I feel that in any large, old, and calcified culture authentic religion almost by definition must be rebellious and “criminal”, as seen from the eyes of the elites who run the show. It is a rebellion against stupidity and insincerity.
I was dreaming last night of this gigantic criminal caper, organized to an extreme degree by a supernatural intelligence, to create a beautiful school and a beautiful theater, all for ordinary hard-scrabble kids in the desert. It ended with a ceremony, a religious ceremony, in which a bunch of toothless and uneducated people offered their respects in a large ceremony–one conducted in the open after having tricked the Law into going en masse to look for us hundreds of miles away, and after which it was understood the party was over. As in Hell and High Water, the money had been legally protected to be used in perpetuity for the school and theater, with a provision that the many colors of the theater could only be painted over in parts, and only with certain colors.
I had a plastic bag with three pouches in it. There had been 5, but two were empty. One of the remaining ones had salt in it. I don’t know what was in the other two. I offered it on the altar–altars are an important mythic symbol, and if you don’t have one in your house, I would encourage you to make one, and I mean this physically and literally–and that is where the dream ended.
Last night was filled with many strange and powerful dreams. In another I went right up to the limits of sanity. Without being able to convey more than a tone–I would say it was something much like the movie “The Dark City”– it seems to me that culture exists to keep people sane, in an endless universe. We need culture, which amounts to rules of the game, boundaries, limits. How could you play “soccer” if there were no rules? If you could pick the ball up with your hands any time, or push people down, or if the lines on the sides didn’t matter? You need rules. We all need rules, even if at some point we realize they are arbitrary.
In some respects our best minds and best scholars are really like kids playing a street game of stickball and debating and deciding on the rules as they go. I wonder how many kids nowadays miss this sort of experience. I played dodgeball in the street. I wonder how many kids do today. “Less” seems a reasonable answer.
I will keep doing my work. I am certainly willing to risk madness. I think much of spiritual growth consists in blowing up a superficial and weak ego over and over, and then trusting to your “Ahamkara”, as they call it in Sanskrit, your “I-Maker” to slowly recoalesce something usable, and something that amounts to a better set of rules for the game of life. The goal is not to disappear. The goal is to be able to disappear when needed. To be “reversible”, to use Moshe Feldenkrais’s excellent word, with respect to your sense of self and certainly your self importance and even dignity.