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The Iliad – Commentary

Hi, this is AJ and welcome to the commentary for this months’ lesson, the Iliad.

Well, quite a book this is, the Iliad. I highly recommend that you read it, read it in our own language even. Find a translation in your own language and read it if you can. If you like you could try it in English also and for that I would recommend Steven Mitchell’s translation. I think it’s the most direct, the easiest and simplest English that I’ve seen.

So, the themes, the themes of the Iliad and there’s a lot of to think about. It’s a deep book an as Steven Mitchell wrote, we discussed in the interactive lessons, everybody will find their own meaning in a book like the Iliad. Certainly for most great books you’re going to find your own meaning, so I’ll give you what I find. I’ll give you some ideas from what I have found in the Iliad, but I highly recommend you read it and decide for yourself, because you may find a lot of other things that are important for you.

The things I find with the Iliad… number one is that… and I mentioned this in the main lesson is that, is this message, this clear message again and again and again of the limitations of humans. We are limited. I mean, even these great heroes in the story… Achilles. Achilles who is part God and Hector who’s this incredibly powerful hero. Many of these guys, Ajax, there are several, many of them. These are like super heroes almost and yet, and yet, these guys are limited. These guys have fears and the Gods in the story constantly, constantly mess with these guys, constantly cause problems for the heroes.

Some Gods are on one side helping the Greeks. Other Gods are on the other side helping the Trojans and they’re always trying to cause a problem for the other side. And so, one message you get and this is a metaphor right. We can think of this as a metaphor, you don’t need to believe that actually yes, Athena or Zeus is coming down and causing problems. But even in the modern world what we can look and see is that, if we think of these Gods as all the things we can’t control… nature, people who have a lot more power than us, governments, huge corporations, bad luck, all kinds of things that we can’t control… that no matter how strong you are, no matter how good you are, even if you make great decisions there’s still always a chance that you will lose, that you will suffer, that bad things will happen.

And, in fact, in your life, it’s guaranteed. It’s guaranteed. We’re all going to die we all know that and so will everyone we know and love, will know and die. That’s already a massive tragedy for all of us and a massive, massive, huge, huge, huge, big, big, big limitation for all of us. So it’s a powerful message because it’s not a message we get a lot, I think, in the modern world. A lot of modern books don’t really give us this message in such a powerful way, and especially because I find in the Iliad also, a great deal of hope about how to deal with this.

On the one hand we have this terrible truth that we are all limited and that we all will suffer, and that we all will encounter problems in life, there’s no way to avoid it. So you’re not, one part of that that’s good is that you’re not alone. Any pain you have in your life, emotional pain, physical pain, your fears, your frustrations, your limitations, your bad luck it’s not just you. These are true for all human beings through all of time. The ancient Greeks also suffered these things.

And people all around the world are still, and you may look and see that some people seem to have good luck and everything seems great and they have tons of money, but I guarantee they cannot avoid it. They’re human. They’re limited. They’re mortal, meaning they will die. So, you can avoid it for a while, some people can avoid bad luck and difficult times for a while, but they will always come back. This is part of life. It cannot be escaped.

So, in a way though it should give you a little comfort. You should be comforted by that when you know that you’re not alone. It’s not just you. However bad you think things are in your life at a certain time, others have suffered also, like you are. They are suffering now and they have through all of history.

Now, we could see that and get depressed, so we have to move on to the more positive things that the Iliad also talks about which is, how do we deal with this terrible problem? I mean, how did the heroes of the Iliad deal with the pain and the death and the fear? What is their answer for this? Why don’t they all just run away? Why don’t the Greeks just get in their ships and sail away in and escape all this pain and suffering and fear and death? Or, why don’t the Trojans just surrender or run away?

Well, what the Iliad tells us is that we get our glory, the great wisdom and strength in our life, does not actually come from victory or defeat, but it comes from facing our struggles courageously with courage. That we get our meaning in life from courageously trying to find wisdom, trying to do what’s right, trying to be good people living a good life and in this way we can change ourselves to become more noble, more good, more wise, more awake, stronger spiritually.

So both the Greeks and the Trojans in the story, especially the heroes, they have faith. They just place their faith in their Gods. They place their faith in being virtuous. There’s a lot of talk in the Iliad about virtue, about goodness, about honor right, about these kinds of things. They focus on what they can control, which is their own behavior, their own hearts, their own minds, their own spirits. That’s the message, one of the messages, I believe, of the Iliad which is that we have to focus on what’s inside of us. That’s where we have the control and the power and that’s where we can become truly great.

You know, we see in many ways the Iliad is the story of Achilles, who in the beginning, the Iliad starts at the beginning with the rate, the horrible anger of Achilles. He’s this super fighter. He’s the most dangerous fighter on both sides and he has a really bad temper. He gets very, very, very angry. So it starts with him being super angry and King Agamemnon, who he’s fighting with, also super angry. They’re both proud. They’re both stubborn. They’re both foolish and they create a lot of pain and suffering for their own side, because they’re fighting each other. They’re both too proud and too angry.

