Thursday, June 7, 2001
Dear Carolyn,
I wish I could answer your question about meditation. I also find myself unable to spend any time in meditation and sipping from the ever-flowing spring of nectar which gushes forth from Shiva's head, but hey, I never much liked drinking from someone's dreadlocks anyway.
I do think that to every thing, turn, turn, turn, there is a season etc. That is to say I think that provided I keep the fundamental things in mind (life is carnal illusion, desire is suffering, ego is fantasy, olive loves popeye) I can just take it for a given that I can't meditate just now. All things must pass. And so on. This is a Sufi notion as well, we construct the scaffolding of our belief from the materials available to us AT THE TIME; we must just try to avoid becoming attached to any particular edifice when it is time to move on. Make sense?
Presumably there will come a time, if not in this incarnation, in the next when this soul shall dedicate itself to endless contemplation of the godhead and not be distracted by mundane considerations. It is liberating in the extreme to consider that there is really no hurry as long as I don't bitch when I have to go through this mess again because I was too lazy to resolve it this time around.
Oh, blah blah blah. You ask why, if Berlin is so great, I will return to Italy? Well, this is just a matter of prior commitments, work wise. It becomes ever clearer that this is a dynamic city full of possibilities, resources, opportunities and that I like it in spite of the weather. Why, just the other day I was in an absurdly well-equipped public library. After the deserts of Brussels and the non existence of such resources in Athens, you can understand why I was enthralled. How long since I have been able to have access to information or reading material without purchasing it myself!
I close now. Having come to the conclusion that brevity is the core of things in this medium, I go ahead and rattle on anyway.
Reading from a computer is like eating at McDonald's, the memory fades almost immediately upon consumption, often before.
