=W93N5873 ADDITIONAL NOTES TO ADD TO =W03N0157 These are notes Deep-6'd from =w031820 They start with Note 58 ------------------------------------------------------------ {w03-58} [ One summer at New Buffalo I forked kup and hauled 40 tones of dried mostly cow-shit with an 8-tine fork in a flatbed -- I lived then on candy-bars, brushed once a month unless I was invited out, and now I have no teeth -- well shucks, I still have one lower, and as long as cut up the lettuce very small, Israeli style, I can eat eerything I can afford to buy -- So anyhow, I dumped it all one field of about an acre or so, maybe two, and planted turnips, and in the fall I pulled them out and packed them in sand in the root cellar and then went back to Santa Barbara to do grad school in analytic philosophy. I do not like turnips. ] {w03-59} So anyhow, PVK is sitting in an aeoroplane, no doubt flying to give some seminar -- { they say that that was how PVK got the shakes-- maybe it was Parkinson -- in later years he showed almost no tremour, but in late 80s I think he did -- left his cello playing rather weak, except when he would strike a low note, like that great one in the Albinoni -- I reckon he just over-rode the tremours with will- power, but maybe it was medication -- I mean, that incredible uneartly roar of noise at full-engine check just before taxi-ing into takeoff , and especially in the good old days of the 60s through the 80s, when there wasn't so much sound insulation -- that noise seems to me like the wrath of Shiva, and I drink beer and watch TV -- to a sensitive soul like PVK, or our cat Oyster -- my cousin Alison she should only some day answer my Emails once sent her to us in the bagge hold of an airplane, where I reckon it's a bit noisy, and the poor darned cat never was quite right again -- a sweet old cat, middle-aged actually but she just walked upstairs and stayed there -- anyone who thinks Siamese cats are not human obviously knows only an inferior grade of human beings - - So anyhow -- in those days I'm sure PVK traveled serf class, ZR once told me at Zenith in the mid-90s that he had finally talked PVK into traveling Business Class so he could get some sleep on the flight --} {w03-59a} I suppose it's a bit, like, circumlocutionary to speak of a salesperson of natural fertilizer, but one can't quite term him, however simply and precisely, a dried__cow_crap__expediter -- So anyhow, PVK is talking to this dude, who turns out to be a salesperson of artificial cow poo-poo, and this dude says, but artificially made amonia is of course chemically identical to the natural crap, and then later someone, I think maybe Arif Rechtaffen, tells PVK, quite so, but one is left-rotary ynd the other is right-rotary , so one nourishes your body and the other drives your cells crazy --] [N.B. -- The preceeding are not precisely PVK's words [and if you need me to tell you that, I would like to make an appointment to discuss a unique opportunity to purchase controlling interest in a corporation holding a suspension bridge of exceptional artistic, historic, and literary interest -- we're talking Hart Crane boy --] [ Aw shucks, "cut me some slack" Mac, it' a grey day a few degrees above freezing her at Campra, 20 April '05, and I should put my clothes out to dry and then take the last scraps of my Lucamagno cheese and make an omlette of the patio of my refurbished shipping container -- and many will envy my alpine vacation, Mason.] {w03-60} [ So anyhow, there I am flipped out on the beach on Rodos, you could have taken any cruise ship to the harbour, dressed in your best and gone out for a stroll, tripped over me and been back for tea-time, as_it_is_said (by me) most folks wouldn't know a a dervish if they tripped over one. -- So anyone, thereup it occurs to me that Rodos is wapped one was, clockwise or counter-clockwise , and Caphtor, that is Crete, is wrapped the opposite way -- because I got off a boat there once for a day, and it really is a quite different feel than the people of Rodos -- and Europe, I think that means Germanic Europe, is wrapped the other way -- and this is the explanation of that weird passage in Parshat Noach -- I mean, parshat Noach really is weird -- Bereshit is really high, some years I can't get passed word two or three, no wonder we have to get drunk to start it ] {w03-61} [ This is the zikr of course. Someone once suggested to PVK that he do the dervish whirling clockwise instead of counter-clockwise. So he tried it, right there at the Thursday evening Zenith instant sama -- while I kept trying to think to him, Don't do it. Man -- oy, Christian humility -- some German Islamic dude -- I mean the closest this guy's ancestors ever got to the Arabian Desert was probably the Gymnasium Sandbox -- so I say a salaam aleika to him, and he answers me in Arabic, and I say no, I ain't Islamic, and I say my name is Stephen, and he say, Oh, if I stone you will you say, 'I see the heavens opening out before me', and this being Zewnith I'm too polite to say, No actually I'd more likely pull out an Uzi, flip up the stock and blast away. So I just mumble something to conclude that interfaith dialogue. Shevki though, was