Poetry Chaikhana Sacred Poetry from Around the World

Yoga / Hindu Secular or Eclectic Contemporary	About Georg Feuerstein Timeline (1947 - )
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Original Language English	Odin's Ordeal
Commentary by Ivan M. Granger Themes   Bower   Death   Tree       Recommended Books Deeper Dimension of Yoga: Theory and Practice, by Georg Feuerstein Shambhala Guide to Yoga, by Georg Feuerstein Teachings of Yoga, Edited by Georg Feuerstein Transparent Leaves from the Tree of Life: Metaphysical Poems, by Georg Feuerstein The Yoga Tradition: Its History, Literature, Philosophy and Practice, by Georg Feuerstein	Nine days. Nine nights. Speared by his own hand,      he hung silently      on the tree at world's end. The cosmic winds were tearing      furiously at his bones. His mind was spread out infinitely      in the reliquary of time. He waited breathlessly,      every fiber surrendered,      every flickering thought      hovering in the nowhere      of the ever-present moment. He, single-eyed Odin,      waited dispassionately      for death to end      and new knowledge to burgeon. All was as it will be.     -- from Transparent Leaves from the Tree of Life: Metaphysical Poems, by Georg Feuerstein Amazon.com
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Commentary by Ivan M. Granger

I like the way this poem shows the confluence of esoteric themes in Norse, Christian, and Yogic traditions.

The Odin myth-story has several striking parallels with the Gospel stories of Christ. Odin is crucified on a tree. He is "speared." He is hung for nine days, a tripling of the three days of Christ's entombment and journey in the realms of death.

Odin is missing an eye, thus he is called "single-eyed," calling to mind Christ's enigmatic saying, "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." (Matt 6:22)

Georg Feuerstein, being a scholar and practitioner of yoga, would probably understand this in yogic terms. The common perspective is through the dualistic vision of the two physical eyes. But when the eye is single (the Ajna chakra, the "third eye"), reality is seen in a unified vision, and filled with a radiant light.

When he says Odin waits "breathlessly," this is a reference to a state experienced by many mystics in deepest communion, with the breath stops or nearly stops. And with the stopping of the breath, the mind too comes to rest: "every flickering thought / hovering in the nowhere / of the ever-present moment." (That's one of those phrases that alone can bring stun the busy mind into stillness!)

I especially love Feuerstein's phrase that Odin "waited dispassionately / for death to end..." From the yogic point of view, death is understood not so much as the body ceasing to function, never to be animated again. Death is recognized as the common, boxed in state of consciousness. At the moment of enlightenment, one is filled with such an immense, boundless sense of life, that everything before was but a dark shadow, a sort of living death state. Death, in this sense, isn't an event, but an ongoing experience. Odin, supremely surrendered, supremely quiet, waits calmly in the midst of his suffering for that death to end.

Victorious, Odin attains knowledge (jnana, gnosis)... and time collapses, past and future pour into the present.

All was as it will be.

Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2008 by Ivan M. Granger.
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