The Saint 97
taining it. He wanted a better house, he wanted a swimming pool,
a second car was needful— and lo, the event came, and he had what
he wished. But the having was as nothing.
Does the saint not also desire? Doesn’t he desire sainthood? Not
quite. He aspires to ideals, which cannot be possessed in the way
that a car, a house, or a lover can be. He wants to embody a set of
values and live by them moment to moment. He does not want the
happiness that acquisition can bring—if it can. He wants the joy that
comes from committing to an ideal. And he recognizes that such joy
is dangerous— neither Achilles nor Jesus, nor legions of other war-
riors and saints, stayed alive very long.
The man or woman committed to ideals doesn’t live for desire
but for hope. The idealist hopes for joy and presence and unity, not
only for himself but for others. A generous impulse lies behind as-
piration to the ideal: that much is palpable in Jesus, the Buddha,
Confucius, and Hector. Achilles is a more complex case. He does
not always seem to care about anyone except himself. But when the
dangerous war comes, people look to the descendants of Achilles
to carry the fi ght to the enemy. Achilles is not always beloved, but
he is needed, and often desperately, by others. He’s especially vital
to his fellow warriors. There’s an eloquent passage, attributed
(wrongly one suspects) to Heraclitus, that crystallizes the value of
Achilles and the Achilles- like warrior. “Out of every one hundred
men, ten shouldn’t be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the
real fi ghters and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle.
Ah, but the one, one is a warrior and he will bring the others back.”
Hector is a just and admirable man, the sort of person we our-
selves might aspire to be. But if one has to pick an archetypal soldier
to send into the fray to defend us, there is no doubt as to the
choice.
The culture of Self does not know what to do with the lure of
compassion. It is baffl ed by the attraction of collectivity. It does