't know that because, in order to navigate our reality, we hallucinate time and space. Time and space make us believe that we are separate from everyone else when, in reality, we are unified with everyone else. The reality that we see is a hallucination created by our ego, and our ego makes us believe that we are separate from each other.

Love is the force. Love is the monad—God or love—that burns in us and compels us to return to the monad, which reminds us that we are all interconnected. Love is the force that compels us into unity. When we meet someone that we truly love, we move together back to the monad. Within the monad, our love is imprinted, and this love becomes a force unto itself that compels us back into it.

In other words, Penelope and Odysseus are in love with each other. As a result, no matter how far away they are, they are still drawn back to each other because they complete each other.

Another way of saying this is that because our consciousness is infinite, it exists in even dimensions. We can break our consciousness into three planes:

• The plane of the mind: our conscious and subconscious mind.
• The plane of the spirit: which is basically the heart, our emotions, how we feel.
• The plane of the soul: the very core of our consciousness.

All three planes exist at the same time. When all three align or correspond, we are happy. We know who we are and what we should do. But when all three split apart or are in conflict with each other, this creates the idea of cognitive dissonance, which leads to trauma and depression.

That's the issue that Odysseus, Penelope, and Telemachus face. In their soul, they know that they're all alive and will all return to each other one day. But in their spirit, because of the distance, they have a sense of depression because they are away from each other. And in their mind, they logically believe that Odysseus is dead, and Odysseus believes that he can never return home. There is a disunity of these three things. For the family to reunite, they also must combine all three together. Right now, these three different planes believe different things. There's a different narrative, and they must combine this narrative into one complete worldview if they are to come together as a family. That is the struggle and the journey of the Odyssey.

The main idea I want you to understand is that love is a unity of all three, and love is the burning of the soul. Ultimately, what love is is intimacy.

How do you know if you love someone?

You love someone not because you think about this person all the time, not because you obsess about this person or want to possess this person. You know you love this person if you understand this person intimately. In other words, you're able to communicate and understand each other in an intimate language with code words and secrets. You understand secrets.

Let's look at this concretely. When Telemachus visits Sparta, where Helen of Troy and her husband King Menelaus live, we see how the two don't actually love each other. We know because they don't speak to each other. They say words and tell stories, but they don't really hear each other. For example, Helen, Menelaus, and Telemachus all get drunk, and Helen tells a story of how Odysseus infiltrated Troy disguised as a beggar. But because Helen is the smartest person in the world, she sees through his disguise, bathes him, and Odysseus tells her about the Trojan Horse. She then helps the Greeks implement their plan, making her a real hero of the story. This is a story she tells herself. She doesn't really think about the reaction of Menelaus, who lost his brother Agamemnon, his friend Achilles, and many other Greeks because of the Trojan War. She doesn't really care about his feelings. She doesn't hear him, and he doesn't hear her.

After she tells her story, Menelaus tells a different one: Helen, you almost got us killed. When the Trojan Horse came into Troy, you tried to trick us into revealing ourselves by calling out the names of our wives in their voices. It was only Odysseus who saved us by clamping his hands over our mouths. Basically, they are shouting at each other but don't really hear each other. While Menelaus is telling his story, Helen just drifts away. This is not love. They are together because they're stuck together.

Now, we're going to see a different version. We're going to see what love really is like.

The Secret Language of Love

Odysseus, disguised as a stranger, returns to Ithaca and plots with his son Telemachus. Telemachus knows who he is, but no one else does. His house is overrun by dozens of suitors trying to win Penelope's hand. They just sit around, eat all the food, get drunk, sleep with the servants, and make a mess of things. Odysseus goes as a beggar, and they abuse him as well.

But Penelope hears that there's a stranger in the house who knows that her husband Odysseus is still alive. She's curious and asks the beggar to come to her apartment so they can talk. The problem is that the house is full of servants, and some of them are spies for the suitors. Odysseus has disguised himself because he's afraid the suitors would kill him if they knew who he really was, but he also doesn't really trust Penelope. He doesn't know how she feels about him after 20 years because, really, he abandoned her.

They have a conversation, but it's a conversation that happens on three different planes: the mind, the spirit, and the soul.

• At the soul level, they both know who each other are right away because they've been communicating multi-dimensionally.
• At the spirit level, they are afraid of each other, but they long for each other.
• At the mind level, they don't know who each other are because if they did, they'd all be dead. If the suitors discovered who Odysseus really is, they would kill him.