something else. He's one of those naifs who come to Zenith carrying darned little but faith and maybe a recent divorce. He's going to sleep in the dormitory and I say no man, you need space. I lent him a mouse-eaten old tent-cover, and direct him to a rather wet an isolated place where I reckon all his prayers at uncivilized hours -- I mean really, who needs calligraphy and algebra and astronomy and stuff like that, we got the Simpson's Beavis and Butthead , that's wesern civilization Mason -- and he's putting up the tent with two hands and saluting the welcoming committee of mosquitos with his tail or whatever Arabs have -- and saying all the time, Al hum d lilla, Al hum d lilla -- I mean, a proper mid-Westerner would have used a choice string of damns and the like -- that's red beef talk Mick -- Sometimes I'd be making Friday evening kiddish, and someone would walk by in the almost-dark and say Shabat Shalom, and that would be Shevki -- and I'd answer him in Hebrew before I realized who it was -- it was a real "Shabat Shalom" -- I mean, Islam branched off from Judaism about 600 C.E., and always had its own land, the Arab peoples were never driven into exile -- so I reckon that a lot of ancient Jewish traditions are better preserved in Islam than they are in contemporary Jewish tradition -- ] So ok, in the Amidah, 3 times a day, we -- this is standard orthodox practice -- say "Forgive us, for we have sinned" -- there is a gemerally accepted custom, though its minhag not halacha -- that is, it's not required -- that one strikes oneself above the heart while saying this to onself -- needless to say, we're not even thinking of women saying the daily prayers, since they are not obligated to do so because maybe the baby is crying and that comes first -- a rationale that don't quite hold up , because every ritual is done in time, and a baby can cry any time, so davening is scarcely more time-bound than anything else -- So anyhow, instead of striking myself over the heart, I rotate my palm very gently -- because -- it was really Michael Golumb at Mevo Modi'in who quite gently, for all that he was once a Radbash, brought me to see this -- I mean, if anyone has ever done tchuva, Golumb is among them -- because to do tchuva, it is often the case that one does not need to be shaken into a guilty awareness that one has erred, but rather, one is already all but paralyzed and numbed with guilt, so one needs to be encouraged that heaven still oves you even so, and you can go ahead and become a better person. But so ok, there I am rotating my palm above my heart once or twice, and if I am wearing a watch about my neck and it is facing outwards, I am rotating my hand clockwise. But on the other hand, if this watch is facing inwards so it can be read only by my tapeworm, if he glances upward of course, then I am rotating my hand counter-clockwise. Well, someone will make sense of this I'm sure. ] {w03-62} [ or better, 'people', I mean, the earth peoples -- the heavier- skinned blacks, and redskins, and the more delicately-skinned orientals -- though some orientals too are coarse-featured -- whatever -- I must say this sounds distastefully racist -- are different races from us pinks ] Gad, I rather shudder to think that some day someone might read this stuff. Oh well; I shall be then no doubt be living in an efficiency apartment in a quiet gated community where I can work 24/7 on my long-deferred hobby of pushing up poppies. {w03-63} [ So ok, when the curtain rises Abraham is sitting in Kurdistan or some such, but maybe he got there from the desert -- it's for darned sure that the Jewish people ain't in origin from the land of Israel -- like I've said, that pillar of fire by night that keeps folloing Moses areound is one of those Arabian desert natural gas vents on fire -- {w03-64} (what PVK means here is -- don't go up into outer space before you've finished sewing your parachute -- 'jump the gun' is a phrase from track, where everyone is tensed on the starting blocks, and waiting for the starter's gun) {w03-65} [and this is surely Plato in Politea (The Republic) -- "and reap a great harvest of philosophy" -- ] {w03-66} it's worse that Woody Allen Heaven where you can't go out in the middle of that endless neon night and buy an egg-cream {w03-67} And as I say, I once heard him in a Zenith lecture apologize for his 'throne' -- Zenith staff always called it that, neither reverently nor ironically, though not with quite a straight face - - the term may have come from the Abode --- just one of those Zenith terms, like 'carwash' -- saying, it's only so you can see me better. And as I've said, he would always urge people not to stand when he entered the meditation tent, remarking in effect, we are here all colleagues, or maybe he said, fellow pilgrims -- though once he added, if you stand up for my grey hairs, that's all right. But of course one ought not in general stand, since the meditation has already begun with appropriate music, before the arrival of the teacher. Nor ought one stand as the teacher leaves, since one is apt to be then in meditation, consolidating the teachings. (I said that, but Zenith, and not even the Abode