Sunday, November 22, 2015
Reflections on anxiety
I don’t know where my anxiety and panic attacks steamed from. The uncomfortable dread has followed me for the better half of 20 years, wedged deep in my chest.
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We’re in the red truck, sitting in the back on freshly fashioned pine benches. A canvas stretched across the roll bars, sheltering us from the rain. Pots, pans and surf boards all around us. 15 of us packed in like goddamn sardines. With hands on our beads and earphones in our heads, we pass the rainy ride down Marcos highway to Luzon beach. But our minds are not on any God as we murmur empty mantras (more like thinking of glassy breaks and perfect tubes), and our earphones are only playing a once crisp copy of dire straights Brothers in Arms or Jagger’s, I can’t get no satisfaction. In our luggage is a copy of John Grisham’s along came a spider, which is so broken up at the spine at the pages with the sexy bits, where I think a chapter or two are missing after the raunchy bathtub scene…
The trucks back brakes have been locking intermittently throughout our whole voyage. We’re on edge but in gods hands. Nothing could possibly happen to us. Nothing but goodness.
The truck slides abruptly first to the left, then to the right as at tips and goes into an inevitable tumble. We’re free falling. Our bodies and the heavy benches, pots, pans and what have you tumble in the washing machine of time. A collective “shit!!!” erupts around us as we begrudgingly surrender to the very obvious threat to our existence… Followed by yelps of “Krishna!!!”…
A roller coaster ride gone bad. Stillness pumps through our veins, followed by terror, agony and obviously pain. God saved us. Absolutely. And without a shadow of a doubt.
Of course in reality, no god stopped us. Physics did. Down to the molecular level of the entire event. And if we had all perished that day it’d have been of very little consequence on this very day. Aside of course to our parents who were no where to be found and give us comfort or consolation. Perhaps they would sit around and wonder why on earth they trusted some guru about sending their kids to the PI at 10 years of age…
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- Mission Not Impossible
- Reflections on anxiety
- A morning meditation
- Need something to believe in?
- 1991-96: Years that gave shape to the rest of my l…
- Westernization of an Indian Heritage: A flavorless…
- Why the blog went private for some time…
At least we know he's cool 
Damn, you paint a picture alright.
Do you remember what year this was? Pre 1994? Just curious if my brother Laks was in that accident. I think he was but not sure.
So damn sketchy, bro, I know the drive itself was super dangerous even when the truck worked well.
And obviously the entire reason for that school being in the Philippines was so there was no repercussions from authorities about the treatment and education of the kids.
Protect Chris Butler, just like when Bhaktivedanta shut down his Dallas Gurukula, as the authorities were about to, and proceeded to open one in India where abuses could run rampant and unchecked.
According to an American boy sent to that school, his time there consisted of getting forcefully vaccinated by used dirty needles and sexually abused literally having a grown man putting his foot in this kids ass.
It’s all in the documentary “The Children Of The Hare Krishna” an NBC produced documentary that is free on YouTube.
Krishna must be some kind of sick perverted sadistic voyeuristic pedophile who demands abuse and the destruction of families, not to mention a petty little bitch who holds eternal grudges for the smallest “offense” against any of his multitudes of abusive gurus who supposedly have direct communication with this mythological transgendered God. (Who hates fags)
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Yeah this was Nov 1993 that the accident happened. I was in complete physical shock. maybe 2-3 boys were even taken to the hospital to get checked out. The rest of us were simply expected to move on. Obviously if 20 boys got taken to the ER or for check ups it would raise a red flag with authorities. It would have, however, been the right and responsible thing to do.
