Inferno
DARKNESS is around me and terrifying night!
Where shall I find light?!?
Where shall I find but a ray of light?!?
Where will even only its furthest shimmer show itself to me?!?
Woe! I am shut in darkness and I can find no path to lead me from the gloom into light!
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Does ‘light’ even exist??!…
All I receive is an infernal answer to my question which says unto me:
“You vain fool!
Sprung from darkness and born to play your games in darkness for a short while: – do you not notice that even your dream of light is but a trick played on you by your desires!? –
Stretch and reach out as much as you like, but do not imagine that it is your destiny to find the light!”
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Alas! Is light but a lie??…
Is all hope of ever finding light therefore just a lie??…
Is it a lie within me that drew me to the light???…
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A curse upon this lie which mocks me and makes a fool of me!!
A curse upon this foolish illusion which makes me believe I can reach something that is forever out of my reach!!!
For long enough I have been the tormented slave of my delusions!
Let all those who would speak to me of ‘light’ henceforth keep their distance from me!
I would be wiser than those who still dream the dream of their wishes’ fulfilment! – –
At last I have awoken from this dream; I know that I have been spawned by darkness to live out my brief existence until darkness consumes me!…
Let lamenting over my lot in life be extinguished!
No longer will I seek to escape the darkness!
Henceforth I will throw myself into all the dark and warming desires which darkness can grant me!
Praised be you, gloomy night of ignorance which
graciously conceals from my eyes those things which could bring me further horror!…
I will create my well-protected dark existence in the gloom of my origin; no dream of light shall disturb it!…
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Yet whilst still I curse all light and swear allegiance to darkness, a different voice deflects my words and seeks to speak within me…
But it shall not make a fool of me!
I sense: – it will lead me astray with some folly or other, so that I, the I who had become darkness itself, might break the oath I swore unto darkness.
And yet I will hearken unto it, this voice, and after it has spoken I will mock it with my laughter!
I will test myself against it and in its face prove to myself that I am not one who can any more be turned into a fool!…
Let it then speak!
I am listening!…
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Alas! The words I hear are all too familiar to me!
Even as it starts to speak I cannot but laugh in mockery!
It speaks to me of the early days of my life: – of the sublime age of youth and its illusory pious images, when once I was told of one who was said to be ‘Love’ himself… The voice would recall the man no name could dignify to my thoughts, which had gladly forgotten him…
Oh, folly upon folly!
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Nevertheless I am held here by one mystery I cannot solve. –
An incomprehensible feeling wants to stir within me once more, – the feeling I once experienced when I tried in love to approach the one of whom it was said that he was Love itself…
What sense am I to make of this feeling which seeks to return, long after I had renounced it for the sake of knowledge?! –
Alas! I am condemned to remain a fool, locked into his own conclusions and consigned to go around in circles!!? – –
I have just plucked the ripest fruit of my knowledge, and yet already this incomprehensible feeling grasps me and would seize from me the fruit before I was able to enjoy it…
Shall I doubt anew, I, who believed I had just attained certainty?!?
It is but a spine-chilling certainty, and yet I thought it better than doubt. – –
Yet what can this feeling bring me??
I had, as the ripe fruit of knowledge, the certainty that only darkness had been granted to me, and that there was nothing more for me to receive, since I came from darkness itself…
Yet this feeling I thought I had shaken off long ago now makes me doubt myself. –
It is different in nature from the darkness to which I had just sworn an oath of allegiance…
Oh, if only I could know the things which can be known from it, even though they only originated in old wives’ stories from long ago! –
As much as I might curse and blaspheme; – it will not be frightened off. –
As much as I attack it with the weapons of my knowledge: – it refuses to be killed. –
If darkness were everything I had been granted, – how could this feeling find a place within me?? –
This feeling in the way I was once able to feel, whenever I gave thought to the one I believed in, – of whom they used to tell me then that he was ‘Love’…
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Alas! If only I had given no heed to this voice which casts me once more into doubt!!
I scoffed at it all too soon!
I scorned it all too soon!
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Or – – might it have something to tell me that all my knowledge has been unable to tell me?? – – –
I renounced the search for light for the sake of certainty in darkness…
Is this feeling somehow better than such certainty?!…
It is not darkness and at the same time I cannot accept it as light. – –
Light would have to be mine through understanding, if I were able to find light! – – –
And yet the thought makes me tremble that this renewed feeling might perhaps lead me to the light…
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I already feel: – I sense that I am near to the truth…
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Truly!…
“The mother of every knowledge of light is Love!” – – –
Thus it is spoken within me…
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I am lost!!
In a fever I fall to the ground.
Cursed am I who cursed the light!…
I have judged myself!…
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Despicable hour which caused me to renounce light in words of blasphemy!!
Still a blasphemer, now I feel, – still a sinner, I now sense that light can only be attained in Love!!
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Oh, vainglorious certainty with which I once believed I knew!!!
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Truly: – it is becoming clear to me now, though I but sense it, that all apparent certainty of knowledge
with its vain conclusions, is but folly dressed up as cleverness if the knowledge is not grounded in the Love which alone can grant certainty!!
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I cursed you eternal light, because you conceal yourself from all knowledge that has not been born of Love!…
Will you be able to forgive the sin I have committed??
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Behold! I lie on the ground like a tree felled by the storm’s wind!
Who will raise me up again and have me grow upright, if not you who are Love!?
Liberate me, oh eternal one, if my tongue has not cast judgement upon myself from this infernal darkness surrounding me!
You whom I now sense, I now feel – you who are Love itself – how could you cast me aside now that you find me in Love!!
All-loving one, save from this darkness one who has soiled his mouth with sacrilege!!!
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