This conversation between Penelope and Odysseus is the first they've had in 20 years, and it happens on three different levels. You need to analyze the conversation at these three different levels to understand how love works. Remember, they're talking to each other, but there are servants present, and some of them are spies. So there's a public language and a private language happening at the same time.

Penelope asks the stranger, "Prove to me that you actually know my husband."

“Good woman,” Odysseus, the great master of subtlety, returned,
“how hard it is to speak after so much time apart.
Why, some twenty years have passed since he left my house
and put my land behind him. Even so,
imagine the man as I portray him. I can see him now…
King Odysseus. He was wearing a heavy woolen cape,
sea-purple in double folds, with a golden brooch
to clasp it, twin sheaths for the pins, and on the face,
a work of art: a hound clenching a dappled fawn
in its front paws, slashing it as it writhed.
All marveled to see it, solid gold as it was,
the hound slashing, throttling the fawn in its death-throes,
hooves flailing to break free. I noticed his glossy tunic too,
clinging to his skin like the thin, glistening skin
of a dried onion, silky, soft, the glint of the sun itself.
Women galore would gaze on it with relish.
And this too, bear it in mind, won’t you?
I have no idea if Odysseus wore these things at home
or a comrade gave him them as he boarded ship,
or a host perhaps. The man was loved by many.
There were few Achaeans to equal him. And I,
I gave him a bronze sword myself, a lined cloak,
elegant, deep red, and a fringed shirt as well,
and I saw him off in his long-benched ship of war
in the lordly style. Something else. He kept a herald
beside him, a man a little older than himself.
I’ll try to describe him to you, best I can.
Round-shouldered he was, swarthy, curly-haired.
His name? Eurybates. And Odysseus prized him
most of all his men. Their minds worked as one.”
His words renewed her deep desire to weep.

His words renewed her deep desire to weep, meaning that his words moved her spirit, moved her heart. You read this and have absolutely no idea what's going on. In fact, no one knows what's going on. The servants and the suitors might overhear this, but they have no idea what's being talked about. But these words are able to move Penelope to tears because she now feels her heart stirring. She feels as though her heart is alive again after 20 years of being dormant.

Why? The answer is that in this language, there is a code. There is a great secret that only Odysseus and Penelope know. You can't actually find it yourself, but I'll tell you what it is: it's the word brooch. Golden brooch. This reveals that the person speaking must be Odysseus. The reason why is in the detail: "a hound clenching a dappled fawn... it goes on and on and on." This poetry reveals that this brooch is prized; it is embedded in the imagination of Odysseus.

What is this thing? This is a thing that, 20 years ago, as Odysseus was about to set sail to Troy, Penelope said to him, "The prophecy says you'll be gone for 20 years—10 years in Troy, 10 years lost at sea." Odysseus says, "I know." And Penelope says, "Take this with you. It's a golden brooch. Take this with you and promise you that you'll return this to me." And he says, "Yes." Now, he gets lost at sea and loses the brooch, but what does he bring back? He brings back the memory of their departure together. And this is what the words reveal. It's impossible to see, and it's something that you will have to discover for yourself, but I'm telling you right now what this is. This is an example of the mind, the spirit, and the soul—the language—working together. And now Penelope, in her spirit, knows this must be Odysseus. Not the mind; the mind is still stuck in the present. But her soul has always known. Now her spirit knows.

The Resurrection of the Hero

After this conversation, where Penelope is moved by her spirit to acknowledge that her husband is still alive, they concoct a plan to kill all the suitors. The plan is this: Penelope will announce to the suitors, "Listen, it's been 20 years, and it's about time I get married and get out of the household. So, I'm going to have a competition. Whoever wins this competition, I will marry."

The competition is this: Odysseus has a bow. If you are able to string this bow and shoot a target, then she will marry you. The great secret, of course, is that there's only one person in the whole universe who can string this bow, and that is Odysseus. No one else can do this. The suitors don't know this. So, there's a competition. All the suitors try their best, but they can't do it. And then Odysseus, still disguised as a beggar, says, "Let me try." The suitors are like, "What are you talking about? You're just a stupid beggar. Get out of here." But somehow, Odysseus is able to try, and of course, he strings the bow. This is the climax of the epic, the Odyssey.

