Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1
lackpurity
MM:
Recapping the last scene, Shakespeare discussed Satan, capable of
taking a pleasing form, and also the ominous task confronting him,
that of retaliation to the enemies, those who killed his father, King
Hamlet.
SCENE I. A room in the castle.
Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ,
and GUILDENSTERN
KING CLAUDIUS
And can you, by no drift of circumstance,
Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
MM:
They still mistakenly try to pigeonhole Hamlet as a lunatic. He's the
antithesis, of course.
ROSENCRANTZ
He does confess he feels himself distracted;
But from what cause he will by no means speak.
MM:
Distracted by what? His father's ghost. When the Master manifests in
us, then we become detached from the world. Our attention, which
formerly was centrifugal, becomes centripetal. Walt Whitman called
his disciples, "the centripetal gang."
GUILDENSTERN
Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof,
When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.
MM:
Basically, Guildenstern is discussing how Masters appear to us. We
can't sound them. They appear to be crafty or mad. Madly in love
with the internal Master, is what it really is. The Master appears
aloof and detached. Disciples have tried, since time immemorial to
get the Masters to discuss their True State. Sometimes, they are very
frank. Paltu Sahib declared, "I am the Creator of the Creator."
Actually, Christ put it this way, "There are many things to tell thee,
but ye can not bear them yet." So, in the meantime they sometimes
appear to be feeding us baby food.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Did he receive you well?
ROSENCRANTZ
Most like a gentleman.
GUILDENSTERN
But with much forcing of his disposition.
MM:
Guildenstern is a disciple, so he tried to learn from the Master.
ROSENCRANTZ
Niggard of question; but, of our demands,
Most free in his reply.
MM:
Moral of this story? If we have faith in the Master, he will bestow
his grace freely. Rosencrantz is a disciple, also.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Did you assay him?
To any pastime?
MM:
IOW, what have you learned?
ROSENCRANTZ
Madam, it so fell out, that certain players
We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him;
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it: they are about the court,
And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.
MM:
The Master comes to collect the sheep.
LORD POLONIUS
'Tis most true:
And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties
To hear and see the matter.
KING CLAUDIUS
With all my heart; and it doth much content me
To hear him so inclined.
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.
MM:
Master Hamlet is in the process of testing the suspects.
ROSENCRANTZ
We shall, my lord.
Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
KING CLAUDIUS
Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia:
Her father and myself, lawful espials,
Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing, unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge,
And gather by him, as he is behaved,
If 't be the affliction of his love or no
That thus he suffers for.
MM:
This is a typical situation. The worldly want to test the Master,
while the Master wants to test them. The world usually has it
backwards. Only a few will have faith in the Master. King Claudius
suspects that Hamlet is acting weird because of Ophelia. He does want
to save Ophelia's soul, but the murder investigation is also there.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
I shall obey you.
And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
That your good beauties be the happy cause
Of Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope your virtues
Will bring him to his wonted way again,
To both your honours.
MM:
She hopes that Ophelia is the cause of Hamlet's so-called lunacy.
Maybe she doesn't want Hamlet to suspect her as involved in the murder
of King Hamlet?
OPHELIA
Madam, I wish it may.
Exit QUEEN GERTRUDE
LORD POLONIUS
Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious, so please you,
We will bestow ourselves.
MM:
The Master wants to please us, by bestowing himself on us. Bestowing
his enlightenment, more specifically, is his mission.
To OPHELIA
Read on this book;
That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,--
'Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage
And pious action we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.
MM:
There is a lot of frank truth in this. Sometimes, when we choose to
follow a Master, we feel more alone in the world. It is a stage,
called "bireh," or intense longing. It is a stage, which must be
crossed. It has been said that to achieve God-Realization, we must
swim through our own tears.
Many people have accused me of fear-mongering, contending that I give
too much importance to Satan, Kal, Iblis, or Mara. Actually,
Shakespeare tells us the opposite. Actually, the Saints are holding
back. They know of absolutely horrible punishments in Hell, ordered
by Satan. Shakespeare did mention that those scenes would make our
"hair stand on end."
KING CLAUDIUS
[Aside] O, 'tis too true!
How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
MM:
Masters are sent to correct us, to guide us.
KING CLAUDIUS continues:
The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word:
O heavy burthen!
MM:
Satan has made the world attractive to us. Our deeds will be judged.
Shakespeare hints that we have "heavy burdens." We have a mind-
boggling karmic account, and Satan will demand payment.
LORD POLONIUS
I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord.
Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS
Enter HAMLET
HAMLET
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?
MM:
So, sometimes we can retaliate in self-defense, or we can turn the
other cheek. Hamlet is the Master, so he's obeying God's orders.
This has a double-meaning, of course. "To be" means to remain a part
of God's play, to stay in the relentless wheel of reincarnations, or
to follow a Master and return to the True Home, therefore NOT BEING,
or just becoming the same as God.
HAMLET continues:
To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd.
MM:
Master Hamlet is plugging Sant Mat, here, no doubt about it.
HAMLET continues:
To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
MM:
I think "to dream," means to live on another plane, after death.