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It’s easy to get lost in the hubbub of emotion when recalling a confused, soured, and otherwise metal crippling upbringing in a cult or any religiously fanatic environment. And while I personally subscribe to atheism with full allegiance to what believe to be irrefutable fact: That god and so called infallible guru or representative of god is simply an imaginary state of mind. These things simply do not exist. The rest of the “believing” world can call it what they like: Denial, blasphemy, arrogance etc. It makes no difference to me. And while I may label and judge religious fanatics, I’m more than willing to state, for the record, that I’ve got nothing against the day-to-day believer. The person that minds their own garden and leaves me be. I also want to state for the record that there are many religious or spiritual organization or folks that claim to be aligned with some god or guru that do good community work and other welfare programs. BUT, I have yet to see one that does it without some agenda attached. Most of these groups do aim to “convert” or exert influence. And it may be done in a friendly way or a “loving” way, but it’s still a form of fanatical behavior and attempt at controlling others. For those who happily live in temples and go to church/mosque etc—and have made it a lifestyle choice to believe in fairies and such, that’s really good for you. Enjoy your slice of pie. You have a right to it and by golly don’t let anyone stop you. BUT, if you so much as send me a “service request” or ask for money or somehow attempt to convince me that your lifestyle/god/guru or otherwise believe system is in some way something that I need to be happy in life or live a moral life or have a sense of responsibility for family, my fellow humans, the earth etc—well, then, I will have no choice but to label you as a zealot.
So, I’m not here to disrupt or get down on your faith. I’m just here to point out what I feel is a double-standard, hypocritical behaviors for various guru’s, cults, and religions. Where on one side you have some sort of philosophical motivation and traditions and clear cut ideas, but on the same token you cannot prove any of them, or show a historical, let alone modern value in adapting your views, and in many many cases you are trying to convince others that these half-baked ideas are somehow “factual” in some way.
In my years as a krishna devotee under the “guidance” of various gurus and living in various temples and ashrams, I can say one thing for sure: All of these places spent a good deal of time talking about various gods and saints and criticizing many other spiritual paths as being lesser for believing in a different god or following a different guru, or having very critical views of women, homosexuals, and just about anyone who was not a “devotee”, yet their own “group” was so riddled with confusing messages, ideas, inexplicable and baseless modes of thinking etc. Really the list goes on. So pardon me, when I see a bunch of devotees chanting and talking about chaitanya or radha krishna or some other god they believe in while they are serving subji and chapatis to some visitors to the temple or distributing food boxes to homeless people—it’s never quite that transparent. There is always some ulterior motive. To convince, recruit or otherwise indoctrinate people. All under the umbrella of “saving the fallen souls of the material world”. My family is going to serve food to homeless folks this thanksgiving, it’s has nothing to do with god or a guru’s instructions. It just seems like a decent thing to do.
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It’s really only adding to the foulness of existence to do what many of these organizations are doing. And many of them are doing it under the guise of devotion or love. But somehow that compassion, devotion and love start to fizzle out when the guru manifests to be a crazy person or the disciples behave like erratic chickens with heads cut of running around spewing their sentimental bullshit message to the masses. It’s no different then politicians “spreading democracy” and pushing their agendas on people while not showing them the full picture. So the same thing with many religious people and organizations: They talk about love and devotion and tell pleasing tales, but fail to give much in the way of evidence to show how this is somehow better than just not being a prick.
I often recall that when the questions got too tough for a guru, or there was simply no realistic answer to give, all that was said was, “All that is important to our life is to simply chant and dance and eat prasadam”. What does that exactly entail? Well, it means that you repeatedly sing or murmur over and over the name of a archaic Indian village god that originated in puranic writings, never clearly defined or mentioned in the 4 vedas, with very clear origins in agriculture and very specific to the actual land of india (hence the peacock feathers and lotus flowers etc). It means that you dance in a sentimental flurry with other people playing musical instruments (most likely indian instruments). Many cultures have done this for MILLIONS of years. It literally can activate some crazy brain pathways and positive biological responses. And finally, the eating of “prasadam”, or, mercy. Usually consisting of vegetarian food (something that majority of the pre-industrialized and pre-agrarian world never could do or even conceive of. Not old was it easier to catch a animal and more satiating, but nutritionally it was directly responsible for our evolution. We are who we are because apes started to eat meat. This is not a fanciful proposition. It’s a biological fact. Man, it his current expression, would not exist without having eaten meat. Nor was it practical for early man to do so since growing crops was so volatile before major agricultural developments took place. So eating this “mercy” is basically eating food offered to a statue that is dressed up while a devotee imagines some story from the puranas. The food that is “offered” on little plates is then put back into the large pot that is then distributed to everyone else as “mercy”. Because it’s not enough to accept the wonder of evolution and appreciate the varied food we now have to eat thanks to our ancestors and the modern invention of industrial agriculture.
