Rainer Maria Rilke

Rainer Maria Rilke was born in Prague, which at the time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father and mother divorced shortly after he was sent to military school. His parents raised him Catholic, which much of his poetry addressed his feelings about it. “Rejecting the Catholic beliefs of his parents as well as Christianity in general, the poet strove throughout his life to reconcile beauty and suffering, life and death, into one philosophy” (Poetry Foundation, 2014). His father was an Austrian army officer before his birth and his mother was very possessive and eager to raise her ranks in social mobility. The impact of the divorce of his parents had to have led to some of his conflict over his religious upbringing and beliefs. This conflicting parental experience must have also had a significant influence on his desire to find meaning and to more deeply understand the world. In 1897, Rilke met Lou Andreas-Salome, who would prove to be a significant influence on the young writer. She was 15 years older than him and married. In fact, he was so determined to learn from her that he followed her and her husband to Berlin, Italy, and Russia. It would almost appear that he was seeking a replacement family for his torn and conflicting family that he lost.

The Letters to a Young Poet were written after his return from Russia where he found a deeper connection to religion in the peoples of Russia. He began to develop a sense of deepening religious perception and its more existential connection to individual discovery. “Rilke did not deny God's existence, but insisted that all possibilities about the nature of life be given equal consideration” (Poetry Foundation, 2014). His further investigation of this topic pervaded much of his writing career and produced numerous works. Rilke traveled extensively in his lifetime. All of these travels made a substantial contribution to his writing, through the influence of understanding the different cultures and beliefs held (Project Gutenberg, 2014).

Another aspect to consider is the time of Rilke’s life. He lived during the turn of the 20th Century. This was a period that was burgeoning on the great industrial revolution. A major change in work habits, in child labor laws, and many other dramatic shifts were taking place. His particular experience was obviously isolated to Eastern Europe and Russia. Religion still played a significant role in his upbringing and in the tightly held beliefs of society. This has much to do with his continuous need to understand, to resist and to find meaning in these beliefs and in society’s behavior. The restrictions placed upon people for acceptable behavior, what was meaningful and how one should feel about their experience were all quite conflicting issues in his mind.

The divorce of his parents was quite the catalyst to begin such questioning. A military father was likely very rigid in his beliefs, and most likely upheld rules and expectations in the home. The socially ambitious mother was a contradiction to all that was “holy” with her need to climb the latter of social status. To have such a mother in Victorian society was likely difficult for him to accept with also having such a strict father and the tightly woven Catholic belief structure in which he was raised. To add to this, their subsequent divorce went against everything he was told was right. His own father’s participation in it likely contributed to his need to question religion entirely. Nothing made sense to him. His obvious need to seek a replacement mother, which he seems to have found in Salome, and father is evident by his continuous following of their family to numerous countries where he would then find himself exposed to other beliefs and cultures. It is clear that his continuous conflict of understanding surrounding family and religion had a substantial influence on his writing and contributions to the world of poetry and prose. This is an interesting thing to consider when I look at my own experience.

Letter

Dear Rilke,

I was raised in the Sikh tradition. Just like the powerful influence of the Catholic Church, the Sikh tradition has its own religious restrictions and family behavior expectations. Sikhism is a 500-year-old philosophy of life that currently has a worldwide population of over 20 million. “Sikhism preaches a message of devotion and remembrance of God at all times, truthful living, equality of mankind, social justice and denounces superstitions and blind rituals” (Sikhsm.org, 2014). Some would say that there are aspects between the two religions that are similar. Both support a strong family structure and reverence to the family unit. In fact, it would be difficult to find religions that did not emphasize this aspect as it is obviously very crucial to raising emotionally stable citizens.

One factor that would be a dramatic contrast between Sikhism and Catholicism would be the emphasis on social justice and the equality of mankind. The Catholic Church, in general, seems to have a history of putting its rules above the realities of the people, and the lack of equality for women is sorely evident. That is not to say that there are not challenging issues within the Sikh tradition. The social justice component in the Sikh tradition has emphasized a retaliation mentality against the Muslim tradition for the brutal acts done to the Sikh Gods by Muslim hands. One could even say that the Catholic religion has just as much blood on its hands and would thusly be as ripe for retaliation as the Muslims. However, the response to the Catholic Church seems to be quite dramatically different from the reaction to Muslim behavior.