There is really no death, just shifting from one body to another.
HAMLET continues:
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
MM:
We tend to respect life, even though it is like respecting a mirage.
HAMLET continues:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
MM:
We are lazy and afraid of the unknown. Sant Mat is, for this reason,
the path of brave souls.
HAMLET continues:
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
MM:
The native hue is Sach Khand. We don't see it, because of our worldly
thoughts.
HAMLET continues:
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.
MM:
The Master has sinned, too. If the Master has overcome sin, then we
can, too. This is encouragement for us. When "currents turn awry,"
that is, away from Sach Khand, then we are likely to sin.
OPHELIA
Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
MM:
She "honors," the Master. Hopefully, she is a disciple, and not
thinking that he is a lunatic.
HAMLET
I humbly thank you; well, well, well.
OPHELIA
My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
That I have longed long to re-deliver;
I pray you, now receive them.
HAMLET
No, not I;
I never gave you aught.
OPHELIA
My honour'd lord, you know right well you did;
And, with them, words of so sweet breath composed
As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,
Take these again; for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
There, my lord.
MM:
Some seeds fall on fertile ground, some fall on barren ground. We
should "remember," the Master. We should remember his words. Ophelia
has done this, and she appears to be a good disciple.
HAMLET
Ha, ha! are you honest?
OPHELIA
My lord?
HAMLET
Are you fair?
OPHELIA
What means your lordship?
HAMLET
That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should
admit no discourse to your beauty.
MM:
If we are Saints, then we don't need a Master. If we are sinners,
then we need the Master.
OPHELIA
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than
with honesty?
HAMLET
Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner
transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the
force of honesty can translate beauty into his
likeness:
MM:
The latter is what the Masters do. They try to transform us. They
can't force us to go to the True Home, however. The disciples must do
their part. The beauty of the Master can overcome us, if we see him/
her as beautiful. Some are attracted by his charisma, i.e. love at
first sight, but others don't fee the pull.
HAMLET continues:
this was sometime a paradox, but now the
time gives it proof. I did love you once.
MM:
Hamlet has had to return to try and collect Ophelia. I suppose the
first time, Ophelia was not feeling the pull of the Master's charisma.
OPHELIA
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
HAMLET
You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot
so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of
it: I loved you not.
MM:
It means that he couldn't take her up, because she was not ready, at
that time. If he had loved her, technically, then he would have taken
her HOME.
OPHELIA
I was the more deceived.
MM:
Just as I suspected.
HAMLET
Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a
breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest;
but yet I could accuse me of such things that it
were better my mother had not borne me: I am very
proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at
my beck than I have thoughts to put them in,
imagination to give them shape, or time to act them
in. What should such fellows as I do crawling
between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves,
all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery.
Where's your father?
MM:
Hamlet admits that he has been a sinner, so he is trying to encourage
her. He advises her to become spiritual, once again.
OPHELIA
At home, my lord.
HAMLET
Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the
fool no where but in's own house. Farewell.
MM:
He has been a fool, to commit murder.
OPHELIA
O, help him, you sweet heavens!
HAMLET
If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for
thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as
snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.
MM:
Warnings, what could happen, if we reject the Master.
HAMLET continues:
Get thee to a
nunnery, go: farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs
marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough
what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go,
and quickly too. Farewell.
MM:
Master Hamlet is giving her a tough lesson, but he says to go to a
nunnery. She has a lot to learn, but at this point, she is out to
tempt the wise men, it would appear. He maintains her as a disciple,
but she has a lot to learn. There are evil tendencies in her, which
need to be purged out.
OPHELIA
O heavenly powers, restore him!
HAMLET
I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God
has given you one face, and you make yourselves
another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and
nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness
your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath
made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages:
those that are married already, all but one, shall
live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a
nunnery, go.
MM:
We make our own identities, our own egos. We are ignorant and
wanton. He might be using "marriages," as symbolic of "getting
initiated," by the Master. Hamlet sees so much ignorance, that he
doesn't want any more disciples. Still, he tells her to go to a
nunnery to try and improve herself.
Exit
OPHELIA
O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
MM:
Sometimes, the Master gives us a bitter pill to swallow. He is trying
to help Ophelia, but her ego is reacting.
Re-enter KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS
KING CLAUDIUS
Love! his affections do not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
Was not like madness. There's something in his soul,
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose
Will be some danger: which for to prevent,
I have in quick determination
Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England,
For the demand of our neglected tribute
Haply the seas and countries different
With variable objects shall expel
This something-settled matter in his heart,
Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
>From fashion of himself. What think you on't?
MM:
He has no faith in the Master, either.
LORD POLONIUS
It shall do well: but yet do I believe
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia!
You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said;
We heard it all. My lord, do as you please;
But, if you hold it fit, after the play
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To show his grief: let her be round with him;
And I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference. If she find him not,
To England send him, or confine him where
Your wisdom best shall think.
MM:
He has no clue about the Master.
KING CLAUDIUS
It shall be so:
Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.
MM:
Madness? He's the Master, omnipotent.
Exeunt
Michael Martin
Western Sat Guru