Camps, has never given enough peace and space for the re-entry phase. I saw PVK on the street of Olivone once, going to the bank -- he was waring a sort of Nehru jacket if I recall -- I barely recognized him out of of context -- my first though was, here is an unusually nice water-colorist on vacation by some lake -- PVK was rather short. though one rarely noticed it -- he once remarked on his commanding office in the navy thinking, who is that short brown juinior officer -- I once did notice that at his first appearance at a Zenith Camp, when I had not seen him for a year or more -- and I thought, he's shorter, or maybe I thought, smaller, than I recalled him -- he, or one of his subtle bodies, seemed to resent that, and immediatley grew taller, to a size with which I was comfortable and familiar. I dated Nancy Neyhart for a while, she walked the Appalachian trail a few years ago -- she was under 5 foot if I recall, but she was short only when she was angry -- {W03-68} [ Well, that's "cute and sweet" (RSC's phrase, though not his context) but -- a virgin father? -- and also, an initiation may be either a first step -- like admission to college -- or a recognition of something that has already occurred, like an honorary degree. So one is initiated into the Sufi Order, but never becomes a Sufi, it is an horizon toward which one tries to steer and progress. Even PVK, having been initiated as a child by HIK as far as I know, did not take the title Pir for many years, and when he did so some in the older generation objected -- On the one hand, ZIK seems to be consolidating the continuity of the SO, as mediated through his succession. On the other hand, he seems to be pretending to knowlege and power which he has not yet achieved. If so he is most likely heading for a fall. It is hard to imagine that he will progress much without one. It ain't a job to be envied, even if it does come with a nice house and land. And the role of his younger brother needs to be recognized and supported. And also the role of PVK's spiritual ex-wife, TIK. Remember the story of how PVK, shortly after assuming his position, offered some sort of honor to Shamsher Bryn Beorse, who did not want to take it, until PVK said, It's not coming from me, it's coming from HIK. I heard that from PVK, I assume in a lecture at one of the Abode Campground Camps. And the other half of the story, which I heard in a talk in the Abode Meditation Hall from that dude who was with Shamsher Bryn Beorse when he died -- some name like Guavitri, or maybe that's his wife name -- is that among his last words were, "I am so grateful to Pir Vilayat -- and to his Daddy." Like I say, Alev's father is a Sufi, in one of the traditional orders, I don't recall which, and he would not come to hear PVK, more's the loss, because, even though his murshid or teacher or whatever has died by now, in his tradition one has only teacher. Once I came back from New Buffalo flipped out, and I drove down to MIT to take initiation from Guru Maharaj-ji, who was 14 years old and billed as rather a 14-year-old wonder, I think that was at Kresge Auditorium, and I was parking my mother's car in front of the Main Building, but I never could parallel park -- maybe because my left eye is what they call "lazy eye", weak and glasses won't help, so in short I never have had much depth perception, whatever depth perception looks like -- might be what makes me apt at metaphysics and out of it with interpersonal relationships and evaluation of charactaer -- so I bang into the car behind me, and get so shook that I drive right back again to Belmont, and tell my mother of the accident, and she says oh, it's nothing, and so I never did get initiated by the 14-year-old guru. "I will not yield to kiss the ground beneath young Malcolm's feet." (Shakespeare, MacBeth, last scene) Well, that's unfair applied to this situation, though it may be a hint of the irrational attitudes behind my position. But if a position is rational, it remains rational even if shown to be motivated by irrational attitudes. And as for Shakespeare' scence: Well, even homocidal maniacs got feelings too y'know. Amnesty Internatioanl was built on that principle. I mean, maybe I've gotten to 6th grade by now -- the one for 11- year-olds, where we learend mechanical drawing and the Vikings if I recall, at Shady Hill School in Cambridge -- best educational institution and best community I ever did find, or rather my parents found it for me, mostly my mother I reckon -- I don't mean the 6th grade in the Sufi Order ranks, something between a Sheik and a PooBah I suppose -- so I should go back to kindergarten and start all over just because I can't see PVK in person any more -- I mean heck, how often did I see him in person when he was on earth, and then not much more than a glance -- got maybe a half- dozen glances the last year I saw him, 1999, and that was darned near overwhelming -- and that was the intesne part of the contact, the few times that he spoke to me in person it seemed almost inconsequential -- but then, so too did my initiation -- no background timpani by Beethoven -- though then I sat down near my tent, for the next three quarters