BY JAN HAAG
ENTERTAINMENT
6-29-97
O Devayani, it seems to me
that life is a skein (or hank) of many
tangled strands.
That our minds arrive pure
and untangled and
interested in this world.
Then we endure the process known as
"education,"
from parents, from tv, from schools
which
criss-crosses and tangles
the strands until they
are
incomprehensible,
each teacher, guide, guru,
rock star,
casual stranger,
parent or villian
instructs you in a different
way,
with different ideas,
conflicting ideas,
contradictory
ideas,
camouflaging ideas
until even your senses can't tell you
what's true.
We all are taught "Monkey see, monkey do"
perpetual
violence is the content of our "see,"
perpetual violence is the
content of our "do"
or so the media would have it.
Actually, as most
of us live our lives,
it's only in the media we see the
violence
only on tv we see the rapes and murders,
daily, hourly,
mostly we eat, sleep and work,
and spend our lives trying to untangle
the
choas of ideas
handed down, perpetuated by those more
confused,
no doubt than we.
By the time you reach
sixty-three,
all the world seems to resolve itself
into
inventions for entertainment
to fill the time between the womb and the
tomb.
Nothing.
More and more you find, O Devayani,
nothing
whatsoever is true, is known.
About all that can be said, is some
things
work for awhile.
They work -- so did the
earth-centered theory
of the universe work for probably millions
of years,
than the heliocentric,
and now there's universes beyond
our universe,
concepts beyond our imagining,
fun to entertain
ourselves with,
but a pity to call truth.
Devayani, you spend your
life now,
divesting yourself
of the nonsense taught to you
as
philosophy, religion, science, and
human nature -- the biggest
misnomer
on the list.
Human nature is not allowed to
exist
more than a
few moments out of the womb.
Then begins edu-ca-tion.
Old men's
tales.
None of which prove to be true,
many of which prove to be
harmful,
few of which can be untangled from their chaos,
all of
which take a lifetime to test against one's own reality --
taking
into consideration that
the thinking process has been so perverted
by
edu-ca-tion
that reality counts for very little in the
weigh-in
of what it is reasonable to believe.
Maya -- no wonder
the Hindu and the Buddhist
both call the whole thing illusion.
Know
that whatever you think is true
is true --
and false.
Choose your entertainment.
Untangle the choas fed into your brain
for a lifetime.
End up again in purity, having examined and
discarded
as many things as possible.
Retreat back into the womb of
nothingness
with nothing.
Copyright © 2000 Jan Haag
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Jan Haag may be reached via e-mail: jhaag@u.washington.edu
Gifts
India
Khajuraho
Lung-gom-pas
Nothing
Crossroads
TRAVEL STORIES ABOUT INDIA
The Wedding in Mahabaleshwar
Passing
Through Bodh Gaya.
XX Kaida, Tabla Covers
XXI Tukra, Tabla Covers
XXII Mukhra-Tukra-Chakradar
XXIII The Ten Thats
BY JAN HAAG