At the Circus

We’ve seen a lot images, a lot of videos, a lot of attitudes, assumptions, and opinions here, by right and left, by liberal and conservative, Muslims and Jews, Christians and Radicals, by conventional and alternative news.  Let’s take an even wider perspective, short of quoting the Dali Lama.

Here is a passage from the Old Man in Northern California to bring the nature of suggestion on home.

I hope you might find a few minutes to spend with it. Now, we can start to put all this news, or, new-old-news, or, newsy-news into some perspective to possibly see the value.

This is from a talk by Rhondell entitled, Giving teaching to others, Self Improvement.

The idea of the world of improving the self and most especially of “improving other selves” so that everything will be “good and wonderful” is constantly being suggested to one as a very desirable endeavor. One sometimes gets caught up in this. To illustrate the point, let’s study a little parable; and we will consider this parable in relation to everything that we see for a while.

Andrew, a student of living, spent much time pondering heavy over unusual and ancient books. He spent much time in his library, which was made up of many shelves of books. He usually had three or more on his large table open for study at all times. Early one morning after studying his books all night in search of the truth that would free him from his sense of frustration of not understanding how so much confusion, pain, misery and misunderstanding could plague the human race, Andrew left the books and walked out into the morning sun. As he walked along the dirty streets of the village where he lived, he came upon a man and woman screaming vile words at each other, gesturing wildly with their hands towards each other. This is the sort of thing Andrew hoped to find the truth to prevent. Soon the man bodily struck the woman, pushed her to the ground, and ran away. Andrew helped the woman to her feet, and was rudely pushed away by the woman, who ran into her house without so much as a thank you or a backward look to Andrew.

Andrew walked on his way; and as he came to the business section of the city, he came upon a storeowner berating an employee for some past event, some minor failure. The big employer towered over the little employee in a most threatening way. Again, Andrew was filled with pity and inner agony at the lack of truth that made such behavior possible. Just then one of the employee’s allies arrived and ran up to the employer and plunged a knife into his back. The employee and his ally dragged the employer into the shop, locked the shop from the inside; and all was quiet.

Andrew went on weighed down with a deep sense of guilt that he had been unable to find the truth from all his years of study of his books to prevent such crises in human relationships. He had seen so much misery in his short walk already this lovely morning. As Andrew ambles on his way toward the edge of town, he saw that a circus tent surrounded by circus wagons had been set up during the night. In hopes of escaping the feeling of depression for his lack of discovery and the many crises he knew were in the world, and all the agony he saw going on, he decided to go to the circus. He had never been to such a “waste of time” in his life as all his possible free time had been spent in search of the truth to remake the world into a safe, secure and happy place. Andrew walked about the circus grounds with all the hurry, noise and short tempers of the circus tent show people until showtime. Then he was seated near the center ring in the big top along with lots of other people shoving each other and arguing over who had what seat.

Suddenly there was a blare of band music and the center ring was filled with clowns. Just in front of Andrew a man clown and a woman clown, acting the part of man and wife, loudly berated each other, threatened to strike each other and miss, almost falling down. Finally the husband clown connected with one of his wild swings and knocked the wife clown down to the ground. All the people including Andrew are convulsing with laughter. Then a very sad looking clown came to the wife and got her up on her feet. She clobbered him and went to the door of the stage. Still more laughter. Quickly to the other side of the ring another word battle broke out between a large employer clown and a little employee clown. Another clown came up behind the little clown and jerked a four foot sword out of his baggy pants and proceeded to run the big employer clown through and through. Then after excitedly running about, while the audience including Andrew, howled with laughter, the two little clowns dragged the big employer clown away by the feet. The entire big top was a din of laughter.

Suddenly, Andrew had a flashback in his mind of the morning and realized he had just seen a duplicate of the morning events in the village at which he was so disturbed, except that when the events were acted out with clown suits and masks, he found them very comical. Andrew’s face shining with enlightenment, arose and left the big top while the band played on. Andrew had found the truth he had so long searched for. He had seen the joke and nothing in the world needed to be changed–JUST SEE IT LIKE IT IS–THEY ALL HAVE CLOWN SUITS ON, BUT THEY DON’T KNOW IT. Andrew, for the first time in his life, is seen walking through the streets of the village smiling and swinging his whole being, seeing all the people in the village with their clown suits and masks. A quotation from one of the books came to his mind “KNOW THE TRUTH, AND THE TRUTH WILL MAKE YOU FREE.” Andrew really felt free. He has seen the truth, which is another way of saying he has seen the joke.

As in all parables, it is not in exact parallel, but it illustrates the point that the conditioned man acts out many things. He has many troubles. He is frustrated and aggravated. He indulges in wars – all mechanically. He does not understand WHAT IS GOING ON, because first one “Not I” and then another takes over. MANY COMPASSIONATE SOULS, ALSO CONDITIONED WITHIN, MAKE A GREAT PRODUCTION OF TRYING TO BUILD A SOCIETY, TRYING TO BUILD SOME KIND OF CIVILIZATION WHERE ALL WILL BE SERENE, QUIET AND PEACEFUL–AND WHERE ALL THESE CONDITIONED PEOPLE WILL UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER–AND ALL WILL BE LOVE.

You see, this is what happens when a person comes upon something and doesn’t have the Teaching to give them a point. They think it can be done with mechanical means: “If we could just eliminate all slums, we would then have everybody so happy because they would be living in beautiful houses.” Of course, they think living in beautiful houses will make them happy!!! They haven’t wandered over to the other side of town and seen the people who live in mansions and beautiful homes with costly furniture, lovely carpets, surrounded by beautiful volumes of books, and that they are still miserable inside.

You see, we are all caught like Andrew – thinking that something on the outside can change the situation. We are deceived by the appearances of the physical body, and we hear the words, we hear the moans, we see the tears, and the agony of man. We feel that something could be done. We try with all our might, but nothing is done except interference; and one gets clobbered for it as Andrew got clobbered by the wife when her husband knocked her to the ground and he went away.

But in the circus, he begins to see it in a different light because here it was exaggerated. They had on clown suits, which says this is a parody of everyday existence. If you have ever observed clowns, you will see that their basic technique of producing laughter is that they take insignificant events and make them very, very important. And as we wander about observing all those wonderful people, who are conditioned; we can observe that “I” is sound asleep, and that those make up the greater population. They have never had the opportunity to wake up because they have never questioned the purpose of living. Without questioning, they don’t get the opportunity. They go on and on year in and year out. EVERY CONCEIVABLE KIND OF EFFORT IS MADE TO MAKE THEM COMFORTABLE, BUT NO EFFORT IS EVER SPENT IN TRYING TO WAKE THEM UP. IT IS ALL BASICALLY TO TRY TO PUT THEM TO SLEEP. You see, if they are disturbed or upset, then what we want to do is make them comfortable, so then they will sleep. Of course, in their sleep they may have nightmares; and they get a little violent here and there–maybe very violent, but it is not due to intention. It is not due to evilness in the person. It is due to conditioning, and as we understand that this conditioning comes in two versions: one from the very early establishment of the being, to stick up for his rights, to complain, and to blame; and from the other side, which was conditioned by the environment – to control him to make him be what is called “good,” to be nondisturbing to others-the two sides setting this conflict into existence.