By Michael Shook
Kirttimukha, Face of Glory, is a demon in Hindhu mythology who symbolizes the monstrous nature of life and the glory to be found in realizing that this is just how life is, and discovering how to live in it. Read more about Kirttimukha in Part 1 of this series, published in May 2024 and available at vashonloop.com.
In the Episcopal liturgy there is a phrase, uttered when confessing one’s sins, that speaks obliquely to both the question of innocence and one’s demons, both within and without. The phrase is, “We repent of … the evil done on our behalf.”
Money makes hypocrites of us all. We’re up to our necks in this tragedy of life. There is not a human being alive who has not profited from someone else’s misery, children possibly excluded. Even then, their parents, grandparents, or distant ancestors did dirty deeds in order to gain profit, and in so doing, gave their descendants a leg up on their peers.
Consider our relationship with China as a low-cost manufacturing outsourcer. Even as numerous protests have denounced Israel’s military action in the Gaza strip, a blind eye and a deaf ear are turned to China, as has been done now for decades.
Yet, it’s no secret that China has a horrific record of torturing and murdering its own people, the dead numbering in the tens of millions since the Communists came to power under Mao. Nor is there any doubt that China routinely exercises relentlessly violent repression of free speech, indeed of any behavior that is not state-sanctioned. As one example, China’s ongoing destruction, via enslavement, imprisonment, torture, and “re-education” of its native Uighur muslims – again an act of true genocide – passes with only an occasional mention.
The truth is evident. China is one of the world’s worst dictatorships, made wealthy by trillions of dollars of foreign investment, yet its brutality goes unremarked upon by most of the United States. Nary a peep of protest is heard.
It’s easy to discern why. China is a gold mine for Western businesses – and thus, for you and me. We cannot buy enough from them – clothing, shoes, electronics, solar panels, toys, surgical masks – the list goes on. Last year alone, the US imported $427 billion dollars of Chinese-made goods.
I see no significant difference between what we do now, regarding China, and what people did in earlier centuries regarding chattel slavery. Did the masses back then who bought comfortable, durable, cheap cotton fabric from English textile mills give a thought to the horrific conditions endured by the enslaved who grew that cotton, harvested it, and loaded it on ships? Probably about as much as we give to the Uighurs and other slave labor that makes the products we buy. Yet, we fancy ourselves morally superior to those of the past.
Not a one of us is innocent. That is part of what confronted me as the carefully constructed persona I had was taken apart, piece by piece, by that lightning bolt emanating from Kirttimukha.
Over time, I came to realize that my belief in a perfectable humanity, a perfectable society (let alone a perfectable self), was nothing more or less than a massive ego inflation. An adolescent fantasy I had to grow out of, discard, or be destroyed by.
That fantasy was rooted in the notion that – to use the philosopher Joseph Campbell’s words – I knew “how the universe could have been better than it is,” or that with my knowledge I could “first correct society, then get around to myself.” So many good intentions! And my personal road to hell was paved with them as I spent far too much time and energy being outraged and depressed that life was what it was.
That inflated ego was an inner demon that was finally put to rout by the demon Kirttimukha. It took time, and great effort, but was worth every bit.
Of course, I struggle with keeping my ego in check, and will for the rest of my life, doing my best to make it a “good servant,” and not a “terrible master.”
I’ve come, slowly, to understand and accept that I am only a small actor in this grand production. Life is unfair, unjust, violent, capricious, and many, many suffer through no fault of their own.
And I continue to learn to live with the knowledge that I cannot change that. No form of government – communism, democracy, whatever – no system of social policies, none of it, will change the nature of life, or the nature of humanity.
Each day presents me with another opportunity to strive anew and consider that what I can do is be as kind as I am able. To help my neighbors, my community, and my place, to the best of my ability. To be grateful, compassionate, to make the changes possible for me to make, and to live in the “joyful sorrow, and sorrowful joy” of life as it is. And to do this, with the full knowledge that I will fall short of these goals, again, and again, and to keep trying.