of hour or so I was getting a non-stop orientation from some department in the corporation -- which is why I say, at zenith, give the new intiates space to hear the inner voices, don't make them go back to cutting up cucumbers into little bitty bite-sized pieces, and don't let the Staff bang away at drums in the garage that is under the elite lodging -- just because if we paid the Staff in peanuts it would be a wage- hike, don't mean that we have to let them act out their latent loutishness at the end of every week -- And so in short -- I reckon us old fogies who more or less came onto the scene when PVK did, will now go off with Bilbo Bagins into the Retirement Village across the sea, or like old Kent in King Lear, follow our leader and work to consolidate and preserve his legacy, and dream amongst it, and of course support, but not follow, his son / successor -- a young man of a younger generation can have students of that generation -- it is the young who shold stand up for the old, the reverse is always awkward -- "when the servant becomes the master" they say in Islam, though I guess in a somewhat different context -- not that one can't learn from those of a younger generation -- eg Ag -- Ok, that's this morning's confession, and also I'm sorry I just stole the footmats from Honest George's upstairs rooms, but I wont't bring them back now -- I mean, a sin is a sin, to have done it is punishment enough, one need not add to one's spiritual punishment by foregoing the physical pleasure of it too -- and if you don't like irony and jokes, why is Pesach only one month after Purim. They should be at opposite poles of the year. But I digres.. ] I think it is fair to say that PVK was regarded to some extent as a guru -- except by the original Abode Family, who also lived with him in the early days -- I mean, folks sure were quick to pack him away in eulogies -- and also that PVK truly did not want to be regarded as a guru -- so here he says, he would be comfortable enough being regarded as a teacher, or better, as a 'monitor' of meditation -- which means that instead of telling the students what to do, he lets them go off on their own, but keeps an oversight, to bring someone back who slips off the highway -- {W03-69} [ But also every religion, like Leibniz monads, most likely has everything in it, only as it were the elephant seen from differnet perspectives. ] {W03-70} [Well, I think the format of the Universal Worshiop is a bit simplistic -- Buddhism as the Divine Compassion, Judasim as the Divine Law, and whatever. Out in Edgecomb, beyond Wiscassett, there's an old blockhouse, six-sided as I recall, so the settlers can shoot hot lead into the natives no matter what directdion they come from. Ah, America. So anyhow, each window faces in a different directdion. And as I see it, and did it too, in the Universal Worship I can't offer you a quintessence of Judaism, and don't want to play a cute little dancing bear -- but I can open the window the looks out upon my place, and let you see whatever happends to be passing by at the moment -- so since the Universal Worship was on Saturday, I would sing the Shabat psalm -- Mizmor Shir, l'yom haShabat -- ] [ If this is what growing up is, I only wish I had gotten to be a bit older before I grew up. ] [ I write B-Z and say I am working on inputting PVK tapes, it is the same problem as archiving RSC, what parameters should I use. He tells me all he can, and adds, in consience, I think there is enough to study in Judaism for many gilgulim (reincarnations), so no need to go looking into other religions. Well, yes and no and no again. Much of Judaism is study for its own sake, with disregard for relevance. I mean, you can't call most of the Talmud a sacred text, nor much of the Chumash either. Though there are spiritual teachings to be found in it. For that matter, you can't quite call Judaism a spiritual path, it's a path through life, for all people, from the most spiritual to the most worldly. Now of course HIK and PVK, they really work as a team I think, are not a new religion -- though many take them as such -- they are the common-denominator wisdom of all religions ("the Message") applied to our contemporary contextg ("the Message in our time"), And I'd much sooner go to them than to Jewish mysticism, with is inentionally obscurantist, and presented in a very roundabout way, as commentary on the Torah, which it simply ain't -- and also, presented in highly anthropomorphic conceptualization. Where HIK especially, and also PVK, try to make what they say as simple and direct as possible. Also, one can learn from other religions, though less than one might suppose. But the real problem is not one of conflicting teachings, but of incompatible attunements, as-it-is-said, "with one tochas you can't dance at two weddings". I mean, Christianity is true enough, and Jesus was a really good guy -- Ram Dass says that, in Be Here Now -- and Pound too, in 'Teh Ballad of the G_dly Frere" - - and even the Being of Christ is no doubtt real -- and tempting too, especially when one is down and out, and it maybe seems a lot easier rescue than Judaism -- but my problem is, whenever I try to