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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
The religious thought of Nikos Kazantzakis, particularly as contained within ‘The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises’, is still demanding attention. Although there have been recent welcoming attempts to elucidate his religious position in relation to Christian thought and process theism, these attempts still remain largely theoretically speculative. What the present paper hopes to contribute is a combination of both speculation and fact. Through an examination of Kazantzakis’ personal library housed in the Historical Museum of Iraklion, Crete, one can become affiliated with the literature that was occupying Kazantzakis immediately prior to and during the composition of the ‘Spiritual Exercises’. The speculative part naturally comes when one tries to ascertain the influence of such literature upon his subsequent thought.
It is clear that during the years 1922-23, when he was based in Vienna and Berlin, Kazantzakis was engaged with works of Freud, Rank, Spengler, Luxemborg as well as certain commentaries on Buddhist thought. These sources are generally recognised as shaping Kazantzakis’ thought during this time. However, one source that has not received any attention is the Bhagavad Gita, literally ‘The Song of God’. Kazantzakis had his own German translation of this Sanskrit poetic work and inside this copy may be found a ticket advertising an evening of readings dated ‘Berlin, Mittwoch 2 Oktober, 1922”. It thus appears fair to assume that this was a work that Kazantzakis was engaged with to a degree during his sojourn in Berlin.
During this time, Kazantzakis witnessed the crumbling German economic system, had first hand experience of profound poverty and became associated with an active group of communists.
1 God's Struggler: Religion in the writings of Nikos Kazantzakis–edited by Middleton, Darren and Bien, Peter. Mercer University Press, 1997Google Scholar.
2 Dombrowski, Daniel A.: Kazantzakis and God. Suny Series. State University of New York Press, 1997Google Scholar.
3 The ticket advertises the names of Rahel Lipstein and Elisabeth Greitsch. According to his letters, Kazantzakis had made the acquaintance of Lipstein two days previously, that is October 2. 1922.
4 Quoted in Kimon Friar's Introduction to The Saviors of God. Spiritual Exercises Simon and Schuster, New York, 1960‐ pg. 22. All subsequent references come from this source.
5 A desire to go beyond hopes and fears may also be seen in Meister Eckhart's sermon Beati pauperes spiritu, where he calls for an overcoming of the will and its accompanying intentions of receiving good or avoiding evil. Actions must be performed without a ‘why’ or ‘for what’. The soul must give up the will to do even the will of God and become spiritually ‘poor’ in order to allow the Divine will to work. Similarities with these ideas can also be seen in Kazantzakis's later work ‘St. Francis: The Poor Man of God’. See my article ‘“Does This’ One' Exit”? The Unveiled Abyss of Nikos Kazantzakis”. The Journal of Modern Greek Studies, October 1998.
6 Bergson, Henri ĽEvolution Créatrice, Paris 1909Google Scholar, pg. 275. Cited in Nietzsche and Bergson, KM. Jamil, Rajshahi, 1959, pg. 36.
7 Kazantzakis, Helen: Nikos Kazantzakis A Biography Based on his Letters. Translated by Mims, Amy. Bruno Cassirer, Oxford, 1968, pg. 69Google Scholar.
8 Mascaro, Juan The Bhagavad Gita Introduction and Translation. London, 1970)Google Scholar, pgs. xxxi‐xxxii. All subsequent references come from this source.
9 Nataraja Guru in his work The Bhagavad Gita: A Sublime Hymn of Dialectics Composed by the Antique Sage–Bard VYASA (Asia Publishing House, 1961), has much to say on the affinities between the Gita, Plotinus and Bergson: ‘The paradoxes of Zeno and the dialectical method of Parmenides which were present in the writings of Plotinus 900 years later, and which have at least a theoretical kinship another 1500 years later in our own times in Hegel and Bergson, have a mystical intuitive contemplative approach to wisdom or happiness which is the way of perennial philosophy none other than the Yoga of the Gita’ (pg. 20); “The Neo‐platonic philosopher Plotinus employed this method of dialectics almost as in the Gita, unitively bringing together matter and spirit. In modern times Bergson also understood and employed dialectics in developing his metaphysical ideas' (pg. 48); ‘In the theorization implied here (Chapter 13, verse 26), Vyasa is not unlike Plotinus in his graphic description of how the soul enters matter. Bergson's theory of matter and spirit follow the same lines’ (pg. 559). The dialectics of spirit and matter, seen with Plotinus and Bergson is clearly evident in the The Saviors of God: in this work, matter is referred to as the ‘wife’ of God (pg. 123, aphorism 32).
