Copyright Ian Ellis-Jones 2004 - All Rights Reserved.

1. THE LITTLE PRINCE
A SEARCH FOR MEANING
by IAN ELLIS-JONES
ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE SYDNEY UNITARIAN CHURCH
SUNDAY, 12 DECEMBER 2004
My favourite book is The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The
book, written ostensibly for children, but also for adults (who, in the view of the
author, understand very little), is a classic of 20th century humanist
existentialist literature. In many ways, the book is very "Unitarian", as I hope
to explain.
Saint-Exupéry was born into a French aristocratic family in 1900, but in
"reduced circumstances". Educated for the Navy, he was ultimately called up
for the Air Force and became a "prose poet of the air". The centre of all of
Saint-Exupéry's thinking and writing was Humanity ("Man"). His view of life
was "founded on reverence for man present in all men".
The Little Prince, written by Saint-Exupéry a year before his untimely death in
1944, concerns an air pilot who, having made a forced landing in the Sahara
Desert, meets a little prince. The little prince tells the pilot lots of stories about
the planet where he lives and about other planets and their rulers. More
importantly, the little prince shares with the pilot something extremely
important - something the little prince learned from a fox.
First, a very brief outline of the story, which, I'm sure, is well-known to many of
you.
The narrator, an airplane pilot, first narrates his childhood. He recalls how
disheartened he became with so-called grown-ups who are only interested in
supposedly important things such as getting a job, making a lot of money and
otherwise being a commercial success - so-called "matters of consequence".
Things of the spirit, such as the free use of imagination, and the arts, are seen
as unimportant by the grown-ups, because they are not "useful". Perhaps the

2. saddest line in the entire book occurs at the very beginning of the second
chapter, which has the pilot saying:
"So I lived my life alone, without anyone that I could really talk to
... ."
That was until the narrator's plane crashed in the Sahara Desert. A very long
way from home, and facing a life or death situation, the narrator hears an odd
little voice. It said, "If you please - draw me a sheep!"
Eventually the narrator and the little prince become friends. It turns out that
the little prince came from a very small asteroid, about the size of a house,
called Asteroid B-612. The little prince used a flock of migrating birds to leave
his home, and made his way towards earth. We are not told exactly why he
came to earth. Perhaps there is no real answer to that question. It doesn't
matter. What is important is what happens later. So it is for us.
The little prince encounters a king living on a neighbouring asteroid, the first of
six planet-inhabitants the little prince encounters before arriving on earth. The
king calls the little prince his subject and commences to order him around, but
the little prince refuses to be ordered around, for he takes "orders" only from
himself. He quickly leaves, and moves on.
The little prince then encounters a conceited man. The conceited man asks
the little prince to first salute and then admire him. The conceited man wants
praise, in order to prop his ego. The little prince doesn't quite understand the
meaning of the word "admire", and soon loses interest and departs, next
encountering, on the third planet, a drunk - a "tippler" - who claims that he is
drinking to forget that he is ashamed of drinking. The horrible self-destructive
cycle of addiction is revealed. (As for the little prince, he knows to clean out
his volcanoes and to keep the baobabs in check. Discipline is the price we
must pay for freedom.)
On the fourth planet the little prince meets a businessman who is absorbed, of
course, in "matters of consequence" - counting all the stars in the sky, which
he claims he owns. The little prince can't understand how it is possible to own
something when one is of no use to that thing. (The little prince takes care of
his rose.)

3. The little prince goes on his way again. On the fifth planet - the smallest of all
- he meets a lamplighter who must light his lamp and put it out every minute.
The little prince remarks:
"It may well be that this man is absurd. But he is not so absurd
as the king, the conceited man, the businessman, and the
tippler. For at least his work has some meaning. When he lights
his street lamp, it is as if he brought one more star to life, or one
flower. When he puts out his lamp, he sends the flower, or the
star, to sleep. That is a beautiful occupation. And since it is
beautiful, it is truly useful."
It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.
The little prince tries to help the lamplighter but, regrettably, the planet is too
small for two people. Life is like that. Some relationships cannot succeed -
for a variety of reasons. It is time to move on again.
On the sixth planet the little prince meets a geographer, who is extremely
busy. He knows and records the location of all the seas, rivers, towns,
mountains and deserts. The little prince tells him about his flower, but the
geographer says that he isn't interested, for he doesn't record things that are
"ephemeral". The little prince is surprised to learn that his rose will not last
forever and feels regret at having left her.
Each of the six planet-inhabitants has a distinctive characteristic that
epitomises some disturbing aspect of modern life: the desire for power and
authority over others (the king), vanity (the conceited man), addiction (the
tippler), crass materialism (the businessman), frenetic pace (the lamplighter),
and possession of book knowledge as opposed to actual experience (the
geographer).
The little prince seeks the advice of the geographer as to which planet to visit
next. "The planet Earth," replies the geographer. "It has a good reputation."
Well, it is on the planet Earth that the little prince finally meets the fox, who
asks the little prince to "tame" him. The little prince learns from the fox that to
"tame" means to "establish ties". It takes time to form a relationship of

