He was pointing to the Moon, but we were looking at his finger....
Refreshing socio-spiritual perspective from Counterpunch.org, of all places.
One mark of our soulless New American Century is the lack of respect for saintly madmen. By that I mean holy seers of the Blakean-Coleridge stripe that could be found on America's streets as recently as the hippy era. The kind of crazy adept and enlightened iconoclasts honored by Allen Ginsberg and the beats, holy foolishness in the tradition of Saint Simeon with the dead dog tied to his waist and throwing nuts at the congregation, or Tibetan lama myonpas and India's avadhutas. Perhaps such holy madmen are still out there among the homeless and the crack whores. Maybe there are legions of Zen alcoholics and the like, and maybe we have lost the ability to see them in this season of imperial hubris, consumer fatigue and existential numbness. But I don't think so. I know crazy wisdom and saintly madness in men's eyes when I see it, and I am not seeing it very often in America these days. It has been outlawed by the Republicans and soundly condemned as Devil's work by the Christian Right.
[Joe tells the story of a modern-day "saintly madman," Bob D____.]
East and West, for the most part religion is synonymous with fraud, with the Pope, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and our president's phony religious values being the icing on the Christian cake of our times. Bob D---- sees the same things in the low-fat spiritual icons of the left and the New Agers:
[Bob D___'s take:] How has Deepak Chopra managed to express such Republican conservative values with no criticism whatsoever from the left? Chopra is the ultimate example of the wolf in sheep's clothing, a denizen of Oprah, and a spiritual guru for the superficial, self-serving rich in a miserable, dying world. Listen to him carefully. It's the Benny Hinn/Robert Tilton/Creflo Dollar "gospel of prosperity". (If you're poor, you're ungodly, and you got what you deserve. God prospers his people.) Chopra states overtly that material success is directly related to spiritual attainment. Oh, really? It would be news to Christ and Buddha.
I will concede the poor are spiritually bankrupt, but no more so than the rich. No more so than the many monasteries and religious communities I have visited. IT'S ALL OF US (on the other hand, the left seems to think the poor are all saints by virtue of their poverty. And I DO think the poor have a more valid excuse for their crimes.) Then Chopra drives in the stake, decrying "throwing money at social problems" and the says, "where you see poverty it is the expression of a deeper impoverishment - the soul, the spirit screaming for nourishment". Conspicuous by its absence from Chopra's words is any mention of integrity, ethics, morals, self-sacrifice, commitment, and renunciation. The message, essentially, is,"FUCK YOU! GET A JOB!" Another rhetorical point scored for General Motors and Phillips Petroleum. God comes home to the Wall Street Journal. But this IS America, where everybody is a businessman and Chopra makes his pitch with that sweet, smiling, gentle face reminiscent of Ted Bundy. Chopra's place is in Beverly Hills telling rich people what they want to hear --- for money. And will Chopra read this, sneak in while I'm asleep and beat me to death with $150 ayurvedic bars of soap in one of his Versace silk stockings?
As an aside, we worked in a metaphysical bookstore for several years, and one day none other than Deepak Chopra walked in. He marched straight back to where we had his books -- we never carried them all, but at least had his latest. He grabbed his book, marched back to the front counter, and held it up with his left hand, pointing at it with his right forefinger. As if to say, "That's me, aren't you impressed?" We turned to a customer who was waiting to check-out, and pointedly ignored this obnoxious display -- a display that was repeated ad nauseum by countless other spiritual writers who wandered through during the years. He finally placed his book on the counter and left the store without saying a word.
And to the forces on the left trying to combat all this I say: The realization IS compassion." "Consciousness" and "heart" arise together. They are one thing. The compassionate try to help even their most despicable brothers. That's why it is written: "Without love, I am nothing. Yet the left throws it all away. Though the left is so often correct in principle, it becomes merely the other side of that one counterfeit coin we have been offered. True spirituality is the answer. Therefore, I say to the left, "don't throw religion away; find out what it's about". And intelligent smug people on the left will answer, "There is no God!" Yet that statement is unperceptive, pointless and offensive.
Be compassionate, but be careful. I saw a fighter pilot on the 700 Club who described what sounded like an homoerotic orgasm experienced while shooting down some enemy planes killing the pilots. He interpreted the rush of killing them as "finding God". God had visited him there in the cockpit. But he and Danuta talked glowingly about it. We have to be careful around these people. Very careful.
Anyhooooo It is raining tonight and right now I am finishing off my liver with orange soda and vodka. The wind is blowing so hard there'll be no roof left tomorrow. And to that I offer a hearty, "GOOD FUCKING RIDDANCE!" Last night I was getting together my mother's "next-day's" medicine --- her prescriptions and other pills. But I forgot what I was doing, drew a glass of water and took them myself. HA! THERE'S NO HOPE! I have a case of beer and a pizza, so LOOK OUT, MOMMA!
And so this is all very surprising to me --- in fact, shocking --- what you are doing. Respecting me like this. I'm a little scared you'll find out who and what I really am. Nobody has ever taken me seriously. All my words are a humble attempt to point at the moon. Like the Buddha said, "my teaching is a finger pointing to the moon, but all of you are looking at my finger." Of course, the finger pointing to the moon is analogous to "trimming one's beard" the teaching, the teacher, the ritual, the dogma, the practice, language, even the concept of "god" all of that is also the beard which "grows out" of the face and obscures it. Trim it daily.
Now I ask you this: What do you call the opposite of someone who is out of his mind? A poet? A divine monster? We do not much acknowledge horror in this country, except the petty stage-managed kind for which we have developed such an appetite, such as Terri Schiavo's morbid gurgling, etc. Yet none of it comes close to the type of horror and grandeur that's lacking in our life, the kind from which we flee, such as our own graves or the sight of the things we do to sentient others so long as they are poor, voiceless, out of sight, or perhaps have four legs. And even then, the only way we can keep up the ghastly charade is by deeming the saints amid us as madmen, and anointing the truly depraved among us kings, avoiding at all costs our divine monsters.
This helps in an ongoing struggle to establish that Left is essentially spiritual, while Right is essentially religious. Left is cyclical, Right is linear. Left is receptive, Right is projective. Left is experiential, Right is dogmatic. There is, of course, a happy medium; balance is the key; one is not "better" than the other. Nevertheless, this word "compassion" has been coopted in the most opportunistic and cynical way by the Rovian Right, when in truth it best expresses the motivating truth of the left. We don't just spout platitudes about compassion. We cannot imagine life without it.
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