Zorba’s Secret

 

Alexis Zorba is the 65-year-old protagonist of Nikos Kazantzakis’s celebrated novel, Zorba the Greek. Zorba is the happiest person in the entire world of that novel. Age does not wither him and routine does not stale his infinite charm. What is the secret of his happiness?

Zorba lives in the present. He belongs to the here and now. The young narrator of the novel, who is an intellectual trying to discover the meaning of life using books and contemplation, feels as he listens to Zorba that the world is recovering its pristine freshness. “All the dulled daily things regained the brightness they had in the beginning,” the narrator says. Each day is a new day for Zorba, a new opportunity to start life afresh. Every morning the earth looks new to him. He sees everything as if for the first time. He does not really see it, he creates it.

In the words of the narrator, “The universe for Zorba, as for the first men on earth, was a weighty, intense vision; the stars glided over him, the sea broke against his temples. He lived the earth, the water, the animals and God, without the distorting intervention of reason.”

Logic and reason won’t bring you much happiness. They may bring you intellectual satisfaction. They may give you answers that satisfy your brain. But happiness is a matter of the heart. Unless you learn to see reality with your heart, you will never be really happy. The most essential truths are not revealed to reason.

Zorba sees with his heart. He is annoyed with the narrator who wants to understand everything. “You understand, and that’s why you’ll never have any peace,” Zorba scolds the narrator who is actually his boss. “If you didn’t understand, you’d be happy!” To arrive at a consciousness level that does not seek to understand everything, you need a touch of folly.

Even spirituality will not bring you happiness unless you have that quintessential folly within. Every person has his folly. But you need to admit your folly. You need to surrender to it. You will hardly find happy people in monasteries because amidst all the austerity and nobility there the soul is lost. The soul belongs on the side of your personal folly.

Zorba does not believe in God. Faith is complicated, he says. If you believe in God, you will have to believe in devils and so on. Yet he knows that both God and the devil are within us. Zorba gives the example of a monk he knew. Father Lavrentio believed that he had a devil inside him. He gave the devil a name too: Hodja. “Hodja wants to eat meat on Good Friday!” Lavrentio would cry beating his head on the church wall. “Hodja wants to sleep with a woman. Hodja wants to kill the Abbot. It’s Hodja, Hodja, it isn’t me!” Father Lavrentio would weep banging his head on the stone.

“I’ve a kind of devil inside me, too, boss,” Zorba says. “I call him Zorba.”

Accept the devil within ourselves. There is no escape from it. Accept it. Folly is needed for that too.

Zorba’s secret is the awareness of his personal folly. He doesn’t need to intellectualise anything. He understands everything with his heart. He lives life passionately. Life is a passion to be experienced, not a riddle to be solved.

Not everyone can be like him, of course. People are different. The narrator of the novel divides people into three types. There are those who eat, drink, make love, and grow rich. They live their own lives. Then there are people who make it their aim not to live their own lives but to concern themselves with the lives of other people. They think they possess the real truths and want to enlighten others. Finally there are those who aim at living the life of the entire universe. They are the mystics trying to turn all matter into spirit.

Zorba is not interested in that classification. He cuts it short saying that one should not hurt other people’s heart, that’s all. If there is a God, that God resides in the heart. All the mountains and oceans and deserts may not be enough to contain God. But your little heart can hold him, boss. Take care of what you do to people’s hearts. The rest doesn’t matter.

That is Zorba’s secret. Enjoy your life to the fullest. Eat, drink, make merry. Have a passion and live it. But don’t mess with other people’s hearts. This isn’t hard to do. Just try it.

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Acknowledgement

This is the last post in this series whose 25 previous parts are available in this blog.

As the A2Z Challenge draws to a close, I would like to thank the Blogchatter Team for all the support they extended in various forms to bring this to a successful completion.

I’m immensely grateful to a few participants whose comments meant much to me during this exercise. Worthy of particular mention are Chinmayee Gayatree Sahu, Deepika Sharma, Arti Jain, and Rajeev Moothedath. Jitendra Mathur was not a part of this Challenge but has been graciously visiting my posts with a regularity that makes my heart bow in gratitude. Other unforgettable bloggers in this connection are: Purba Chakraborty, Ira Mishra, Huma Masood and Pooja Priyamvada.