quillizer; or occasionally as a mirror to chaos, a reflection not only of the material world but also of the inner world which has produced it. It is difficult to say whether the chaos of our times has caused the loss of symbolic vision or the reverse; in any event, the one-sidedness of our psychological life leads to an inevitable reaction.

Humanity deprived of this three-dimensional vision is like a man unable to dream; madness is the inevitable result. So it is that there seems to be an un­written law of cultural dynamics which provides for the reintroduction of this dimension through the descent of the Avatar. Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita: "Whenever there is a decline of virtue and resurgence of evil and injustice in the world, I, the Avatar, take human form. For the establishment of righteousness, the destruction of the evil-doer, I am born from age to age."

A symbolic meaning, of course, is that the depth the Avatar represents can never be repressed successfully, So, in the period of the ghazal, when despotism and empty formalism prevailed, the natural counterbalancing reaction of the people was to turn to mysticism in large numbers. Here was provided an outlet for the expression of that which the culture repressed. One sees in contemporary society a similar "search for meaning." It leads into the occult and to drugs in our day as it led to libertinism and indolence in the time of the ghazal, but these are only perverted forms of something which is in essence real. Thus it is that all legitimate mystical orders in our day have repudiated psychedelic drugs as a source of this vision. "The experience is as far removed from Reality as a mirage is from water" says Meher Baba. And one anti-drug group even quotes Hafiz: "Alas, alas, I pity those who compare a glass bead to a pearl."

In all of this can be seen the fundamental urge for selftranscendence. In the imagery of the ghazal, this is fana, and is depicted symbolically by Wine and Love. But the deeper meaning is in the sense of ishq-i-haqiqi, not in the sense of abandoning oneself to literal intoxication through drugs or sensuality. This gives on an illusion of freedom but it is temporary, as the bird in the cage dreaming of flight. So drugs, libertinism, etc. do not satisfy the underlying need, which still remains in the psyche. In Christian terms, what is needed is crucifixion and resurrection, but it is the ego which is to be crucified, that the integral vision may be resurrected.

The task of the artist in this century is the task of the priest of the past. The entire world is his congregation, and through the various global media he must be able to reach them on every level. Since there is no other source for the "interpretation of mysteries" in this age, the public artist must assume this role, and it is in terms of the degree of vision, the levels of meaning contained in his art, that criteria can be developed to evaluate his success.

It can be based on the "degree of liberation" or integration of the work; its appeal to different levels of society. This can be accomplished, in the lesson of the ghazal, through the use of "creative ambiguity." One cannot be vague or obscure in this, or it will be self-defeating. The ghazal is concrete in its imagery, but it has the advantage of a vocabulary of symbols. Symbol has virtually disappeared from the modern world; we have only flat images which serve as allegories at best, but lack the third dimension. Science has given us (especially in psychology) descriptions of the unconscious, but nothing which can appeal to the people as symbol.

Can the imagery of the ghazal be transplanted? Francis Brabazon is experimenting with the ghazal form, having spent ten years in India studying with Meher Baba. He says, "The ghazal is capable of expressing all the shades of the impossible relationships of lover and Beloved. Such a form has not existed in English till now, because the lover-Beloved dilemma was not part of the British-