10 Nataraja Guru, Ibid., pg. 269.
11 Ibid., pg. 347. The notion of the ‘eternal present’ is also referred to by Berkeley in his work Siris the text that Bergson was lecturing on during the time Kazantzakis was in Paris. When discussing Plato's Parmenides, Berkeley writes: According to the nice metaphysics of those ancient philosophers, to hen, being considered as what was first and simplest in the Deity, was prescinded even from entity, to which it was thought prior and superior; and is therefore by the Platonics styled super‐essential. And in the Parmenides it is said, to hen doth not exist; which might seem to imply a negation of the Divine Being. The truth is, Zeno and Parmenides argued that a thing existing in time was older and younger than itself; therefore the constant immutable to hen did not exist in time: and if not in time, then in none of the differences of time past, present, or to come; therefore we cannot say that it was, is, or will be.' Siris: A Chain of Philosophical Reflexions and Inquiries Concerning the Virtues of Tar‐Water, and Divers Other Subjects Connected Together and Arising one from Another, (1744). AC. Fraser, 1871, aphorism 351.
12 Creative Evolution, translated by Mitchell, Arthur, London 1919, pg.262Google Scholar
13 See, for example: Cariou, Marie Bergson et la fait Mystique Aubier Montaigne, Paris, 1976Google Scholar; Gilson, Bernard La Revision Bergsonienne de la Philosophie de ľesprit, Paris, 1992Google Scholar; Gouhier, Henri Bergson dans ľhistoire de la pensée occidentale Paris, 1989Google Scholar; Henri Hude Bergson Philosophie Européenne, Editions Universitaires: Mosse‐Bastide, Rose‐Marie: Bergson et Plotin. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1959Google Scholar; Gilson, Bernard Ľindividualité dans la Philosophic de Bergson, Paris, 1985Google Scholar: Adolphe, Lydie La Philosophie Religieuse de Bergson, Presses Universitaires de France, 1946Google Scholar; Pierre Magnard ‘Bergson interprete de Plotin’ in 'Bergson' Naissance ?une Philosophie, Acts du Colloque de Clermont, Ferrard 17 et 18 Novembre 1989, Presses Universitaires de France.
14 Richard Brown claims: “Whatever the depth of Nietzsche's knowledge of the Gita and whoever it was that might have influenced his thinking, it can be demonstrated that Nietzsche's own philosophical position on a number of key issues is uncannily akin to the Gita – if only Nietzsche had understood it properly”: Nietzsche and The Bhagavad Gita: Ironic or Eclectic Affinities (Unpublished Paper).
15 Gita: 11:25.
16 Gita: 3: 27. Also ‘For no one can remain even for a moment without doing work; everyone is made to act helplessly by the impulses born of nature’(3:5).
17 ‘The life or death of the individual is of no consequence’. Arthur Schopenhauer: The World as Will and Representation (hereafter WWR). Translated from the German by E.FJ. Payne, Volume 1 pg. 473.
18 Bien, Peter Kazantzakis: The Politics of the Spirit (Princeton University Press, 1989), pg. 39Google Scholar.
19 Cited in Peter Bien's Kazantzakis: The Politics of the Spirit. Ibid., pg. 268, note 40.
20 Thing‐in itself signifies that which exists independently of our perception, that which actually is. To Democritus it was matter; fundamentally that is what it still was to Locke; to Kant it was =x to mime it is will' (Schopenhauer: Essays and Aphorisms, translated with an Introduction by R.G.Hollingdale. Penguin Books, 1970, pg. 53).
