Notas del Carnaval

Hace un par de meses en la noche del Carnaval, al regresar de Barcelona en el último tren, un grupo de 7 u 8 chavales brasileños, armados sólo con una pequeña timba y un tamborín, irrumpió bailando en nuestro vagón. Con su percusión, pies ágiles y voces veraces todos ellos estaban vibrando con su chispeante cultura popular. Su batucada evocaba el mundo al revés. Pero los demás pasajeros seguían conectados a sus Smartphone o miraban por otro lado con caras largas. Nadie se meneó; todo el mundo intentó ignorar esa embarazosa (e incluso amenazante) exhibición de alegría. Excepto yo; no pude quedarme sentado o dejar de sonreír. Su jaleo me desataba el duende. 

Pero me inquietó la apatía que se vislumbró en aquel vagón. Detrás de la máscara gris se discernía un sufrimiento mental, psíquico y emocional de los pasajeros. Simpatía quiere decir el sentir compartido, la percepción de la continuidad sensible del propio cuerpo en el cuerpo del otro. ¿Estamos perdiendo nuestra capacidad de vida sensual debido a la adicción a lo digital? ¿Ha sido colonizado nuestro campo imaginario e incluso erótico por las corporaciones de lo virtual?

MLK

Today is the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination, in 1968. I rembember it as if were yesterday. I was in my last year of high school and had only two classes left, American History and Social Studies, taught by a gifted radical educator, part Sioux, one of the few authoritive voices near me opposed to the Vietnam War then raging in SE Asia. In the afternoons I worked downtown in the basement repair shop of a Singer sewing machine outlet, fixing machines and occasionally delivering new ones around the San Joaquin Valley to suburban housewives and sometimes to Mexican women who lived in the farmworker camps. When the news of King’s tragic death came over the radio, my boss, a sullen Okie from Muskogee, suddenly gloated, glad “that nigger finally got what’s comin’ to him”. I had to make a delivery some 20 miles away in Crows Landing. I got in the van, tears welling, and drove that country road like a maniac, full of rage. The temperature gauge shot to red and I ended up cracking the block. A big cloud of black smoke shot out the exhaust. Simultaneously the whole land blew a head gasket, with riots breaking out all over the country… and black neighborhoods going up in smoke…

In a speech he gave a year before he was killed called “A Sweeter Music” King makes use of his skill for encoding message in metaphor. He talks about the need to work actively for peace. Nonviolence is not passive, he stresses. He draws on Greek mythology to recall the story of Ulysses and the Sirens.

“The Sirens had the ability to sing so sweetly that sailors could not resist steering toward their island. Many ships were lured upon the rocks, and men… flung themselves into the sea to be embraced by arms that drew them down to death. Ulysses, determined not to succumb to the Sirens, first decided to tie himself tightly to the mast of his boat, and his crew stuffed their ears with wax. But finally he and his crew learned a better way to save themselves: They took on board the beautiful singer Orpheus, whose melodies were sweeter than the music of the Sirens… So those of us who work for peace must learn to sing with a sweeter voice, a cosmic melody far superior to the discords of war…”

Hoy es el aniversario del asesinato de Martin Luther King, en 1968. Lo recuerdo como si fuera ayer. Estaba en mi último año de bachillerato y tenía sólo dos asignaturas a completar, Historia EEUU y Sociales, a cargo de un educador radical, muy dotado y medio Sioux, una de las pocas voces cercanas a mí opuestas a la guerra de Vietnam, que entonces azotaba en el sureste de Asia. Por las tardes yo trabajaba en el sótano de una tienda de máquinas de coser Singer en el taller de reparación, arreglando máquinas viejas y haciendo la entrega de las nuevas, por todo el Valle de San Joaquín, a las amas de casa y algunas veces a las campesinas mexicanas que vivían en barracas.

