Flora's Organization

The Boat Of A Million Years, XV.

Flora is the best immortal because she wants not only to find fellow immortals but also to organize the poor to improve their lives:

"'I want to build something so strong that with it we can say 'no' to the slavers, the lynch mobs, and the lords of state.'" (p. 332)

She says not "I" but "we" and by this she means the downtrodden, which she has been, not just the band of immortals that Hanno hopes to build.

She concludes:

"'...to live independently of the overlords. Only by guiding the poor and helpless toward this can we immortals win it for ourselves.

"'Are you with me?'" (ibid.)

I am with her aim and I like her inclusive use of the pronoun, "we." Pronouns are important. People switch between different referents for "we" without realizing it:

if "we" must compete against the Japanese, then "we" means the speaker's national economy;

if "we" are sinful, then "we" means every human being;

if "we" must do something about the unemployed, then "we" means bureaucrats - it excludes the unemployed themselves.

Flora means not everyone but the majority who need independence from overlords.

There is an Upanishadic verse:

"From delusion lead me to Truth.

"From darkness lead me to Light.

"From death lead me to immortality."

-Brihadaranyaka.

Maybe, in this context, that last line is relevant? Nevertheless, my revision of the verse, which I recite before meditation is:

"From delusion lead us to Truth.

"From darkness lead us to Light."

Flora uses religion and builds a community so I have not gone completely off the point by quoting my revised Upanishad.