The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis is a masterpiece that needs to be read every now and then in one’s lifetime. It has the capability to make us face the reality, if we want to. Entire book is sprinkled with wisdom and truth about: hell, heaven, God, love, death, joy, misery and so much more. I will take the liberty of sharing few quotes from the book.
‘… there were things too hot to touch with your finger but you could drink them all right? Shame is like that. If you will accept it –if you will drink the cup to the bottom– you will find it very nourishing; but try to do anything else with it and it scalds.’ [page 61]
‘…Hell is a state of mind–ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind-is, in the end, Hell. But Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself. All that is fully real is Heavenly.’ [page 70]
‘…There have been before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God himself … as if the good Lord had nothing to do but exist! There have been some who were so occupied in spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ.’ [page 73-74]
‘…There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without the self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.’ [page 75]
‘You cannot love a fellow-creature fully till you love God.’ [page 100]
‘… no natural feelings are high or low, holy or unholy, in themselves. They are all holy when God’s hand is on the rein. They all go bad when they set up on their own and make themselves into false gods.’ [page 100]
'Pity was meant to be a spur that drives joy to help misery. But it can be used the wrong way round. It can be used for a kind of blackmailing. Those who choose misery can hold joy up to ransom, by pity.' [page 131]
The highlight of the book is the procession that the author witnesses – a procession of men, women, boys and girls dancing, singing and scattering flowers and this procession was for “a lady in whose honour all this was being done.” [page 119] The author describes the lady as a mother saying that: ‘Every young man or boy that met her became her son–even if it was only the boy that brought the meat to her back door. Every girl that met her was her daughter.’ [page 119] He further praises her: ‘…there is joy enough in the little finger of a great saint such as yonder lady to waken all the dead things of the universe into life.’ [page 120]
He further praises her with the following song:
‘The Happy Trinity is her home: nothing can trouble her joy.
She is the bird that evades every net: the wild deer that leaps every pitfall.
Like the mother bird to its chickens or a shield to the arm’d knight: so is the Lord to her mind, in His unchanging lucidity.
Bogies will not scare her in the dark: bullets will not frighten her in the day.
Falsehoods tricked out as truths assail her in vain: she sees through the lie as if it were glass.
The invisible germ will not harm her: nor yet the glittering sun-stroke.
A thousand fail to solve the problem, ten thousand choose the wrong turning: but she passes safely through.
He details immortal gods to attend her: upon every road where she must travel.
They take her hand at hard places: she will not stub her toes in the dark.
She may walk among Lions and rattlesnakes: among dinosaurs and nurseries of lionets.
He fills her brim-full with immensity of life: he leads her to see the world’s desire.’
[page 134]
About C.S. Lewis:
Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British author who wrote philosophical works, as well as children’s stories, including The Great Divorce, The Chronicles of Narnia. He died due to kidney complications and was buried in Westminster Abbey with the likes of Shakespeare and Dickens. Shri Mataji admired works by C.S. Lewis, calling him a visionary and a seer, “It’s very surprising how these seers have seen the future, like, as you know, C. S. Lewis is there.” [1994-0322]
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