"VOID IF DETATCHED." -- Philosophical teaching appearing on all San Francisco bus transfers
Dear Al:
M [not his real name!] came to visit last week. On Sunday, he was interested in taking some LSD, which he had not experienced since college. Synchronistically, I had kept a stash in my freezer for just such an occasion. We spent a pleasant day walking around Golden Gate National Recreational Area (an area where people go to re-create when they tire of what they had created previously). By evening, we were famished, so we took a bus to the local Hare Krishna temple for their free feast.
With the food, of course, we got a talk from a Krishna devotee, who explained their rather complex philosophy and cosmology. Eventually, M asked him, "Gosh! How did you learn all of these things?" It seemed to me to be an astute question, which pointed to the fact that someone's "philosophy" is no more than a collection of words and ideas he is clinging to. In other words, dog-thinking creates a dog-world, cat-thinking creates a cat-world, and Hare Krishna-thinking creates a Hare Krishna-world. But our host probably thought differently.
"I learned it from the scriptures," the H.K. replied, "which are the sound vibration of the Absolute Truth." Though M and I were well past peaking, our minds were still so open that anything and everything could go in and out of them. Perhaps the devotee saw in our expressions that we were not embracing his idea that any words could be "Absolute Truth."
"You must believe in Absolute Truth," he elaborated, "because that is the basis for Good and Evil." Again, M and I said nothing, but our expressions must have communicated that ideas of Good and Evil were making no more impression on us than a bird's footprints in the sky.
"And without Good and Evil," the H.K. continued, "the world is just a joke!" M and I began to nod excitedly.
"Well, I suppose from a certain perspective the world is just a joke," the devotee conceded, and quickly changed the subject.
"Thank you so much," I told the Krishna as we were leaving. "I really enjoyed everything."
"I know," he replied. "I can tell by the look in your eyes."
Yours in the Dharma,
Stuart