21 WWR Volume 1 pg. 275.
22 WWR, pg. 372.
23 Schopenhauer summarises his views on the question of individual existence after death in his ‘On the Indestructibility of our Essential Being by Death’ (in Essays and Aphorisms', Ibid., pgs 66–76). In this short collection of aphorisms Schopenhauer defends his view that although there is no continued individual existence after death, the inner essence of the human being, the thing‐in‐itself, is indestructible and hence does not die: ‘The more clearly you become conscious of the frailty, vanity and dream‐like quality of all things, the more clearly will you also become conscious of the eternity of your own inner being’ (#5, pg. 68). Thus according to the dialogue between Thrasymachus and Philalethes, the latter claims that, after death. Philalethes will become ‘everything and nothing’ (pg. 73).
24 I have dealt with Kazantzakis' relation to Schopenhauer elsewhere, in an unpublished article: ‘“Life is a Dream’: Schopenhauer, Tolstoy and Kazantzakis on Death as an Awakening from Life. The Beginning of Kazantzakian mysticism”.
25 Bien: ‘Buddha: Kazantzakis’ Most Ambitious and Most Neglected Play'. Comparative Drama, 11, 1977–78, pg. 257.
26 The Bhagavad Gita: 2:17.
27 Ibid., 2:24
28 Ibid., 2:22
29 Ibid., 2:28. In an interesting article on ‘Kazantzakis and the Cinema’ (Byzantine and Modem Greek Studies 6 1980), Timothy Taylor highlights the Buddhistic influence that inspired Kazantzakis to flirt with the potential to create a deceptive multiplicity of images that appear separate from the mind. This may be seen, Taylor argues, as a metaphoric parallel to existential idea of nothingness, or the two abysses that parenthesis life. In the cinematic universe, the images spark into life from nothing (prior to the film) and disappear into nothing (when the film is over). In the philosophical universe, the individual likewise comes into existence from nothing (prior to birth) and heads towards nothing (death). In between is the ‘film’ of life. Taylor concludes: ‘So we see that the cinema for Kazantzakis served several functions: (1). It forced him to transform his abstract ideas into motion, light and form; (2), it served as a metaphor for the training between two Abyss of both artistic imagination and existence; (3) it represented a Buddha‐like playing with masks that are facets of the unified face behind’ (pg. 161). In cinematic creation, all multiplicity comes from the unified mind; in cosmic creation, all multiplicity are ephemeral masks shielding the One.
30 The Bhagavad Gila: 2:45.
31 Ibid., 2:44.
32 Ibid., 4:17.
33 Ibid., 4:18.
34 Ibid., 6:12.
35 Ibid.,7:6–7.
36 Ibid., 8 18–19.
37 Ibid., 9:4.
38 Ibid., 9:7–8
39 Ibid., 8 40.
40 Ibid., 10:22–25.
41 Ibid., 11:37.
42 Ibid., 11:45.
43 Ibid., 13:17.
44 Ibid., 13:21.
45 Ibid., 13:23.
46 Ibid., 14:26.
47 Ibid., 14:4.
48 Ibid., 18:52.
49 After the vision of the One, Arjuna rejoices in exaltation whilst also trembling with fear (11:45). For Kazantzakis, the final secret that ‘even this One does not exist’ is ‘great, sublime’, yet ‘terrifying’ (pg. 131, aphorism 9).
50 ‘The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises’, op.cit., pg. 76, aphorism 8.
51 Ibid., pg. 80, aphorism 35.
52 Ibid., pg. 100, aphorism 7.
53 Ibid., pg. 130, aphorism 2.
54 Ibid., pg. 91, aphorism 32.
55 Ibid., pg. 110, aphorism 15.
56 Ibid., pg. 43.
57 Ibid., pg. 44.
58 Ibid., pg. 131, aphorism 9.
59 Plotinus: Ennead V.3. 39.
60 The Bhagavad Gila, 18:66.
61 ‘The Saviors of God’: pg. 59. aphorism 37.
62 Ibid., pg. 127, aphorism 2.
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