Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Published Saturday, December 13, 2008 by Dan Gainsford | E-mail this post
I just finished reading it. This book by Tom Robbins published the same year I was born. So many of the Chinks predictions are coming true, so much of the linear is falling away disastrously towards the circular. Anyways it's a great book and having finished it I want to share a quote from a dialog between Sissy and the Chink,
"In order to tolerate experience, a disciple embraces a master. This sort of reaction is understandable, but it's neither very courageous nor very liberating. The brave and the liberating thing to do is to embrace experience and tolerate the master. The way we might at least learn what it is we are experiencing, instead of camouflaging it with love.
And if your master truly loved you, he would tell you that. I order to escape the bonds of earthly experience, you bind yourself to a master. Bound is bound. If your master really loved you, he would not demand your devotion. He would set you free - from himself, first of all.
You think I'm behaving like a cold-hearted ogre because I turn people away. Quite to the contrary. I'm merely setting my pilgrims free before they become my disciples. That's the best I can do.
...That's fine; that sincerely is fine. The only problem is, your pilgrims don't know that.
Well, it's up to them to figure it out. Otherwise I'd be dishing them the same precooked and packaged pap. Everybody has to figure out experience for himself. I'm sorry. I realize that most people require externalized, objective symbols to hang onto. That's too bad. Because what they're looking for, whether they know it or not, is internalized and objective. There are no group solutions! Each individual must work it out for himself. There are guides, all right, but even the wisest guides are blind in your section of the burrow. No, all a person can do in this life is to gather about him his integrity, his imagination and his individuality - and with these ever with him, out front and in sharp focus, leap into the dance of experience.
Be your own master!
Be your own Jesus!
Be your own flying saucer! Rescue yourself.
Be your own valentine! Free the heart!
... You use the word freedom fairly regularly... Exactly what does freedom mean to you?
Why, the freedom to play freely in the universe, of course."
- Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
peace,d
"In order to tolerate experience, a disciple embraces a master. This sort of reaction is understandable, but it's neither very courageous nor very liberating. The brave and the liberating thing to do is to embrace experience and tolerate the master. The way we might at least learn what it is we are experiencing, instead of camouflaging it with love.
And if your master truly loved you, he would tell you that. I order to escape the bonds of earthly experience, you bind yourself to a master. Bound is bound. If your master really loved you, he would not demand your devotion. He would set you free - from himself, first of all.
You think I'm behaving like a cold-hearted ogre because I turn people away. Quite to the contrary. I'm merely setting my pilgrims free before they become my disciples. That's the best I can do.
...That's fine; that sincerely is fine. The only problem is, your pilgrims don't know that.
Well, it's up to them to figure it out. Otherwise I'd be dishing them the same precooked and packaged pap. Everybody has to figure out experience for himself. I'm sorry. I realize that most people require externalized, objective symbols to hang onto. That's too bad. Because what they're looking for, whether they know it or not, is internalized and objective. There are no group solutions! Each individual must work it out for himself. There are guides, all right, but even the wisest guides are blind in your section of the burrow. No, all a person can do in this life is to gather about him his integrity, his imagination and his individuality - and with these ever with him, out front and in sharp focus, leap into the dance of experience.
Be your own master!
Be your own Jesus!
Be your own flying saucer! Rescue yourself.
Be your own valentine! Free the heart!
... You use the word freedom fairly regularly... Exactly what does freedom mean to you?
Why, the freedom to play freely in the universe, of course."
- Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
peace,d
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