Smeagol's Delusion Redux

You know what the establishment does to you? Makes you feel small - like them Hobbits inthe Lord of the Rings or better yet, Gollum, or Smeagol as he was known. But we all know who finally got rid of the ring, don't we? But still the establishment, I tell you man, the establishment will shrink you, like a dry cleaner, it'll belittle the man in you, for that's how the establishment establishes itself. And that's also how the establishment lures, corners and hustles men into dwarfs of delusions.

But just what is the establishment? Notions of big government comes to mind; but is that it? Is government all there is when you talk about an establishment or “the” establishment? No. The government is but one facade. One facet of a multitude of facets where everything is institutionalized. Your life, work, family, community, country and the whole goddamn thing is institutionalized. You are born into slavery. Salvation is an army and the army will not deliver you unto freedom. It might keep you in battle but battles tend to kill rather than rescue. Reality bites and you are already institutionalized before you can crawl on your baby limbs. Nothing is scarier than being caught in that wrath of false freedom. Freedom? What do you know of it? What do you know of liberty? What do you know of being fearless? You who are so caught up in that voluptuous sensual pleasure of globalization that one peeping glance you’re ever gonna have, and if that, is should you die a peaceful death. Got money in the banks? Stocks in the market, a house of your own, land aplenty and prep schools and junk food abroad? Swanky hotels and branded cars? Real leather made of exotic animals? Got yourself immersed and drowning in poverty? Can’t pay the rent and the utilities and the grocery bills? Well, welcome to the Institution.

The lure and reality of plastic freedom is all you are ever gonna have and that's exactly what the establishment and the institution wants you to feel. You are being duped! Wake up and awaken! This is not the fuckin' matrix but they'll make sure it becomes one and that you live in it with an I.D. tag on your chest that reads: Mr Dorji, Conventionally Successful, Living in Marital Bliss, Cannot tell a Snake's Hiss from his Own Piss, Comfortably Numb & Invariably Dumb.

That's how they'll manufacture freedom for you and in your fuckin' greedy ignorance and selfish search for temporary salvation, that's how you'll lap it all up; tail wagging and tongue out in saliva drippin’ expectation. And in the end when that date of expiry comes to a stale and stank- flat explosion, you'll have realized how they sold you a product and you lived as such - born and bred in a factory production assembly line all the while suckered in the belief that you were the "successful model." But here's a cookie from the jar. Y’know what makes it all so fuckin' ironically beautiful? The kicker from Mr KARMA that says even the establishment and the institutions are so neck and arse deep in it that they DO NOT KNOW and like ripples in a pond from an invisible source, even they are lost and trapped in that whole façade called FREEDOM. And remember, what Mr KARMA tells me is neither verified either. Then he tempts to reveal to me the source of his information. It’s a guy called the BUDDHA. So for further enquiries, contact him.

I Been Haiku-Sing, If there Be Such A Damn thing; Frock The Romantics!

PS: YourLustForLifeStartsRightNow!

Relapsing Senti-Mentality

Dear M,
Forgive me my weariness and laziness for not being prompt in our correspondence. I was too scared to get into the intimate details or rather I chickened out of what I thought would be situations I might not be able to handle.
It’s nice to see you growing up to be a real boy (even if a part of me wishes you wouldn’t because really, I think the childhood part is probably the best memory any adult would carry). But there are forces other than our dillydallying at work and they change the rules for no one. There is a lot of stuff I could get into if I now got carried away, so forgive me once again for killing whatever spontaneity attempts to spring up. I’m so aware of the importance of physical time spent together that I’m scared, really, that you might see me differently, rely on me lesser and lesser, until there is no need for me to be a part of your life.
Forgive me again for saying that, I think I’m telling you the worst case scenarios I’ve thought about and been scared about. Let’s switch the subject.

Dear Mipham,
Jesus! Time does fly is an expression adults (SO CALLED) often use to illustrate the bewilderment of life and its assorted vicissitudes….I was thinking the same thing for a pretty long time…and today it seems that much more in context and in its urgency. But I go through this every September the 18th, ‘cos that was the day you chose to make your entrance onto this stage we call life.

Imagine! The inception of the whole conception! During my Dharma Bum days I’d read and had my share of the wisdom memorabilia that is the unsaid pre-requisite to becoming a wholly and fully fledged Dharma Bum. It brought me no Nirvana and neither do I understand what Samsara is (I know it’s a good film made by an Indian with Tibetan/Ladaki actors) but beyond that wrapper? I’ll confess I’m clueless…
But the point was the passage of time and how time just flies even though you don’t see it…although paradoxically we do see it all around us; the changing days and nights to the changing seasons and transformers. For me, you are probably the best example of the passage of time, as I’m to my mother.
There used to be this idea in my head and its till there…on occasion I’d tell you this little fictional anecdote about how you, among a billion other probable Miphams, managed to out-fox and out-swim them all to get to where you now stand today – a lovely boy who’ll soon be a teen, do the school and the college and find your own warm spot on god’s beautiful earth.
“The boy is the father of man” is another expression that I find absolutely confounding! But its life’s ways and means of taunting and teasing us I guess…irony being its punchiest sense of humor!

I’m sitting in my office…haven’t had a bite and did a couple of flashes of whisky last night…you see, it was the first day of Thimphu Tsechu (those colorful festivals held in honor of the Guru’s teachings and to further the fruition of the practice of the Dharma practitioners). It was also Vishwa Karma Puja, another festival held in honor of one of the Hindu Gods. I got up this morning knowing you were still asleep (Bhutan is +5hrs ahead). The devotees of the Hindu Gods today take to the streams and rivers to immerse the idol, concluding the worship and the ceremony…and as they go about the immersion procedure, they get into big open trucks holding the idols and singing in the lord’s glory … It was almost a chant of “Happy Birthday to you Mipham” to my ears….
The tsechu goes on for another three days…today’s day two and the dances of the Dharma are in full swing. People dress in their best and still I associate that with your birthday; a celebration of sorts…and to any other person that shares your birthday today, this day of joyous contemplation and rejuvenation.
Birthdays were not a big deal with me and my generation…but I can see and sense rebirth and reincarnation, and perhaps that’s what birthdays actually do or should do…

Look at me! IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY and I’m already reincarnating into a lovable-loathsome-philosopher-dad and that’s because you have made me remember many things I’d forgotten…
But there’s one thing I’ll never forget, and that’s you making your entrance on this day, the 18th of September and as long as I’m alive, you’ll have given me so much just because you are here…and I pray that may every birthday bring you closer to a positive avatar, pausing and rejoicing and reincarnating unto higher realms of consciousness so that it looks and feels like the whole world is celebrating with you…may gods bless you and keep you…
all my love…

PS: YourLustForLifeStartsRightNow
!