So they mocked.
But the mastermind in action,
once he’d handled the great bow and scanned every inch,
then, like an expert singer skilled at lyre and song—
who strains a string to a new peg with ease,
making the pliant sheep-gut fast at either end—
so with his virtuoso ease Odysseus strung his mighty bow.
Quickly his right hand plucked the string to test its pitch
and under his touch it sang out clear and sharp as a swallow’s cry.
Horror swept through the suitors, faces blanching white,
and Zeus cracked the sky with a bolt, his blazing sign,
and the great man who had borne so much rejoiced at last
that the son of cunning Cronus flung that omen down for him.
He snatched a winged arrow lying bare on the board—
the rest still bristled deep inside the quiver,
soon to be tasted by all the feasters there.
Setting shaft on the handgrip, drawing the notch
and bowstring back, right from his stool, just as he sat,
and aiming straight and true, he let fly—
and never missing an ax from the first ax-handle
clean on through to the last and out
the shaft with its weighted brazen head shot free.
“My son,” Odysseus looked to Telemachus and said,
“your guest sitting here in your house has not disgraced you.
No missing the mark. No long labor spent to string the bow.
My strength’s not broken yet. Not quite so frail
as the mocking suitors thought. But the hour has come
to serve our masters right: supper in broad daylight.
Then to other revels, song and dancing, all that crowns a feast.”

Remember, the main conflict in the Odyssey is that Odysseus's worldview is shattered. His sense of identity and purpose is shattered. He went to Troy to fight for justice, to fight for family, to leave a legacy for his son. But instead, he ended up destroying families, causing a war cry, and he's too ashamed now to face his son.

This passage, where Odysseus assembles his bow and shoots a target, metaphorically represents a resurrection of his soul, his worldview. It is the alignment of his mind, his soul, and his spirit, which makes him invincible now. And what allows him to assemble the bow? What allows him to resurrect his identity? The love of his son and the love of his wife. He first needed to know if Penelope still loved him, and he knows because when they talk, they are able to understand each other intimately.

Now, it's almost as though a normal person is transforming into a superman. And because he knows he's fighting for what is right, Zeus gave him a blazing sign. Now that he has resurrected himself, the gods look down and rejoice and smile upon him. He knows that finally, he will fight for justice, for family, for his son. And even though he and Telemachus are heavily outnumbered, they basically kill everyone.

The Final Test: The Unmovable Bed

After the suitors are dead, Odysseus has a problem: he now has to reveal himself to Penelope. At the soul level, they are together again. At the spirit level, they are now together again. But at the mind level, it's harder. How does Odysseus explain to her why he was gone for 20 years? How does he explain that he was in disguise all this time?

Let's read this passage to see how they reconcile themselves. Penelope is still distant. Odysseus has revealed himself, but Penelope is cautious. She's still depressed and doesn't yet want to admit in her heart that her husband is alive. She's keeping her distance from him. She tells her maid, Eurycleia, to make a bed for Odysseus. She's still not comfortable with him, so they'll sleep in different chambers tonight.

“Come, Eurycleia,
move the sturdy bedstead out of our bridal chamber—
that room the master built with his own hands.
Take it out now, sturdy bed that it is,
and spread it deep with fleece, blankets and lustrous throws
to keep him warm.”

She's saying, "It's all a shock to me, Odysseus. I know you're my husband, but you've been gone for 20 years. So, I would feel much more comfortable tonight if you slept somewhere else. We're going to move your bed outside and cover it with nice blankets."

Putting her husband to the proof. But Odysseus
blazed up in fury, lashing out at his loyal wife:
“Woman—your words, they cut me to the core!
Who could move my bed? Impossible task,
even for some skilled craftsman—unless a god
came down in person, quick to lend a hand,
lifted it out with ease and moved it elsewhere.
Not a man on earth, not even at peak strength,
would find it easy to prize it up and shift it.
No, a great sign, a hallmark lies in its construction.
I know, I built it myself—no one else…
There was a branching olive-tree inside our court,
grown to its full prime, the bole like a column, thickset.
Around it I built my bedroom, finished off the walls
with good tight stonework, roofed it over soundly
and added doors, hung well and snugly wedged.
Then I lopped the leafy crown of the olive,
clean-cutting the stump bare from roots up,
planing it round with a bronze smoothing-adze—
I had the skill—I shaped it plumb to the line to make
my bedpost, bored the holes it needed with an auger.
Working from there I built my bed, start to finish,
I gave it ivory inlays, gold and silver fittings,
wove the straps across it, oxhide gleaming red.
There’s our secret sign, I tell you, our life story!
Does the bed, my lady, still stand planted firm?—
I don’t know—or has someone chopped away
that olive-trunk and hauled our bedstead off?”
Living proof—
Penelope felt her knees go slack, her heart surrender,
recognizing the strong clear signs Odysseus offered.
She dissolved in tears, rushed to Odysseus,
flung her arms around his neck and kissed his head and cried out,
“Odysseus—don’t flare up at me now, not you,
always the most understanding man alive!
The gods, it was the gods who sent us sorrow—
they grudged us both a life in each other’s arms
from the heady zest of youth to the stoop of old age.
But don’t fault me, angry with me now,
because I failed at the first glimpse to greet you, hold you so.
In my heart of hearts I always cringed with fear
some fraud might come, beguile me with his talk.”

