One of our high school activities was a Sunday afternoon at the ocean, preferably in a hand me down car, given that parents recognized the potential for scratches and bumps from the poorly maintained roads, as well as spadefuls of sand throughout the back seats and in the trunk. We’d sit on blankets in groups of four or five, throw frisbees, body surf and tease each other to death. The beach attracted families with young children, because they could run for miles and tire themselves out, along with bearded grown-ups by themselves, painting, fishing or daydreaming, where they won’t be bothered, judged or second guessed. Who is to say whether the ocean is a more suitable backdrop for hermits or hermit crabs?
The beach can do magical things to people’s minds, but also mystical things, and this combination tends to work out better for the kids without a leash and the artists with an eye for watercolors, along with benefactors and agents with ears to the grindstone and cribstone. The ideas and young love relationships that are the product of the fine sea air and too much sunshine, not so much. It can be the scene of someone’s greatest triumph or it can be the scene of someone’s greatest folly, and to have had the wisdom to know when to quit while ahead or to cut losses. Only in ancient times were philosophers blessed with that steady hand and presence of mind.
Thus, Confucius is rumored to have said that he who goes to bed with itchy bottom wakes up with stinky finger. I have little grasp of the wisdom of said Confucius, other than his commendations about how to do and not do unto others, co-invention of the phrase “How’s it going, man?” and his assessment that “learning without thought is labor lost,” but in the passing parade of time it is not for me to adjudicate that which he scribed with quill and ink, and that which was attributed to him because he was a paragon of the sages, for the ages. It is not merely a 20th and 21st century phenomenon of superstars getting all the calls in their favor. For all intents and purposes, though, there were no stains on his reputation, in contrast with the Greek philosophers, Heraclitus among them, many of whom were heretical or work shy, or controversial by design.
SSS passed away in response to numerous bouts of poor health more than a decade before I’d heard of his existence and therefore it goes without saying I didn’t have the fortune or destiny to meet him, although his equally eccentric Rip Van Winklesque heirs and quotes are everywhere – “he understands the sacred relationship between a gong and its keeper” - spread far and wide, and I have been introduced to many of these. Those in denial about his malfeasance propagate his wisdoms repeatedly: as SSS said, love the sinner, hate the sin, especially when it’s me. In the words of a third Mike, too-oo-oo-oo-oo.
The science behind his teachings is powerful and who can quibble with commands to practice healthy lifestyles and be happy, but if he merely brought to the West ancient religious and metaphysical training in new arrangements and combinations, and his believers became responsible for keeping the faith going, does he merit the credit, would the discipline have found its way into the West without him?
‘You owe it to yourself to be yourself’ and ‘when you don’t go within, you go without.’ Did SSS sit in his study with two carafes of green chai tea in front of him and mysterious chants and silent mantras from Amarbose speakers behind him, did these modern urban quotes miraculously pop into his head, and he scrawled them on gentrified parchment before they escaped into the ether, never to be disseminated to his loyal to a fault devotees? Or, did he discreetly send his secretary to suburban shopping malls and Galerias, with dim black lighting so as not to be over-observed, and copy the folky and cheesy phrases on posters targeted at moody and faux rebellious 15 to 19 year olds? From the innocent “Sometimes it takes a wrong turn to get you to the right place” to “If you are a busy person you should find time for at least 20 minutes of meditation per day and if you are a very busy person you should find time for at least 60 minutes of meditation per day” to the straight to the point “‘Take me to your dealer,” “A friend with weed is a friend indeed” and “Stoned is the way of the world,” or is it “walk of the world?” and as it was buy nine, get one free, “The beatings will continue until morale improves” for herself.
SSS couldn’t repeat copyrighted phrases word for word, and the committee couldn’t be perceived to be promoting illegal substances to enlistees, but with a little inspiration, the soft cheese could easily be transformed into profundities that can be envisaged one carousing and enlightened cat to another, in cat-speak naturally, but what about humans? The ancient Greeks discovered and named the four elements that comprised the earth, but if Heraclitus were alive today he’d raise his hand with humility and acknowledge that they missed a few. Teacher-trained man and woman, though, protest with vigor when a novice suggests that things might have moved on a tad from the knowledge base established by the Upanishads.
I’ve spent the better part of a decade trying to separate fact from fiction and fantasy, but in the year 2021 am less than none the wiser. It took somewhere between 2700-2900 years for certain yogic precepts to travel from India to California, so I can wait a few more years for answers to the questions above.
Still, how do these rogues and their apostles, missionaries and messengers keep finding me? Love the sinner, hate the sin? Come back ice-nine, all is forgiven.