On 25 March 1300 Dante started his journey to the afterlife described in the “Divine Comedy”. This masterpiece should be rediscovered, read, deepened because it hides messages and secrets for the evolution of our spirit.
According to Renè Guénon, the three Canticles of the Divine Comedy would in fact represent an initiatory path and would contain numerous esoteric messages. After all, Dante himself invites us to look for the hidden meaning among his verses: “O you who have sound intellects, look at the doctrine which hides itself beneath the veil of the strange verses”.
If we think about it, being aware of being lost in a “dark forest” itself represents the first step towards enlightenment. The forest is a state of moral perdition in which the values that lead to the “right way” have been forgotten, that is, the road that leads to the improvement of one’s interiority and, therefore, to God.
Here are the most beautiful quotes from Dante. Let’s treasure his teachings and try to apply them in our life. Let’s choose as “influencers” those who have made enrichment of the spirit a real mission of their own.
“Consider your origins: you were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.”
With this exhortation, Ulysses turns to his companions to encourage them to continue their journey beyond the Pillars of Hercules, the boundary of the known world.
The purpose of human existence is not mere survival and the satisfaction of vain and superficial needs, but research, that of knowledge to enrich the mind and that of virtue to enrich the spirit.
“Come after me, and let the people talk”
Virgil exhorts Dante to follow him without listening to anyone with the same firmness of a tower that remains steady despite the winds.
Those who have a goal must not allow themselves to be distracted by what people say, but have to remain firm in their purpose and move forward with determination.
“If you follow your star, you cannot fail to reach a glorious harbour”
Brunetto Latini was Dante’s teacher and here reminds him that being faithful to one’s vocation will surely lead him to glory.
Although Brunetto Latini’s vision is confined to the limits that the underworld imposes on him, certainly his words can be an inspiration for all those who doubt their path or who slow it down due to doubts and fears.
What’s your star? Are you following it?
“Light has been given you for good and evil”
We are in Purgatory. The sentence is pronounced by Marco Lombardo to answer Dante’s question about the source of negative human attitudes. In fact, men often trace the cause of everything back to destiny (to heaven), instead Marco Lombardo explains that we have been given the capacity to distinguish between good and evil, therefore evil comes from man’s free will, from his rational choices.
In fact, the invitation to follow the “emotions”, the heart, the feelings seems to be increasingly fashionable, which in itself is not wrong – let’s be clear – but this should not overshadow our reason. The light of the intellect must illuminate the path. The choice of heart has to be followed as long as that choice is ethical. Otherwise it’s just barbaric instinct.
“Love that moves the sun and the other stars”
The Divine Comedy ends with a marvelous acknowledgment, that of one who has made the journey and has purified his soul to the point of being able to see what is hidden to others.
We can spend our whole life wondering about the meaning of things, about the logic that governs the universe but in the end the one and only answer is Divine Love, the source from which everything emanates and the rule that directs everything. The One that moves the sun and the other stars. The only One that we should be looking for.
♥
“But now was turning my desire and will, even as a wheel that equally is moved, the Love which moves the sun and the other stars.”
Dante Alighieri
