Am I in hell, purgatory, or heaven today? Sin “deforms” us in the same way that a vandal does when he removes the original form of a masterpiece. The day dedicated to Dante Alighieri, in Italian Dantedì, which was established on the 700th anniversary of the poet’s death and since 2020 falls on March 25 (the probable date of the beginning of his journey to the afterlife and, not coincidentally, the feast of the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, nine months before Christmas, and the symbolic date of the beginning of divine creation associated with spring), I celebrated by concluding the story of the Comedy in the theater in three evenings called From our life: hell, purgatory, paradise.
I believe that these are not places we go to after death, but where we already are (they are the states and layers of our existence) every day, based on a more or less conscious decision.
Great literature does not cover life but bears witness to its “unceremonious” experience, that is, with the precision of words.
When the poet talks about his journey to the afterlife, he is describing his travels to the other world as an exile. He has lost everything and can never return to Florence due to an unfair sentence. His life is ‘imprisoned’, yet he still finds his way to heaven. In order to reach the sky, one must first touch the bottom without fear of crossing it..
When Dante finally reaches the frozen depths of Hell, he discovers a crack in the ice. What initially appears to be a descent turns out to be an ascent. After arriving at the centre of the Earth, Virgil helps Dante slip past Satan’s body, which is stuck in the ice, and then helps him stand upside down so that he can lead him to the other hemisphere. Dante then ascends the Mountain of Purgatory and flies to Paradise.
Dante gave me the words with which I would like to define a human experience that sooner or later happens to all of us: to touch the sky, one must first touch the bottom and not be afraid to even cross it.
Those little daily deaths and finally death itself that we encounter are transitions (the approaching Pascha/Easter means “transition” in Hebrew).
Are they just metaphors, or is it a reality?
If we follow Dante’s journey, we find that he always moves to the left in Hell, to the right in Purgatory and upwards in Paradise. This map of ‘our life’ is a spiral: point your index finger down, then slowly rotate your hand upwards while continuing to rotate your finger. The rotation will change from left to right. Dante’s path thus consists of two spirals: Hell is a funnel-shaped abyss and Purgatory is the corresponding mountain. There is a single exit from Hell to the central node, and the path is travelled in a single direction.
Like him, we too can realise ourselves by meeting others — comedy is the work with the largest number of characters in world literature — and thus subsequently with ourselves, because it is only in relationships that we discover the truth about who we are.
Dante therefore always moves in one direction, upwards (toward the Other), gradually freeing himself from the “burden” of life: “sin”.
By “sin” we translate an ancient word that meant “off the mark, off-center,” that which fails, as when a precious vase breaks or an athlete suffers a serious accident, and we say to ourselves, “Oh, what a pity! What a sin!”
I sin, I miss my goal every time I betray myself, and that is when I lie to myself.
This cry does not refer to the violation of the rules, but to the failure to do something that had a clear goal: he who betrays himself “sins”.
Each of us is called to create a masterpiece of ourselves, that is, to bring to perfection/realize our “form”.
Sin “deforms” us in the same way that a vandal does when he removes the original form of a masterpiece.
I sin, I miss my goal every time I betray myself, that is, when I lie to myself that I am not who I am, thus betraying my true desire, which is my calling that life entrusted to me, only to me: the revival principle that gives me a unique place in the world.
In his long spiraling ascent, Dante learns not to betray himself (hell), to free himself from that which leads him to betrayal (purgatory) and to fly directly to his fulfillment/realization (paradise)
In short, the spiral of ascent in the Comedy is a geometric figure that best represents each person’s journey to the center of himself, where he discovers the truth about himself: to be and do what I can be and what only I can do, to live an authentic life from which I am moving away from or approaching through many attempts, even painful ones, in which it is an effort to rise to myself.
Illusions of existence, false desires for existence, and love to decentralize us by forcing us to live a life that is not ours: “true pity/sin”.
To concentrate, gather energies and direct them towards the goal we so eagerly want to achieve, it is necessary to move upwards, i.e. to recognize in everyday experience what leads to betrayal or to “concentrate”: despair, sadness, and joy are sure signs of this.
At the end of the journey, face to face with God, it does not dissolve, but is fulfilled, completed.
Our life is hell if we have despaired; purgatory, if after finding our center we lose ourselves again in someone else (sadness); paradise, if our every gesture comes from our uniqueness (joy).
Paves already wrote this in his well-known work: The Craft of Life, “How is it possible that without knowing it you have directed everything to the center? Inner logic, providence, life instinct?’
Whatever answer we give to him, our core (that origin and inspiration: what I am in the world for and why I come more and more into the light of the world) works within us.
If we are in line with the trajectory of our core, we are in heaven, if we deviate from it, in purgatory, if we renounce it, in hell.
Life is then necessarily a journey of understanding what helps us blossom or rot, constantly fine-tuning our desire: the opposite of “sin” is then “targeting”.
However, how should we understand if we are sufficiently (con-)centered, and targeted? Simply by bearing fruit (the “concentrate” is also referred to as real juice) in a way of being that makes us original, i.e. original: the apple is the final destination of the seed, but at the same time it represents the source of new seeds.
This is also the case with Dante. At the end of the journey, face to face with God, he does not dissolve, but fulfills himself, completes himself, which means that he becomes the Dante that only Dante can be, and indeed, he “returns” to the earth, that is, to himself, as renewed: though he is still in exile and without anything, but completely concentrated, centered, restored in his authentic self as the son of God, Creator, and Love, whom he has come face to face with.
The shortest way we can get to paradise is to touch rock bottom.
Now the energies that make him fully human are released. Dante is finally free to create and love: we fulfill/realize ourselves by bringing into the world what is already in us and what has always been destined to come into the world, come what may.
Asking myself whether today I am in hell, purgatory, or paradise means asking myself whether the life in me and around me is shrinking, stagnating, or growing today, i.e., whether I have somehow betrayed myself.
When the poet was offered to return to Florence 15 years after his exile on the condition that he publicly confesses to a crime he never committed, Dante responded to this proposal in his famous letter to a Florentine friend: “This is not the way to return to the homeland, but if another way can be found that will not harm Dante’s honesty, I will gladly accept it without delay, but if I am not to enter Florence in such a way, I would rather not enter it again. So what? Won’t I be able to see the light of the sun and stars from everywhere? Will I not be able to meditate on the sweetest truths anywhere under the open sky? I’m sure I won’t miss even that piece of bread there.”
In exile, but true to himself, Dante built a homeland not only for himself but also for us.
The homeland where we can be free, wherever we are.
The shortest way we can get to paradise is to touch the bottom (pain is a life that wants to heal and sprout) and break through the layer of “sin” (lies and unloved) that prevents us from inhabiting the paradise that we already carry inside us and which only we on earth can “open”.
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