But then what we see, and then this anger grows and grows and grows until Achilles loses his great friend, Patroclus and then in his super rage, his super anger he goes and he kills Hector.

He doesn’t just kill him, he kills him then he drags him around in the dirt and he stabs him with his spears and knives. He tries to destroy his body and make him… totally humiliate not only Hector but Hector’s family that has to watch and see him doing all this stuff from the walls inside the city.

So this seems like, oh my God this guy, he’s super strong but he’s this, he’s completely controlled by rage and anger. And so if the story stopped there it’d be kind of depressing, but it doesn’t stop there, because where it stops is that somehow, even this man Achilles, with so much anger, so much rage, so much power; everyone knows he’s the most powerful fighter, the most powerful warrior. Somehow though, when the father of Hector comes and begs him, please give me my son’s body back, that somehow Achilles finds compassion and somehow these two men who are enemies on different sides of this terrible war, somehow they both find this kind of respect and calm and peace at the end, with each other.

And it’s quite amazing, and that is one of the most powerful messages is that, even in the middle of all this pain and death and horror and suffering, this kind of spiritual power can be found. That we can find it inside our own hearts and minds, even in the middle of terrible, terrible, terrible situations and things. And, of course, this is super terrible. For Priam, his son has just been killed while he watched from the walls and it’s horrible. His favorite son that he loved so much, he watches him get killed and drug around in the dirt. And Achilles’ best friend gets killed and he’s also suffering. He gets killed by Hector.

So somehow though, these two men come together and find this moment of peace and measure of forgiveness. It’s a very powerful message.

So, what can we do in our own life? I think it’s a great message to remember in our own lives that first of all, we’re going to face problems. Yes, of course, we should have goals. Of course, try to achieve a lot and make more money and be stronger and be healthier and all of these things, yes, yes, yes, of course. The heroes of the Iliad they fight their hardest. They don’t quit.

They don’t run away. They do their duty. They do their best. But, at the same time we have to realize that problems will come, suffering will come and what should we do in those times, because we’re limited. We’re limited. We’re not Gods. We are limited. Humans are limited.

One thing we can do then is to try to find some kind of peace, serenity, to be serene in our minds. It’s not easy. It’s not easy for me, I struggle with this myself. I think everyone struggles, so I’m not telling you as someone who’s like a guru who has done this myself, that I’m a big master of it all the time. I’m not, I struggle with this a lot. I think that’s why the Iliad is powerful for me, because I can identify with it. I understand Achilles, because my first reaction too is to get very upset when bad things happen and to get angry and upset. That’s a natural reaction.

And so, the Iliad’s telling us that we can go beyond that natural reaction. We can go beyond the first reaction and calm our minds and try to become stronger, to have more faith, to have a more spiritual life, a more good life, a more virtuous life.

So that’s what I challenge you to do this month, to think about. We all have our first reactions, kind of our typical first reactions. So like for me, I get upset, I tend to get angry when bad things happen. Some people, they feel hopeless when bad things happen. They get really depressed and they just become hopeless. And you know, you may have another reaction, a negative reaction when bad things happen. Maybe you react too quickly and you make really stupid decisions. But look at it, look at your life and kind of look at what are your first reactions, your first negative reactions when bad things happen, when things are going terribly in your life and then think, what could you do differently? How could you go beyond that?

Maybe you still get angry. Like, Achilles still got angry, but then somehow he went beyond it later, so maybe you can too. Maybe we all can. Maybe we can have that first reaction but then, try to calm ourselves and as we get calmer we can do some meditation, we can read great books, great old books. We can research our problem and our situation. We can pray and we can find some kind of calm and peace and wisdom, even in the middle of terrible, terrible, terrible events. That’s my challenge for you.

So number one, I want to, for something very practical, number one… think about your typical bad reactions to problems, challenges, pain, suffering.

Number two, think of a way you could go beyond that.

Number three, read some great old ancient books. Why? Because they usually talk about these same kinds of problems, because again, humans have been having these same problems for forever, as long as there have been humans; thousands of years. Maybe the Iliad or the Odyssey, maybe a religious book from your own religion or culture or tradition, but read some old ancient books, especially ones that focus on this problem of suffering and how to deal with it.

And then try to use it in your own life the next time there’s a big problem or pain or struggle, after you have your first reaction. Sometimes it’s hard to control that, I understand. But after that, try to calm yourself. Try to find some wisdom, look into those books, see if you can find some better answers.

All right. Good luck to you. Listen to all the audios of these lessons, every day for at least 14 days, so deep learning. Repeat all the audios each day. So each day they should get easier.

Each day the repetition gets into your brain more and more and more.

All right, learn deeply and enjoy. See you next time.

Bye.