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The Sea, The Sea

This novel is a rich tapestry of interconnected narratives that delve into the complexities of human experience. Set in the early 20th century, it follows the lives of a group of individuals connected to a theater company. The story is characterized by its exploration of themes such as memory, art, and the fleeting nature of time. The author employs a unique narrative structure that intertwines the lives of these characters, creating a deeply moving and introspective work. more

Author

Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch was an Irish-Canadian philosopher and author, born on July 15, 1919, in Dublin, Ireland, and passed away on February 8, 1999. She is celebrated for her philosophical novels that intertwine moral and ethical dilemmas with complex narratives. Murdoch's work has left a lasting impact on the literary world, particularly in the latter half of the 20th century. more

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“I was silent while a whole world of possibilities gradually folded themselves up, like some trick of stagecraft, quietly collapsing, folding, merging, becoming very small and vanishing. So that—was that—at any rate. And I would have to think, to invent, in a new way, to exist in this situation which was now, I realized, whatever was the case with Hartley, the continuing and only situation for me, the final state of affairs, the world centre. 'I'm sorry,' I said. She shook her head slightly, jerked it with emotion, at this last awkward tribute. A short litany, a vast brief Amen.”

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“What had been made clear in the last two days (which seemed like months) was how far I had been right in thinking that there was only one real love in my life. It was as if I had in some spiritual sense actually married Hartley long ago and was simply not free to look elsewhere. Of course I had really known this all along. But on seeing her again the sense of absolute belongingness had been overwhelming; in the teeth of our fates' most exquisite cruelty, in the teeth of all the evidence, we belonged to each other.”

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“We know a love that is momentary. It is a love that one day is there, and another day it is gone. Its very momentariness shows that it is not real love. It is something that is masquerading as love. Maybe it is really lust, some psychological need, the fear of being alone, an effort to remain occupied with another person or an effort to fill one's inner emptiness. Itcan be a thousand and done  things, but it is not real love. The most essential quality of real love is its quality of everlastingness. Once you have taste the eternity of love, the timelessness of love, you are transformed. Then you are no more part of the mundane world. You enter  into the world of the sacred. you enter  into  the holy world. You can go on living in the same ordinary way. In fact, you become more ordinary than before. You lose all pretensions. You lose all egoistic trips. You forget about being somebody, you become utterly ordinary. But in that ordinariness there is a light, a beauty and a grace. You are full of light, because you are full of love. You are always ready to share, because you have found  an inner inexhaustible source. You have found the inner source of love, which is our true nature. This love has nothing to do with relationships. The love which is eternal relates, but it never becomes relationships. The love which is eternal relates to the trees, to the animals, to the birds, to the wind, to the people, to the moon and to the sky. It is a twenty-four-hours-a-day relation, but it does not create any relationships.  Relating is like a river. It is a flow, it is a movement, it is alive. It is a dance. Relationships are something stagnant, it is something static. Something has stopped  growing. The joy has disappeared. You start feeling sad and an anguish arises in you, because you start losing contact with life. Life is always riverlike. Man's greatest joy is being free. But in relationships you are tethered to a husband, a wife or a friend. The human mind continuously creates situations in which the freedom is lost. The seeker of truth and freedom have to know the difference between relationships and relating. Never  lose your freedom, and never destroy any else's freedom. A really religious person remains free, and he helps other  people to be free. It needs constant awareness and vigilance to be free, because our minds always want to cling. The mind wants to cling to the known, to the secure and to the familiar, because you are afraid of the unknown, the unfamiliar. So on one hand you cling, and on the other hand you want freedom. We can only grow in freedom. When we choose freedom, our life will become a constant joy, a constant growth.”

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Book:The Way of the Heart
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“Of course we live in dreams and by dreams, and even in a disciplined spiritual life, in some ways especially there, it is hard to distinguish dream from reality. In ordinary human affairs humble common sense comes to one's aid. For most people common sense is moral sense. But you seem to have deliberately excluded this modest source of light. Ask yourself, what really happened between whom all those years ago? You've made it into a story, and stories are false.”

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