4. friendship or love. We are told that humans no longer have friends because
they try to buy them in shops and that cannot be done.
Eventually, the time comes for the little prince to leave. The fox cries, and this
makes the little prince sad. As they separate, the fox tells the little prince a
secret - "[his] secret, a very simple secret":
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is
essential is invisible to the eye."
The narrative returns to eight days after the pilot's accident in the desert. The
pilot and the little prince find a well, and drink from it. It is like the fountain of
living water referred to in the books of Jeremiah and Revelation. For Saint-
Exupéry the "new life" is found in the desert of life itself, and not outside of it:
"'What makes the desert beautiful,' said the little prince, 'is that
somewhere it hides a well ...'"
It is something that each of us must discover for ourselves. No one else can
give it to us. It is there waiting for us, but we must make the effort and do the
"inner work". There is no "saviour" except our own desire for health and
wholeness.
The little prince is anxious to return to the place from whence he came. He
chooses to die and seeks out the snake that bites him and kills him. (The
snake had earlier told the little prince that he [the snake] solves all riddles.)
The little prince goes through a great transformation in his "return" to Asteroid
B-612 (his homeward journey, his "ascension", if you like, to the serpent):
"There was nothing there but a flash of yellow close to his ankle.
He remained motionless for an instant. He did not cry out. He
fell as gently as a tree falls. There was not even any sound,
because of the sand."
"Look up at the sky. Ask yourselves: Is it yes or no? Has the
sheep eaten the flower? And you will see how everything
changes ..."

5. "Then, if a little man appears who laughs, who has golden hair
and who refuses to answer questions, you will know who he is.
If this should happen, please comfort me. Send me word that he
has come back."
Victor E Graham, in an article appearing in volume 10 of Children’s Literature
Review, has written of the book’s “fairy-tale transposition of certain episodes
in the life of Christ”. For example, the little prince arrives on earth in the
desert beneath “his” star during a time of spiritual conflict. He is professed to
be without sin, even by the serpent, the biblical symbol of evil. Like Christ in
the temple, the little prince astounds the author with his precocity. The little
prince finds water in the desert. He sacrifices himself because of his love for
his rose. We are told that the time of his departure from the earth was
preordained. He tells the author that he will look like he has died, but will live
on. His body cannot be found, but we are left with what Graham calls “a sort
of Holy Ghost – his star in the heavens and his memory”, with the aviator
writing down his “gospel” to pass on to others.
Be all that as it may, it needs to be stressed that although Saint-Exupéry was
quite familiar with the New Testament he had all but abandoned his Catholic
faith when still quite young, and had embraced humanism as an alternative
faith – something that is clear from even a cursory perusal of his various
writings. The book The Little Prince is, as I’ve already mentioned, very
"Unitarian". It affirms the supreme worth and dignity of the individual. It
affirms that this life, rather than some future life, is or at least ought to be our
main concern. It affirms, as Krishnamurti often pointed out, that truth is a
"pathless land" and that you cannot approach it by any creed or path
whatsoever. Direct perception of truth is, however, possible, when there is
choiceless awareness of life as it really is. The important thing is life itself.
Whatever "it" may be, it is all here now, and all we have to do is to learn to
perceive it here and now. We need to see each thing as it really is - as a new
moment.
The Little Prince reminds us of the following five truths:
1. Life can be meaningful if one gives it meaning.
2. Life is one and interdependent.

6. 3. Life is a journey.
4. Life is solitary.
5. Life is all around us but also hidden from us.
I will deal with these truths in turn.

7. 1. Life can be meaningful if one gives it meaning.
The Little Prince shows the emptiness and futility of so much of human
existence. Each planet visited by the little prince is a miniature theatre of the
absurd, inhabited by some solitary figure who is condemned to repeat some
unbroken series of pointless acts. The king has no subjects, only a rat whom
he must alternatively condemn and pardon, so as to exercise his authority.
The businessman counts stars which he can only nominally claim to owning.
The drunkard drinks incessantly in order to forget that he is ashamed of
drinking. The geographer counts mountains and rivers he has never seen.
The conceited man wears a hat for saluting people, but no one ever passes
his way. The lamplighter follows disembodied orders, lighting up and
extinguishing as his planet turns more and more rapidly on its axis.
Life - a "great mystery" - only becomes meaningful when we cease to be self-
obsessed and give of ourselves to others, for whom we are responsible:
" 'It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your
rose so important.' "
" 'I am responsible for my rose,' the little prince repeated, so that
he would be sure to remember."
We must learn to "create ties" and "tame" each other. There is no joy in life
except in human relations. Further, like the little prince, we must learn to
laugh, and to ask questions. The little prince constantly asks questions,
something that annoys the pilot who, after all, is only an adult. The important
thing for us is to ask questions, and challenge everything. The answers
seldom come. That doesn't matter. The question is the answer.
2. Life is one and interdependent.
Unitarianism affirms that all life is one and interdependent. There is only one
life manifesting itself in all things as all things. There is only one order or level
of reality, that of ordinary things in time and space.
The Little Prince contains many examples of the "one": one sheep, one rose,
one well. Yet Saint-Exupéry offers us no monistic or pantheistic view of life.

