Labyrinth

In a conversation with the French poet and art historian Claude-Henri Rocquet, Mircea Eliade discussed his insights about the labyrinth:

Claude-Henri Rocquet:  You have often compared life--your life--to a labyrinth.  What would you say, today, about the meaning of that labyrinth?

Mircea Eliade:  A labyrinth is a defense, sometimes a magical defense, built to guard a center, a treasure, a meaning.  Entering it can be a rite of initiation, as we see in the Theseus myth.  That symbolism is the model of all existence, which passes through many ordeals in order to journey toward its own center, toward itself, toward atman, as the Hindus call it.  There have been occasions when I have been aware of emerging from a labyrinth, or of coming across the thread.  I was feeling hopeless, oppressed, lost.  Of course I didn't actually say to myself, "I am lost in the labyrinth."  And yet, in the end, I did very much have the feeling of having emerged from a labyrinth as a victor.  Everyone has had that experience.  But one must also add that life is not just one labyrinth.  The trial, the ordeal, recurs.

Claude-Henri Rocquet:  Have you reached your center?

Mircea Eliade:  Several times I have felt certain I was touching it, and in so doing I learned a great deal, I recognized myself.  And then I lost myself again.  That is our condition:  we are neither angels nor pure heroes.  Once the center has been reached, we are enriched, our consciousness is broadened and deepened, so that everything becomes clear, meaningful; but life goes on:  another labyrinth, other encounters, other kinds of trials, on another level.

From Mircea Eliade:  Ordeal by Labyrinth.  Conversations with Claude-Henri Rocquet.  U of Chicago Press, 1978.