THE LITERARY MINDFULNESS OF T S ELIOT

‘We must be still and still moving.’
T S Eliot, ‘East Coker’ (from Four Quartets).

Thomas Stearns Eliot OM (1888-1965)

Whenever I am in London—and it is quite often these days as my wife and I have a son living and working there—I usually stay in South Kensington, very close to Gloucester Road Tube station. I am familiar with the area and its hotels, shops, restaurants and churches. 

One such church, where my wife and I have attended services several times, is St Stephen's Church, Gloucester Road. It’s a traditional Anglo-Catholic parish—‘bells and smells’ Anglicanism, if you will, but I like it. My favourite modern poet T S Eliot, pictured, was a churchwarden there for 25 years.

I first read the poetry of T S Eliot when I was at high school. It was compulsory reading. (In June 1964 Eliot said to the American comedian Groucho Marx, whom he admired, that he [Eliot] had no wish to become compulsory reading.) Anyway, I fell in love with Eliot's poetry almost 50 years ago and I have loved it ever since. How often have I said to myself interiorly these lines from 'The Hollow Men' ...

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. …

... as well as these and other lines from ‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’:

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table …

…   …       …

I grow old ... I grow old ...

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

…   …       …

St Stephen's Church, Gloucester Road, South Kensington

T S Eliot played a key role in the transition from 19th century romantic poetry to 20th century modernist poetry. Like many writers he explored the nature of time and eternity and, in so doing, one get glimpses of the nature of mindfulness. Now, if you had mentioned the word ‘mindfulness’ to Eliot when he was alive he would probably have asked, ‘What is that? Being mindful of others?’ Be that as it may, mindfulness is explored in his poetry in the context of time and eternity. Take these lines from ‘Burnt Norton’ (No 1 of Four Quartets):

...         …       …

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

...         …       …

Only through time time is conquered.

...         …       …

T S Eliot memorial plaque,
St Stephen's Church,
Gloucester Road, South Kensington

There is indeed a ‘still point’. It is the ‘stillness’ between the inbreath and the outbreath and between one heartbeat and the next. It is palpable and non-palpable. It is a timeless moment and yet it is also a moment of time, or rather a moment in time, as well. The still point involves no actual physical movement forward or backwards—there is just stillness. There is no past and no future but just the eternal now. Everything is contained within the eternal now. All duration—or time—is total and complete in the eternal now. There is an eternal quality about the now. It is forever new. The present moment has its unfolding in the eternal now for it is nothing other than that which presents itself before us in and as the now, which embraces past, present and future. It is in the eternal now that we have our presence. Indeed, the eternal now is omnipresence and we are immersed in it. We live, move and have our be-ing-ness in the eternal now. These ideas are explored in the first few lines of ‘Burnt Norton’:

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.

If all time is eternally present

All time is unredeemable.

…   …       …

Words move, music moves

Only in time; but that which is only living

Can only die. Words, after speech, reach

Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,

Can words or music reach

The stillness, as a Chinese jar still

Moves perpetually in its stillness.

Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,

Not that only, but the co-existence,

Or say that the end precedes the beginning,

And the end and the beginning were always there

Before the beginning and after the end.

And all is always now. …

English Heritage blue plaque,
3 Kensington Court Gardens,
Kensington

Mindfulness, which is the art and practice of being fully present and choicelessly aware in the eternal now, from one moment to the next, involves no words, no speech, no music and no movement. Mindfulness is stillness. There is no judgement or interpretation of the context, internal and external, of one’s moment to moment experience of life. The only movement, ever onwards, is the movement or flux of life itself. In Eliot’s words, ‘all is always now.’ So, forget the 'burnt-out ends of smoky days' ('Preludes'), the 'butt-ends of [your] days and ways" (‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’)—and start living mindfully.

Life may be movement but there is always that ‘still point’ which is to be found everywhere and between one moment and the next. To use a Biblical phrase, the still point is ‘the refreshing’ (cf Is 28:12 [KJV]). Unceasing movement is tiring—even exhausting. We need to find that still point which, paradoxically, can only be found in the midst of the unceasing movement. So, get quiet, calm the body, and feel the stillness—or, as Dr Norman Vincent Peale wrote, ‘Sit still, be silent, let composure creep over you.’ Do you want to be calm? If so, practise calmness. Practise stillness. Practise quietness. Practise silence. You see, the very truth of your be-ing is calmness, stillness, quietness and silence. A good way to start—and finish for that matter—is to sit stil and get the body calm. If the body is calm, your mind will soon be calm. Be still.

Most have heard, sometime or other, these lines from the final stanza of ‘Little Gidding’ (No 4 of Four Quartets):

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

However, the lines that follow take up once again the idea of the still point:

Through the unknown remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning:
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
…   …       …

Gloucester Road Tube station,
Gloucester Road, South Kensington

The stillness between two waves of the sea. The voice of the hidden waterfall. The source of the longest river. Powerful imagery.

Find the stillness within you—indeed, within all things. The still point is to be found everywhere because it is everywhere. Mindfulness, in my humble opinion, is the best way to find that still point. Listen. Observe. Watch. Be alert. Remain choicelessly (that is, non-judgmentally) aware. Be fully present from one moment to the next.

Notes. 

1.    The line, 'Every moment is a fresh beginning,' comes from Eliot's play The Cocktail Party. 

2.   BBC Radio 3 has aired Dear Mr Eliot: When Groucho Met Tom, a musical fantasy woven round the real-life meeting of T S Eliot and Groucho Marx in June 1964 after a three-year correspondence. 

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