The current period in which I live finds the reaction toward the Muslim population to be a growing contention regardless of religion. Sikhs are no different from Christians or Jews who resist Muslim invasion practice. Social justice now seems to be the thread that all are adhering to, all for the cause of preventing Muslim cultural invasion. My own upbringing in the Sikh tradition was a gift and a challenge. I experienced limited beliefs as the Catholic upbringing found by Rilke. I felt boxed in. I was not allowed to experience outside influence or to come to my own conclusions or beliefs over situations. My own judgments were secondary to the scripted manner in which one approaches the situation. However, the positive aspect of this is that there is a sense of pride and belonging that brings me great joy. I have something worthy to attain to and to do my best to strive to achieve the highest manifestation of devout faith. Culturally, this can help to ease pain and believe in a higher power larger than yourself that you can rest your faith in knowing is there for you in your times of need.

I believe that the common thread of always feeling the need to bring justice to those who have wronged us is exactly why the world continues to have wars and will never see peace. Nowhere in the scriptures that I have read, does it say that we should hate or kill others. When it comes to religion and culture, the patriarchy manifests in one’s brain and completely takes over. That should not happen. We should take everything with a bit of skepticism and do our own research so we can come to our own conclusions.

It seems that you were taken on a journey of your own, in which you were forced to face your own upbringing, the beliefs of your religious cultural heritage and the contradictions found in your family of origin. It had to be quite difficult to be raised in such a strict mindset and then to have the hypocrisy in your face by your own parents. If that wasn’t the most basic reason to question everything you were raised to believe, I don’t know what is. One aspect of your writing that I find so fascinating is that you are open to ideas. You were open to seeing new cultures and experiencing them. You were open to challenging your own beliefs and standing up against the tight strictures society upon which you were born and raised. You not only challenged it, but you wrote about it and made it public information. The amount of criticism you experienced as a result had to be quite daunting. To challenge a firm societal belief structure and to make it public takes a lot of courage and soul searching.

I absolutely love that you took it upon yourself to meet the needs that you felt were left hanging in the balance. Seeking a pseudo-family who would then expose you to other cultures was a brilliant plan and one I may even aspire to achieve in my own lifetime. Although I don’t currently feel any major strife with my family of origin, it is likely that there may come a time when I wish to question all that I’ve been told. It is good to do so with another “family-type” unit that can help you feel safe in this investigation and help to nurture your own inquisitiveness. Although one would not necessarily have to ride on the coattails of another family to learn such things. An even more bold adventure could be taken where I should choose to go on my own and take a journey into the world of world and self-discovery. The mere thought of this is enticing and terrifying at the same time. The excitement of the adventure, the discovering of the unknown, the meeting of new people with very different views of life and the world would be absolutely thrilling to experience. With that also comes the dangers that someone without worldly experience might find themselves prey to victimhood. This is not an adventure for the faint of heart; that is for sure.

One facet of the Sikh tradition is that there is no seeking of pilgrimage to one’s understanding of beliefs. That would go against everything I just stated above. The emphasis on living a noble life of taking care of family and living a sinless life is the ideal and the only ultimate focus of being Sikh. There is no worshipping of idols or of the dead. There is a belief that the soul had to have lived and died in many forms before reaching human form. This aspect is obviously quite different from the Catholic beliefs you were raised in, but the belief behind it is that you have already obtained all that you needed to know in order to have earned the right to be born human. There is no higher goal to obtain than to maintain that level of worthiness. The discipline of self is really central to the belief. Not so much in the idea of punishment, as seems to be found in other religions, but in the form of keeping one on task through humble surrender to non-egotistic livelihood and living. For me to take such a sojourn as you have undertaken would really push the boundaries of this belief and that in itself is a quandary. Following our ten gurus is all the information we are to seek. In fact, Sikh tradition abolished the form of a religious “church” because of the corruption involved. I’m sure it is evident to you that the church was central focus to your own contradictory understanding of what is to be and what you were experiencing.

