by Berenice Andrews
A Shakespearean “Aside”
Four centuries after it was first staged, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, [The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark] still has the power to leave us scared and perplexed. It’s a bewildering play whose author knew very well that its audiences could “botch the words up to fit their own thoughts” (4.5.12). That’s not surprising when we note that above all else, Hamlet is an intensely personal (yet impersonal) psychological drama. As such, it can still impact on its audiences in 2017.
Quite simply, it reveals the interior world that each of us carries. It’s a world that we are required to discover after we have stopped bonding with our primary caregiver and started on the often-hazardous journey of discovering ourselves. And Hamlet is still wonderfully able to help us.
Right from its opening line, “Who’s there?” it pushes us into self-discovery by “holding the mirror up to [our] nature” (3.2.23-24). With that in mind, I have ventured into the world of Prince Hamlet to make some discoveries about myself.
The World of Prince Hamlet
In his 16th-century world, Prince Hamlet, at age 25, would have been middle-aged. When we first meet him, he has already enjoyed a very comfortable life. His parents have apparently loved him and each other. He has been gifted with a childhood mentor, Yorick, who had helped satisfy many of his childhood needs. And he has been involved in a romantic relationship with Ophelia, a gentle woman, the daughter of Polonius, a respected adviser at the court.
Then Hamlet’s pleasant world falls to pieces. He’s plunged into what we would describe as a “midlife crisis” complete with severe mental depression.
His father, King Hamlet, has died quite unexpectedly and his mother has wasted no time in entering into an “incestuous” marriage (1.2.159) with her deceased husband’s brother, who has then become the king. As Hamlet’s grief and depression worsens, he becomes increasingly unable to tolerate what he regards as the obvious failings of the people around him.
He decides (with good reason) that the respected Polonius is really a fool whose advice is so loaded with self-serving contradictions that it’s laughable and ill-fitting a royal counselor. Then Hamlet slides deeper and puts Ophelia into the same category as his (apparently) wanton mother.
When the ghost of his father keeps appearing to others to tell them that he had been murdered, Hamlet’s emotional meltdown is complete.
Yet, he tries to hang onto the shards of sanity by reminding himself about himself—that he exists (somehow) apart from the people around him.
The Soliloquy
Then Shakespeare gives Hamlet (and us) the opportunity to probe into the deepest grief and pain.
In “to be or not to be” (3.1.56-88), a soliloquy which allows for a self-exploration more personal than either reverie or meditation, we encounter the fundamental options of our life (as Shakespeare speaking through Hamlet sees it).
Down we go, likely beyond our depths, to probe into the idea that we mortals fear, not death, but an afterlife that could be worse than our present situation. Since this can only be dreaded, we end up choosing to stay alive and suffer (“thus conscience doth make cowards of us all” (3.1.83). Any resolve that we might have had to change our situation, we rationalize away. The result in Hamlet’s story (and foreseeably in ours) is tragedy.
Twenty-First Century Afterthoughts
So, this exercise in discovering myself by using the words and ideas found in a 16th-century literary masterpiece has brought me to an important realization. (To be sure it might be a “botched” idea!)
It’s an insight in which many modern spiritual seekers have found themselves floundering. That’s not surprising since it has required the Age of Enlightenment, plus another century, before we were even half-ready to receive it.
It’s the idea that for us “to be or not to be” as a human requires acknowledging the multidimensionality that this implies. In other words, it’s the dawning awareness that in our evolving consciousness, where growth and change are always happening, there can be a new realization about our humanness.
Although others had been providing the clues (for centuries), Ernest Holmes and the “new thought” people of the early 20th century were instrumental in pushing us along that path. It’s a…
A New Thought
…that we’re already in heaven (or hell). That’s where our lives as humans on this plane have to be lived and we are the ones who can make it happen.
As a result, we realize that although Hamlet saw himself as the helpless victim of an unavoidable fate, we have the power to view ourselves differently. Thus, I can conclude that “to be or not to be” requires that I acknowledge, accept and allow my own “i-am.”
Then, I plunge into my own soliloquy. It has always been there awaiting me—and all of us.
What I venture into is actually a spiritual exploration that the world’s wise ones—starting with the shamans—have been trying to get people to take for centuries. As a result, “to be or not to be” can take on a new meaning. We finally see that it’s Spirit-in-Action in our lives
All along, Spirit has been working in me, as me and through me. It has been a shaping and firming work-in-progress. While it can be regarded as essentially personal, it can also be seen as being as impersonal as the action on a stage.
A Soliloquy About Me
With all that in mind and in order to honor my Self, I have (quite presumptuously) taken as my model Shakespeare’s and Hamlet’s great soliloquy and let it express my “new thought” way of being.
Do I have a choice about my existence on this plane?
Must I passively acquiesce in the events of my life,
Or can I take a stand against obvious wrongdoing?
My Self was made to be a
Being of choice and a Co-creator with Spirit.
I can live and love and follow a path
That’s both human and mind, human and heart.
I can make of my Self a being of light
The light of awareness.
And I can make of myself a being of love.
Both expressing the Spirit in me.
And if on that journey, I end my days,
Without having come to all that “i-am,”
I will still have accomplished my purpose.
Conclusion
And sixteenth-century Hamlet continues to be a brilliant example of what people have to learn about the first steps in self-actualization.
Now, in this early twenty-first century, with a global village emerging as our habitat and with an increasing knowledge about our heart/mind consciousness energies finally in-forming us, we are ready to move into a splendid new understanding of “to be or not to be.” And, unlike Hamlet, we can allow ourselves to rejoice in what we are.
Author’s note: The source for the play is W.G. Clark and W. Aldis Wright, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, 1967.
Berenice Andrews is a shamanic teacher/healer. For more details about the healing practices mentioned above, see her book Rebirthing Into Androgyny: Your Quest for Wholeness…And Afterward. See also her articles “Finding Your True Self: A (Sort of) Socratic Dialog,” September, 2014, and “Understanding the Human Energy Being,” June, July and August, 2015 in Transformation Magazine. If you are interested in reading more and/or becoming her student, see her web site: thestonecircleclassroom.com.