8. There is the one, but there is also the many ... the rose garden .. the corn
fields ... . The one becomes the many, but the essence of life, its livingness,
is and will always be one.
The Little Prince does not offer any hope of an afterlife, only the remembrance
of someone who once lived, and who lives on in memory and by way of an
association of ideas:
"Here, then, is a great mystery. Look up at the sky. Ask
yourselves: Is it yes or no? ..."
" 'In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be
laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when
you look at the sky at night ... You - only you - will have stars
that can laugh!' "
I am reminded of some beautiful words from This, My Son, by Joan Kinmont:
"Then your dear, distant voice
Broke through the night ...
'Seek me in the world
If you would have me near;
Seek me in the light.
Darkness and defeat
Entomb me hear.
Dear, lift your eyes above
To beauty and the sky.
Seek me in the light.
Death is not the end.
There is no death.'
Your voice spoke in the night."
Ultimately, as former Unitarian Universalist Association president Dr William
Schulz has written:
"...[T]he paradox of life is to love it all the more even though we
ultimately lose it."

9. 3. Life is a journey.
Life is, or can be, a journey, for truth is never static. L B Fisher once said
some words about Universalists that I like:
"Universalists are often asked where they stand. The only true
answer to give to this question is that we do not stand at all, we
move."
The little prince moves from planet to planet ... to grow, to learn, and to live.
He knows when to move on. How often in life do we get "stuck" in some
place, in some relationship, and do not know how to move on. (Usually, it's a
case of our not wanting to move on!) Read The Little Prince and you will
learn how to move on. You simply see things as they really are, in their
totality, in their actuality, without opinion, without judgment, but with complete
attention. That is the ending of sorrow ... and the getting of wisdom.
As Unitarians we must be prepared to move, move on and journey. We are
denied the comfort of fixed and absolute truth. The search for truth is
endless. As Unitarian minister George N Marshall, author of Challenge of a
Liberal Faith, has written:
"[T]he Bible of tomorrow has not been written, is not completed."
4. Life is solitary.
The Little Prince is about exile and loneliness. The six planet inhabitants
appear as isolated and solitary figures. The desert is a lonely place. The little
prince is lonely. The fox is lonely. So is the pilot:
"So I lived my life alone, without anyone that I could really talk to ... ."
The snake reminds us that "it is also lonely among men." At the end the little
prince says, "Let me go on by myself." Our final journey is something each of
us must embark upon alone.
Saint-Exupéry says that we must create ties in order to give life meaning. Life
is not intrinsically meaningful. The little prince loves a rose, but the rose is

10. fickle and conceited. Yet the little prince learns that it is the time he has
"wasted" for his rose that makes his rose "so important".
5. Life is all around us but also hidden from us.
I must be careful here. Neither I nor the author am suggesting that there is
some inner, esoteric "secret" to life. No, not at all. Life is all about us and
around us, ready to be experienced in all its fulness. Yet the story has so
many things that are "hidden" or "concealed" - the unspoken, the elephant
inside the boa constrictor, the sheep inside its box, the seeds in the earth, the
fox in its hole, the secret well in the Sahara, and so forth. Life may be all
around us, but what is truly important is not visible to the naked eye. It is the
livingness of life itself ... not some illusory life force, but simply living things in
the process of living. That is the essence of life, the one life.
Dr William Schulz has written:
"...[T]he Sacred or Divine, the Precious and Profound, are made
evident not in the miraculous or supernatural but in the simple
and the everyday[.]"
Yes, what is important are those little everyday things that help to make life
meaningful. The stars, the flowers, the animals, and other people. They are
to be treasured and enjoyed, not escaped from. They are not to be counted.
They are not to be owned. They are very visible, yet they are often also
hidden from us, because we are looking for something else. What is essential
is invisible. It is the very livingness of life itself.
Let's not forget that, ultimately, The Little Prince is a story about love and
friendship:
"To forget a friend is sad. Not every one has had a friend."
Yet love and friendship don't just happen. One must "tame" and be tamed:
"One only understands the things that one tames ... ."
"You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."

11. However, we are ultimately alone, from birth to the grave. There is laughter,
but there are also tears. There are many tears in The Little Prince. Further,
as the Unitarian and Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson pointed out in
his Self-Reliance:
"We must go alone. Isolation must precede true society. But
your isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must
be elevation. ... No one can come near me but through my act."
I urge all of you to read this book, if you haven't already done so. If you have,
read it again ... and again.
-oo0oo-