Being a child of parents who worship in a religion that tends to promote hypocrisy can be very challenging and I don’t know that there would have been a better way in which to rectify that contradiction in self than to do what you chose to do for yourself. I would encourage you to do it again if you had the chance to do it over. The lessons you learned and the knowledge you shared could almost be likened to the wisdom imparted by our Gurus. It takes experience in the world to gain such deep wisdom. That does not mean that everyone has to experience such dramatic influences to learn how to live in wisdom. Some, if not most, of us are able to walk in the footsteps of those who have gone before and take their lessons without having to experience the wounds that gave them the wisdom earned.

I suppose that if one did not actually take the journey personally, the lessons would be harder to maintain in one’s life. That is probably why so many people struggle to maintain their faith and their discipline in living a life of faith. Without having experienced a form of trial by fire, of questioning everything that one was taught, it might be easy to become confused because you don’t understand why the rules were there to begin with. Just like a curious child, people want to know that the rules being imparted upon them are just and in their best interest. Without confirmation of such value, it can be easy to fall out of alignment with the faith and with living a devout life. Temptations of the ego are ripe for intrusion and are found everywhere around us. This would be the case you experienced with your own family.

Your father’s strict adherence to beliefs and rules kept him from climbing the ranks that your mother so craved. She wanted splendor and attention. You were just the child in the crossfire of their own personal ego struggles. Many children find themselves rebelling against strict parenting, especially if there is one parent who, in essence, is a contradiction to such beliefs. Perhaps through your mother, you found the ability to leave your roots and explore the world, but not without a replacement mother to take you there. Your father’s attachment to rules and order was the crux of your confusion. You deeply wanted truth because he was absolutely intent on indoctrinating this within you, but your mother showed you otherwise. This conflict was the root of all that you became.

I find it quite interesting that in your first letter, you emphasize to the student that regardless of what your life brings, you have your childhood to escape to. It is clear that your childhood was the root of what made you feel safe in the world. You thought there was order. You thought there was clarity in beliefs and rules. You felt safe. It was only upon your leaving for military school and coming home to find your parents divorced that your entire perception of the world was completely shattered to bits. Likely you found yourself escaping to childhood memories to alleviate the pain of such a realization that your world wasn’t as it appeared. It made it seem that there was much more to discover and to answer. Your quest for answers brought wisdom to the world, that had your parents not behaved the way in which they did, you would not have been blessed with the gift of inquiry to solve what you had no answers to. One of my favorite quotes from your first letter was this:

What else can I tell you? It seems to me that everything has its proper emphasis; and finally I want to add just one more bit of advice: to keep growing, silently and earnestly, through your whole development; you couldn’t disturb it any more violently than by looking outside and waiting for outside answers to questions that only your innermost feeling, in your quietest hour, can perhaps answer (Rilke, 1903, Letter 1).

This letter was probably the most poignant of the bunch, for me, because you addressed what is essential to the Sikh tradition, and probably to many other traditions, right from the start. The answers are found within. Every tradition will tell you that. So many traditions have distracting external rituals and idols that can make one forget this truth, but as it is also true in the Sikh tradition, the answer is already within you. You were born into this lifetime as a human, thus you have already learned all that you need to know in order to live in this world. You have the wisdom. The external reminders are to help you remember this. They are not there to control you or to manipulate you. They are in place to remind you of what you already know.

You traveled to numerous countries to discover that which was within. That is the journey of the sojourner and although not the emphasized solution for my own faith, it is one that was essential to helping you to discover what you needed in order to find peace and purpose in your lifetime. This is a timeless lesson for all of us. No matter what period in time, no matter what culture, no matter what religion or upbringing, the truth can be found within. Do not be disheartened by the world around you. Do not be caught up in their ministrations and contradictions. Do not be absorbed in their laws and limitations. Abide by the truth that is within and you will find everything you need.

References

Poetry Foundation (2014). Rainer Maria Rilke. Retrieved from web http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/rainer-maria-rilke

Project Guttenberg (2014). Rainer Maria Rilke Poems. New York. Retrieved from web http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38594/38594-h/38594-h.htm

Rilke, R. M. (1903). Letters to a Young Poet. Retrieved from web http://www.carrothers.com/rilke_main.htm

Sikhs.org (2014). Introduction to Sikhism. Retrieved from web http://www.sikhs.org/summary.htm.