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On March 26, author S.T. Georgiou spoke at East West to talk about his latest book, Mystic Street: Meditations On A Spiritual Path.
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S.T. Georgiou
The following article by S.T. Georgiou will introduce many readers to Robert Lax, an extraordinary figure of recent years whose saintly and poetic life is nonetheless little known. Georgiou met Lax on the Greek isle of Patmos in 1993. In his book The Way of the Dreamcatcher, Georgiou tells of the unique student-mentor relationship that developed between them. "Lax and Georgiou are truly kindred spirits," wrote Br. Patrick Hart, the last secretary to Thomas Merton. "They breathe forth wonderful insights into the questions that confront us all."
Robert Lax (1915-2000) remains one of the best kept spiritual secrets of the twentieth century. Better known as the closest friend of the renowned Trappist monk Thomas Merton, it comes as a surprise to many that Merton himself hailed Lax as his "spiritual superior:"
"Lax was born with the deepest sense of who God was. He was much wiser than I, and he had clearer vision his was one of the many voices through which the insistent Spirit of God was determined to teach me the way I had to travel." (from Merton's autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain)
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Lax and Merton met as students at Columbia University in 1935 and remained lifelong friends. After Merton entered the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, Lax came to settle on the remote Greek isle of Patmos (where St. John wrote the Book of Revelation) to live an eremitic and creative life. Lax and Merton would avidly correspond through the years (see When Prophecy Still Had A Voice: The Collected Letters of Merton and Lax, 2001) until Merton died by accidental electrocution in 1968. Jack Kerouac, who was also briefly mentored by Lax, termed him a "good saint, a strange and wonderful laughing Buddha."
Born and raised a Jew, Lax converted to Roman Catholicism at age 28, prompted largely by his close friendship with Merton and, most especially, his Franciscan influence. Additionally, Lax's uncle, Harold Hotchner, was a high-ranking Theosophist who had exposed Lax to diverse ways of spirituality early in his youth. Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism had interested him -- and would always interest him -- but his deep regard for Christ as the God of Love, and his devotion to St. Francis, led to his eventual baptism.
On Patmos, Lax perfected his sparse, minimalist, mantra-like style of verse. He was drawn to write in this ascetic "less is more" style primarily because he had always been inspired by simplicity - how basic elements in both art and life shape one's meditative clarity. He seemed most himself among the poor and those of a grass-roots lifestyle. Lax worked with the disadvantaged in Harlem, lived in the slums of Marseilles, and befriended gypsies in Europe. And when he moved to the barren isle of Patmos, he intensified a lifelong practice of Zen and Yoga, both of which stress economy and purity of form. Finally, in studying Haiku and Eastern philosophy, as well as Jewish mystical works such as the Kabbalah, Lax was impressed with how much could be said with a few choice words.
Lax's devotion to minimalism centers on the holiness of the moment. He believed that if you welcome each moment with the fullness of love, "you take care of all time." Like the power of a single word, each moment is meant to be nurtured and cultivated slowly, gently, that its seed might fully blossom in the hearts of those receptive to it.
How best to pray? Lax believed that one must learn to relax and trust in the peace of God. To do this, he said to put yourself in a place where grace can flow. Once you are quiet enough, open enough, you can begin to hear the "still small Voice" which long ago whispered the fruitful command that gave birth to the cosmos and to ascendent levels of consciousness: "Let there be light!"
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