Cuando la noticia de la trágica muerte de King llegó por la radio, mi jefe, un tipo hosco de Oklahoma, de repente se regodeó, contento de que "ese negro de mierda finalmente recibió su merecido". En ese momento me tocó hacer una entrega a unos 30 kilómetros de distancia a Crows Landing. Con lágrimas y lleno de rabia me metí en la furgoneta y conduje de manera alocada por una carretera secundaria. El indicador de temperatura disparó a rojo y terminé por destrozar el motor. Una gran nube de humo negro salió disparada del tubo de escape. Al mismo tiempo toda la nación explotó en alborotos, con grandes disturbios por todo el país... y barrios negros enteros se convirtieron en humo...

En un discurso que dio un año antes de ser asesinado llamado "Una música más dulce" Martin Luther King esgrime su habilidad para codificar el mensaje en la metáfora. Primero, habla de la necesidad de trabajar activamente por la paz. La no-violencia no es pasiva, subraya. Después, se basa en la mitología griega para recordar la historia de Ulises y las Sirenas:

"Las Sirenas tenían la habilidad de cantar tan dulcemente que los marineros no pudieron resistir la tentación de navegar hacia su isla. Muchos barcos se rompieron sobre las rocas, y los hombres se lanzaron al mar para ser abrazados por mujeres que les atrajo abajo hasta la muerte. Ulises, decidido a no ser seducido por las Sirenas, primero decidió atarse firmemente al mástil de su barco mientras los miembros de su tripulación taparon los oídos con cera. Pero finalmente él aprendió una mejor manera de salvarse: se llevó a bordo el poeta Orfeo, cuyas melodías eran más dulces que la música de las Sirenas ... Así que nosotros, que trabajamos por la paz, debemos aprender a cantar con una voz más dulce, una melodía cósmica superior a las discordias de la guerra ..."

Trickster

I was fortunate once to sit at the feet of a great master, J. Krishnamurti. He gave a talk in a park in Bangalore, India in the fall of 1970 and I was among the two or three hundred people gathered there on a warm sunny day to listen to him. My main reminiscence is of his apparent transparency. He seemed wholly congruent: his words, tone of voice, pitch, breathing, gestures, demeanor, intention and mood all harmonious with his message:

I do not demand your faith; I am not setting myself up as an authority. I have nothing to teach you- no new philosophy, no new system, no new path to reality, there is no path to reality any more than to truth. All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding is a most destructive thing. Leaders destroy their followers and followers destroy their leaders. Be your own teacher and your own disciple. Question everything… (Freedom from the Known)

Similar to what the Buddha offered to the Kalama clan when they asked for his guidance: “Don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought…” He proposed a constant questioning and wisdom grounded in practice.

Allan Watts observed long ago in his famous essay The Trickster Guru that [unfortunately] “millions of people are searching desperately for a true father-Magician, especially at a time when the clergy and the psychiatrists are making rather a poor show, and do not seem to have the courage of their convictions or of their fantasies.”

Here are some of his DIY recommendations for setting yourself up as a spurious spiritual leader:

• “Be quite well-read in mystical and occult literature…
• Frequent those circles where gurus are especially sought, such as the various cult groups which pursue oriental religions or peculiar forms of psychotherapy
• Because people love to be types, sort them into groups according to their astrological sun signs or according to your own private classifications...
• Work out different stages of progress…
• A judicious use of hypnosis – to produce pleasant changes of feeling and the impression of attaining higher states of consciousness…
• Let on that you are in some way connected with an extremely select in-group…
• As soon as you can afford to wangle it, get hold of a country house as an ashram or spiritual retreat…
• Allow it more and more to be understood that you are in constant touch with other centers of work…
• Disappear from time to time by taking trips abroad, and come back looking more mysterious than ever…
• Eventually come to believe in your own hoax… This can be done through religionizing total skepticism to the point of basic incredulity about everything…”

Watts’ lampoon brings us full circle. Questioning everything leads to questioning even that, and then maybe sustaining a state of mind, a fleeting silence, in which there are no beliefs at all, but only what is- what actually is.