Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

The joker as the ordinary worldly ego eats of the tree of knowledge and istherefore lousy with words. The thief hiding out in the cave of the soul eatsof the tree of life and knows that which can hardly be spoken because it isan element of the very Word itself. The still, small voice of the conscienceis the voice of the thief, speaking softly and “kindly.” It gives expression towhat is often beyond the capacity of facile speech.In fact, this thief is like a little Christ within us. And like Christ who,as Dylan would put it in a later song “died a criminal’s death,” this thiefcomes from a place beyond the letter of the law, from the spirit, and he goesbeyond the evidence of the senses to the substance of things unseen. It iswith this thief side of our being that we know intuitively that life is not ajoke and that we had better not try to kid ourselves because death is coming.The dialogue recorded in the first two stanzas of “All along theWatchtower” is thus a picture of a primary conflict that persecutes everysoul struggling with the question of its reality. This conflict is no small matterto be settled intellectually after a moment’s thought. It surges continuallyin the subterranean reaches of the soul, calling for a commitment that canonly be made with the whole of our being. Dylan accurately portrays thefine balance of this inner agony when he cites a certain validity to the ego’spoint of view:Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,None of them along the line knows what any of it is worth.It is true, of course, that we are all victimized and sold short by theways of the world. Yet we also sell ourselves short, and others as well, untilwe come to realize the crucial fact that life is not a joke. Once we have heardthis kindly spoken message of the thief, we can then move on to develop thisfaculty as a living connection with our own deep reality, which extends farbeyond anything the joker is able to understand. Our conscience becomes,so to speak, our connection with that vast dark region which is the unknowndepths of being. Hiding away in those depths is the thief, our conscience,seeking to rob us of our illusory and egocentric possessions, our “capital.”Dylan first gives us this picture of a primary conflict raging in thesoul. Then in the last two stanzas, he throws light on it from two differentangles, which allows us to consider it from two contrasting perspectives.In the third, or penultimate, stanza, Dylan floods the picture of this conflictwith the light from spiritual heights, while with the final stanza, he revealsthe inner experience of the soul down below:241