[MD] The Brujo

[gav]

hi dan, thanks for that story.

i am more on walter's side re: astrology. not inferring causative relations, just saying everything's an analogue all the way down and up...think the stars and planets are 'out there'?

been thinking about another brujo - the biggest brujo of them all in modern times: gandhi. he provided the cosmic balance to hitler. he kicked the british out of india by being a peasant, by being honest, by being brave, by refusing to hate anything and by being very very smart. he was after all a distinguished attorney.

we see nowadays a situation that seems hopeless to us (does to me a lot anyway) but if one man can free 700 million indians...how can we not succeed?

what i am getting at is that we need to learn this lesson. gandhi SUCCEEDED.he succeeded because he strategically outhought the empire and because he was real, normal - humble. because he had nothing!

he never reflected back the violence that the british showed him and the indian people. and when violence was shown by indians he refused to accept and fasted til he died or they stopped. 

the simple truth of gandhi's victory seems salient today - non-cooperation. it is simple, it is direct, it is non-violent but it is not passive - it is very very active. the english could not govern india without the consent of the indians - so simple. and when they withdrew their co-operation india stopped. and no amount of brutality could deflect their collective spirit. 'you can break my bones, even kill me but then you will only have my dead body - not my obedience'

what is our empire? what is our raj? well to return to that cosmic twin of gandhi's - hitler, we see the picture emerge. hitler won. we have to face that truth. we live in a totalitarian world, a fascist world. this is the fact of the matter. the empire is everywhere and primarily it is in our heads.

our occupying power is the giant's voice that occupies our minds.  we are all occupied, to a greater or lesser extent. no man is an island. we cannot free ourselves without everyone being free. 

no one is free: not the slave, not the master. as long as division remains we have only the totality of global fascism, not the unity of a sane world.

we are all clinically insane. fact. we do things everyday that destroy the very things we need to live. we destroy, we acquiesce, daily we are our own police. we are fucking nuts man.  we are rearranging deckchairs on the titanic.

unless....unless we are choosing destruction. unless we are actively choosing this total nihilism, a sort of trance in which we mortify ourselves and the world....in an effort to shake a metaphysical fist at an uncaring universe or a vengeful god.

nihilism. that's the problem, metaphysically speaking. pirsig is one of the solutions to it.

so what to do? what does non-co-operation mean for us today? does it mean refusing to participate in destroying the earth? does it mean to refuse to accept violence, injustice - anywhere in the world? does it mean the transcendence of nihilism? a sort of positive nihilism in which we reveal the values of our universe through our actions with others in it? the solidarity of the earth.

perhaps, like gandhi, it means giving up money?

perhaps we need an 'earth day'; a day when we don't work, drive, buy, use fossil fuels. a day of just giving the earth a break. maybe this day would show us how easy it is to stop the machine.




 










   



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