So as you see, this sort of cheap answer that is given lacks any real depth. It’s an easy way out for a mind that does not want know or see to any more. And that, my friends, is sad. This is the issue with religion and so-called spiritual thinking. It stops us from wanting to know more. Living a life of faith in something that we have no real, comparable conception of is called “imagining shit”. If you want to spend your time, your life on this earth, imagining and pretending, that’s your prerogative—just leave me out of it. I have plenty of things I’m discovering about my life, nature, people, animals, existence etc—till the day I die. I don’t need to fill my mind and life up with imaginary ideas, gods, scenarios and conjecture. I like living in a world where I can question things, and refine my relationship with he world around me based on factual reality and personal realizations. No realizations fed to me by someone sitting on a fancy chair covered in flower garlands, smiling and giving me so-called blessings while I touch their feet in sentimental fervor. That to me is insanity of the highest kind. And it saddens me that otherwise intelligent people are squandering their energy by fermenting in an imaginary mental brine.
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As far as direct child abuse goes, it’s always mind blowing to hear the religious solution to these issues: Pray, perform some penance or ask for forgiveness from god or guru. Would it not be more responsible and productive to say, I dunno, go to fucking therapy, turn yourself in to the authorities or in the least approach the person you abused and let them kick you in the fucking head? Instead, the solution is to turn to you imaginary god and “pray for strength and forgiveness” for physically or mentally raping kids. Or to just continue as if nothing wrong has happened. The less we talk about the abuse, maybe it will just go away. And the most nauseating argument is when they say “it’s not the religion that is bad, it’s the individual that made the bad choice”. That’s true, but the very construct of the religion allows for such things to happen. Because everything is justifiable with, “it was gods will”, or “it was your karma”, or “forgiveness shows true strength” or other such mind garbage. So, the religion in effect does not allow anyone to take direct responsibility for things. Tuck a school away in the PI and you have no authorities poking around. You have parents freed up to “serve” the guru and cult. Keeping the kids in such a school results in more future disciples for you and as generations pass, less questions are asked. People forget.
I have seen devotees slave for their guru’s to support their temples and massive amounts of land so that some 4-10 people can live there. They work hard to have their guru’s every need taken care of in exchange for what? Eternal spiritual merit? A direct service connection to god? Or the best one: Nothing at all—just surrender and take the abuse because that is the sign of a truly surrendered soul. And what exactly are we surrendering to? In life we are already surrendering and faithful. We have faith every day that the sun will rise and set. That the earth will keep spinning. We surrender to the laws of physics, the functions of our body, the situations that we are faced with. At least this kind of surrender is REAL. Not a fanciful proposition imposed on the mind for no reason other than a cheap comfort from the onslaught of death. Shouldn’t the goal of life be to live with simplicity and clarity, to strive to leave the world a better place so future generations can survive and benefit from the crap we helped clear? Do we really want to leave some world for future generations that’s full of half-baked, outdated modes of thinking? I mean really. India? The land of the caste system and class divisions. The land of crazy gods that you can only make up. Do we really want to leave the world christianity or catholosism? What with all the cruelty and death in it’s wake? Islam? Please… Buddhism? Perhaps the most logical of all eastern paths, but still, why not take the beneficial aspects of such traditions, like mindfulness, breathing exercises and a few yogic stretches and call it a day?! Why spend any time on the rest of the utter trash these paths have to offer? Chakras, auras, flying gods and gurus with golden rings: Leave it where it belongs: in the dark dark past.
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