Revolution of the Mind

Here's my prefatory note to my latest published translation - Anatoli Gradinarov's 'Revolution of the Mind' - which is now available as an e-book from Amazon and elsewhere.

What is your true potential as a human being? That is the central question running through Revolution of the Mind. Clearly and succinctly challenging orthodox understandings of how the human mind works, the book presents us with the tools to examine our own mental behaviour and recognise the complex of interactions between the conscious, subconscious and unconscious which give rise to, distort and ultimately trap us inside our thoughts, our emotions and what Gradinarov calls ‘the nightmare of the self’. This, though, is not a self-help manual. It certainly doesn’t provide a readymade programme for transforming your life. On the contrary, Gradinarov challenges any kind of programme or dogma and instead encourages an inquisitive form of self-observation which can take us beyond the self-created roles, mental self-images and illusory virtual worlds generated by our territorially motivated egos. Those already familiar with Zen Buddhism, Jungian psychology, phenomenology and even existentialism will recognise some of the strands which feed into Revolution of the Mind, but Gradinarov brings a whole new perspective to questions of identity, perception, understanding and, above all, happiness. In many ways, the answers he indicates are simple – but they are answers which you have to find for yourself.

In translating Revolution of the Mind, what struck me is the precision of Gradinarov’s language. For a translator, of course, this is a challenge – but one which, I hope, with the generous input of the author himself, we have managed to overcome. The precision of language too reflects the precision of the ideas contained in this book which are illustrated with experiences from everyday life that all of us can recognise. This English translation from the original Bulgarian text is a collaborative work and, to me, that also serves as an example of what Gradinarov is talking about: translation is not something which happens according to a programme. You can’t simply feed the original text into one end of a matrix and expect a perfect translation to emerge at the other. It’s about collaboration and calibration, about being prepared to relinquish your own territory in the name of finding common ground. As Revolution of the Mind repeatedly reminds us, the borders which exist between us are entirely of our own construction. All we have to do is recognise them for what they are.

Tom Phillips

Beginning with the city

Ah, Sofia,

I want to write you a poem

but where to begin?

With your pocked facades

and unruly pavements?

With your non-stop shops and trolley cars?

The sociology of balcony design

or the semiotics of disconnected electrical wiring?

With the slow progress of pensioners

burdened with bags crammed full

of secondhand clothes and bargains from Billa?

With the kids after school in a сладкарница

laughing with disbelief into their mobile phones

or the pyjama’d men chain-smoking

between satellite dishes and sheets out to dry?

With the chess-players waiting for opponents

among the students with Шуменско bottles

on the benches that line the theatre gardens?

With your pigeons, your magpies, your jays?

With your trees coming into blossom

and newly hung with мартеници?

With the light on the snow of your mountain

or the spit and crackle of a pantograph

as a tram pulls round the corner

outside the Palace of Justice?

With the coffee and cigarette sellers

in their subterranean kiosks

and the customers crouched down

with plastic cups of espresso?

With your dog-walkers walking pert dogs

that trot in circles by the Borisova lily pond

or the crowd of commuters dispersing

through subway labyrinths and emerging into squares

and ad-hoc bazaars with snow-drops in jam-jars

and embroidered tablecloths laid out by piebald furs?

With the bagpipes keening over traffic noise

by a zebra crossing on your Yellow Pavements

or a jaunty trilling accordion by the open door

of a souvenir shop on sun-splashed Vitoshka?

With waiters laying tables outside cafes

on the first good day of spring,

with the smell of rose oil in Serdika metro,

the taste of баница, the burn of ракия

with a lightning storm one humid August,

or with the disc of the moon poised, silver,

above the gold domes of Nevsky?

Ah, Sofia,

I wanted to write you a poem

but even in plain view you’re elusive

and I am only just starting to know you –

so for now there are only beginnings,

but those beginnings, it seems, will be endless.

3/4/2018

Tom Phillips