go into Christianity -- and I've gone pretty close to into it, including getting baptized at least once, as far as I recall -- as_it_said (by me), "A Jew who is baptized is deemed a Jew with wet hair" -- the problem is, when one acknowleges the attunement of Christianity, one loses the attunement to Judaism -- only taemporarily, I think -- it's like having affairs with two chicks at the same time -- sounds like great fun, but just ends up confusing -- Well, PVK makes much of toggling between incompatible attunements, but I must say, I've been tired most of my life, and I do like to rest in a stable Weltanshcauung, not something that keeps chaning colours like a neon sign. ] {w03-71} You know, sports fans, the Christians make rather too much of do about this 'Covenant' bit. With all their talk of an Old Testament and a New Testament, as if the old covenant somehow outran its statute of limitations or sell-by date or whatever -- but for us it ain't no big deal -- and this is "do not be like servants who serve in expectation of a reward, but serve without expectation of reward" (Pirke HaAvot, loosely rephrased.) {w03-72} [ Well, this was one of the first years that people from Poland came -- it was very significant, since Poland had until then been behind the Iron Curtain -- Avolosura was really the first to open up Poland to the SO, although it's said that her work was never adequately recognized, and she was never properly reimbursed, and it is said that Hadi tried to take most of the credit, although he was later obliged to resign as Germany head of the SO -- he translated KIT's in German -- I could barely edit them into readable English -- a brilliant chap who probably did much good work, even if he made a few mistakes -- gone into business now, which is the honorable way out for sinners -- if you can't become good, become rich -- and then maybe you can attone for your sins by giving a few ducats to those who might become good Anyhow, the Polish people have for the most part been of exceptional character, and really formed the "hard core" (in AoK's apt but naive choice of words) of the the Zenith Staff -- one might better say, 'backbone'. The first year, 1989, ZR told me that the Polish people only showed up for meals. And when I came back, in 1990, there were a few hustlers -- when ZR said there were too many, and that one would have to go, they held a group meeting and threw out the one older woman -- as_it_is_said, in a Russian song conveyed by Pete Seegar, "Oh you cannot throw your grandma off a bus" -- I said to someone, in Jewish tradition we respect the elderly, and they said back to me, not necessarily disagreeing, that's not how it is in Poland. Well anyhow, I tried to fix that situation behind the back of ZR, which is how I usually try to work -- saves time, at least in the short run -- and I spoke to Sophia, who was the one who actually did fix it -- one can rectify a certain amount of injustice with a bit of disposable income -- anyhow, when ZR noticed what we had done, he, to his credit, did not oppose it, he implicitly recognized that he had made a mistake -- So in short PVK seems to have recognized quite early that the Polish people were, or would become, a very exceptional group in the Zenith Family -- ] {w03-73} [ I don't see the CC supplanting religouns, nor do I see it as such a big deal. And anyhow the Universalists already did it. And maybe the Unitarians too, a bit. Nor do I see religion as a mjor force in national nor nationalistic conflicts -- surely not in Israeli opposition to a Palestinian state -- it is only a new and recently-emerged minority, albeit a very well disciplined and well-financed minority, that is intensely religious. Our opposition to a Palestinian state is primarily that it poses a military danger to Israel, secondarily economic concerns. An Australian group once supported the land-for-peace principle. An excellent idea, for Australia. {w03-74} As I recall, I was in it -- there were too few people that week to pick and choose, and since PVK was leading tghe rehearesals, how ould I not. {w03-75} [ But in the Gloria of the Bach B Minor, the womens's voice should follow the longer rhythm of their part, not the very short rhythm of the men's -- sort of a 2/4 rhythm -- where the wonen's is more a 6/8 -- so ok, Bach ain't Stravinsky (or maybe that's where Stravinsky got some ideas from ) -- but like, this is a polyphony of rhythms -- the men's bass is heavily accenteted, the women's is very lightly accented -- it then goes to something like 8/32 but they sing in short groups of 4 -- folloiwng the orchestra instead of serving as an obligato to the orchestra -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ THIS CONCLUDES MY NOTES TO W03 THAT BEING WALIA COLLECTION BOX 03, AND THAT BEING TAPES 11-20 OF PVK WEEK 1 ZENITH 1990 The lst half of these here notes being =w03n0157 And the actual notes to the tapes in Box W03 (for these here is merely my notes to my notes of those tapes) being =w03tutti ================================================================ ZOWIE FOR HOWIE -- Campra 20 April '05 -- 11 Nisan ===============================================================