Again, this is a secret language, an intimate language between Odysseus and Penelope. On the surface, it seems as though Penelope is just testing Odysseus: "Are you really my husband? Do you really know that this bed is something that can't be moved?" And Odysseus says, "Yes, I know." That's the public meaning.

But at the subconscious level, at the spirit level, what this conversation is really about is Penelope saying to Odysseus, "You know, 20 years ago, you abandoned us for glory in war. How do I know that if we let you back into our life, you won't seek adventure again? You won't just run off to war to seek eternal glory?"

And Odysseus says that this bed is my heart. This bed is something that I worked really hard to create with loving care for years and years. This is where my heart is. The bed is my love for you, and it cannot be moved. It is the foundation of who I am. So I will never, ever leave you again. I will make my home here with you for all eternity.

And so, what we now see is finally the alignment in Penelope between mind, spirit, and soul. That makes her alive again. Now she's happy. She flings herself around Odysseus and acknowledges the love of her life has returned.

The True Purpose of Life

The last thing I want to discuss is what the purpose of life really is. While on his journey, Odysseus travels to the underworld and meets Agamemnon and Achilles. Odysseus and Achilles have a conversation.

“But you, Achilles,
there’s not a man in the world more blessed than you—
there never has been, never will be one.
Time was, when you were alive, we Argives
honored you like a god, and now down here, I see,
you lord it over the dead in all your power.
So grieve no more at dying, great Achilles.”

This brings us back to the Iliad. Remember, the Iliad is about Achilles, and Achilles tells everyone that he came to Troy because he was given a prophecy: he could either die an old man who no one knows back at home, or he could die young as a great hero on the shores of Troy. Of course, that's not really a choice. He wants to be famous; he wants people to celebrate him. So he goes to Troy, kills Hector, proves he's the greatest warrior in the world, the Greeks celebrate him, and then he dies on the shores of Troy as was prophesized.

So, Odysseus meets Achilles and says, "Achilles, you must be so happy down here because everyone worships you. Just as everyone worships you back in our world, you've accomplished everything that you set out to accomplish. You must be so happy with yourself, right?" And then Achilles says:

I reassured the ghost, but he broke out, protesting,
“No winning words about death to me, shining Odysseus!
By god, I’d rather slave on earth for another man—
some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive—
than rule down here over all the breathless dead.
But come, tell me the news about my gallant son.
Did he make his way to the wars? Did the boy become a champion?
Yes or no? Tell me of noble Peleus, any word you’ve heard.
Still holding pride of place among his Myrmidon hordes?
Or do they despise the man in Hellas and Phthia
because old age has lamed his arms and legs?
For I no longer stand in the light of day,
the man I was, comrade in arms to help my father,
as once I helped our armies, killing the best fighters
Troy could field in the wide world up there.”

Achilles responds and says, "Odysseus, I'm dead now. So now I can look at my life in its entirety. I can now, for eternity, consider what is important, what is purposeful, what gives us meaning. And I discovered that I regret my life. I should have died an old man with my family rather than die young on the shores of Troy. Because being dead, I ask myself what makes me happy, and what makes me happy are the memories of my father, the memories of my son. That's what I care about. That's the purpose of life. That is what gives life meaning."

That is the ultimate moral of the story of the Odyssey: we are here to seek love because love is what gives meaning and purpose to our lives. To construct a family that you can love is much more important and will give you much more happiness than building an empire or being the most famous person in the world. And this story, this legacy, is what will become the foundation of Greek civilization, which is humanity's greatest civilization.