A post submitted by CGI member, Morgan.

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http://www.zippittydodah.com/2021/08/we-are-miniature-replications-of.html

Hmm... now I see that the comment from Anonymous, which I included as an example of The Madness of the Times, in the last Visible Origami must have confused a number of people. As soon as I finish this I will return there and IMPROVE the presentation (grin). Hopefully, one learns something new every day. I TRY to learn from everything now. I've been watching the HBO series, “Entourage.” I am not recommending that the reader see it. There is NOTHING Spiritual about it. It is a great teaching device if you are unfamiliar with what goes on in LA, and it can be WICKEDLY funny.

The view given to women by the players in the series is about as profane as I have seen, reducing them to mere disposable sex objects. Unfortunately, MANY of them see themselves in This Way these days. It's a kind of mutual user syndrome, with more than a tad of Stockholm Syndrome. Some of it is VERY darkly humorous and Jeremy Piven's role as a sociopathic super-agent is SPOT ON, and well done. I am now toward the latter period of the series. Now... my contempt and disinterest rise with every episode. It makes your humanity numb. Still... I see it through. That's my nature.

No. I am not going to become a film critic. One could say, since life is a dream, and dreams flow like movies, there is no way of avoiding this in an ancillary fashion. The great Indian saint, Ramakrishna once said, “He who has merely heard of Fire has ajnana (ignorance). He who has seen Fire has Jnana (Wisdom). But he who has actually built a fire and cooked on it has Vijnana.” I would identify Vijnana as Divine Luminous Wisdom.

Guru Bawa used to have the television running in his room all day long. Every now and then he would look at it and laugh. I became friendly with this fellow, Michael Quinn. He was a real go-getter type; houses, construction, remodeling, etc. I came across a small article in the magazine Philadelphia about a year ago that featured him. He is now remodeling kitchens for rich people. You could tell that Michael was meant to be a success on the material plane. We had a falling out some time later over a particular young lady who preferred me. He never got over that.

Anyway... prior to that he happened to be at my apartment in Overbrook PA. I was playing some of my songs and he flipped out over them, comparing me to Dylan. He wanted to go to Guru Bawa and get him to approve my going commercial. Bawa was not fond of singing and dancing, which I always thought was a little strange because that is one of the things that separate Sufism from traditional Islam. He had his reasons though, and the American culture at the time was filled with certain trends and patterns, all of which he saw while the TV rolled on.

He didn't want his followers getting caught up in the mechanics of showbiz. He saw that as a spiritually doomed enterprise. Regardless, Michael insisted we go over there and ask him. We came into the room and Michael went into his sales pitch, telling Bawa how wonderful my songs were. At the VERY MOMENT it was happening, the TV went to commercial and Sergio Franchi's Greatest Hits began to scroll by on the screen. Bawa looked at me and smiled. He didn't miss much.

When Michael was done, Bawa sat for a moment, he did that Inner Reflection thing. Then he looked at me and said, “Okay, you go and do it and then you come back.” This was a VERY UNEXPECTED result. I kinda thought my career was a done deal at that point. There were no secrets at The Fellowship and word of this spread like wildfire. It's hard to beat the ashram environment for Gossip, both good and bad (mostly bad). There were a lot of wannabe entertainers there. The result was that quite a few people then went to Bawa to plead their own case. He shut them down one and all. Nobody much liked me after that. It got so bad that Bawa had to do a discourse about it.

He told the tale about a king who sent out a message throughout his realm for the best musicians to come to the court and perform something or other. The result was utter cacophony as they all played at once. This was his message. They liked me even less after this.