Reflection 254

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The Key Of The Kingdom

Here I carry this caput mortuum, this undying death’s head, this empty head which is the fountain-head of all heads, this infinitely old head on young shoulders, this head so high and so primitive that it has never fallen from paradise. Fixed at the mid-point of an endlessly elastic dome, I am the still and invisible Eye which takes in all the dome’s restless and many-coloured linings from the firmament down to my eyelid. I am this infinitesimal spot on the cosmic map, with nevertheless the map in my hand; for ever caught in this traffic bottleneck, which nevertheless finds room for the bottle. My world-wide wheels can neither exist nor turn without this unmoving hub; my world-wide body has no organ half so vital as this subvital and indeed subphysical heart of hearts. Here are key and keyhole and door in one – the central emptiness which is the key of the Kingdom, the keyhole which leads to Wonderland, the needle’s eye which is the gate of Heaven. Through this Point of entry I am in all the world and all the world is in me. And if, having entered, I am capable of many things, it is because capability means room; if I am a thinking reed it is because, reed-like, I am coreless. Cogito ergo NON sum. And common sense, for ever trying to salvage some miserable chattel for me, only breaks the conditions of that universal policy of insurance whereby unlimited compensation is given to those who lose all. (Douglas Harding. The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth.)