Souljerky Eats Our Brain (And We Like It)
We're presently in a state of bedazzlement after having a look at Spiros Antonopoulos' Souljerky blog. (We have to admit – and are inappropriately unashamed – that our fascination with celebrity gossip sometimes keeps us from what we should be reading.)
First off is a riff on zombies and yoga by way of Gp pal Doug Rushkoff. There's also a link to our bit on Erik Davis' somewhat rosy exploration of Ammachi in Salon. [Note to Spiros: I wasn't misunderstood, just not understood the way I hoped to be.]
And then there's this thing about Daniel Pinchbeck. While we can't say we know a whole lot about Pinchbeck, we hear he's all about crazy, South American jungle drugs and 2012, the next big Harmonic Convergence. In other words, more mass hysteria and a big fat bust.
We just can't get on board the whole DMT-as-the-doorway-to-the-future thing, despite our somewhat checkered past as a proponent of psychedelic urban shamanism. As is common in the post-psychedelic community, it seems that Pinchback is confusing his inner psychological metaphors for the literal psychic truth in us all.
We suppose that's what a prophet does, but the sheer hegemony of the idea of 2012 in the modern spiritual community is its own refutation. We're as far from being a historian as we are the king of Nepal, but we feel rather confident that you will not find a historical precedent for what these folks are raving about, making it seem much more about shared hope (or desperate hopelessness) than anything that could be called likely, or even less than probable.
But support for the upcoming Mayan misfire notwithstanding, Souljerky has certainly raised the bar for commentary on yoga and self-realization culture in our eyes, making us feel like maybe we've got more than a little catching up to do to keep up.
posted by guruphiliac @ 10:18 PM
12 Comments:
sometimes in writing attitude can get in the way of content, stance can limit point-of-view, and too much attention to one's tone can make one tone-deaf.... i love what you do, and you could do it better with less whine... there are deep things happening in the world under the heading of "spirituality", on both sides of the teacher-follower exchange, well worthy of your best efforts.... glad you like souljerky
sometimes in writing attitude can get in the way of content, stance can limit point-of-view, and too much attention to one's tone can make one tone-deaf....
But I'm all about the sass. Somebody has got to give these fauxrus a ration of grief for their crimes against the truth of self-realization.
i love what you do, and you could do it better with less whine...
Certainly, I could stand to improve as a writer.
there are deep things happening in the world under the heading of "spirituality", on both sides of the teacher-follower exchange, well worthy of your best efforts....
Deep things have always been happening, but I'm not convinced anything is any deeper now. There are just a lot more venues blabbing about it and a lot more folks making a lot more money off of it.
While it's popular and hopeful that we're all up for a big transformation, it has come with an epidemic of uncritical acceptance for whatever claptrap gets thrown in folks' faces. In many ways, we're still in the Dark Ages. Someone has to stand against the superstition from within the culture that foments it, because it all has zip to do with what spirituality is always ultimately about, to my mind.
glad you like souljerky
Thanks for the honest comments.
Bite me, Gregory! The condescention makes me puke...
The condescention makes me puke...
At least he was nice about it, Betty.
Not sure I know what a big word like this here "condescention" word means, butt my crack hairs started to rise and flutter when this greg implide that Jody "whines"! I must agree with the dark lady, Betty, that greg needs to pull his cultured head out of his ass and quit the preachin! Leave that to people like the ones seen here in the right end of Jody's bi-noculars!
Should be called "souljerkoff"!!
what a cool thread... whine was inappropriate, no doubt... could of said rebellious.... there is a lot of great backlash against the neo-advaita thing... one place to read, www.shiningworld.com, a nice article on the pitfalls of the satsang phenom... enjoy your sadhana, all... gregory, live, from tiruvannamalai... lol (where the worst of the escapist spirutal wackos can be found in grrreat concentration)
Greg boy, you said too many things that dont go well with any of us here. Especially with that four legged being in the nameless shed at Dime Box,TX.
But somethin' eatin my heart these dayz is that the cuppla guys and many many galz(besides chuckji i know only few guyz, can count within all of my twenty fingers),
but strangely they are not impressed with GP. They say,
"damn,Mamachee again"
they also click on some homepage of the fauxrus mentioned by jody, and get too far away from the GP portal of wisdom and get involved
unceremoniously with the fauxrus.
My guess is, If a thousand people dropped in here at GP, about 800 of them rush out soon for some real guru stuff. They dont wanna waste time on whos bad. The rest
100 outta 200 click the many links jody magnamously provided and surf away.
The still remaining hundred actually come to know of the existence of many gurus here. They read a news item link given in the post here and wish to beleive that more, the print media which licked some guru ass freshly than what jody said.
My once upon a gal at San Diego
said,"GP is fun for the first time". Perhaps she still remembers the one night stuff which caused her a lot of pain when i resorted to the second round.
I think one needs to be disillusioned by a fauxru a bit
too much to appreciate GP. The usual kool aided ones busy fishin the new ones on the guru horizon. They got no time for GP or whippin the old fauxru. Tis a taboo and a
shame for many to be an ex-soso.
The rest read and mutter "man you are doin a great job" and go to sleep peacefully with jody doin'
the demolition job.
Finally a few enlightened ones like Chuckji give a fitting shoulder at his ripe old age,
to stand and guard the GP portal like a true cowboy, from
weed eatin, women taggin, jobless
and confused folks like my sorry brat self.
Not to forget the occasional whisperer 'born again betty' who manytimes talk like a new recruit here.
Gotta employ some strategy and stop GP becoming redundant and obsolete. Unless DFJ gives me darshan, I cant ask him for an idea or two.
I think the fresh weed bunch i got over the weekend is just kick startin my brains. Before it could
explode, let me sign off.
Ciao Chuck ! Came in to say hi to you ...ended up like this.
Haha souljerkoff. I bet my last buck on that !
Gotta employ some strategy and stop GP becoming redundant and obsolete.
Like all this whining you're doing?
You want varied content, then send me stuff I can comment on. As it is, material is in very short supply.
gregory said...
there is a lot of great backlash against the neo-advaita thing... one place to read, www.shiningworld.com, a nice article on the pitfalls of the satsang phenom...
I like to stay aware of the tendency to place credit and fault on things other than our own thinking. Neglecting this matter leads to all sorts of delusion, since how we keep our mind is about the most powerful stuff there is.
From that viewpoint: There's no problem with the neo-advaita thing, there's no pitfall of the satsang phenom. It's just that there's grave problems and pitfalls that arise from wanting to get something from neo-advaita, or from satsang, or from gurus, or from Divine Mothers, and on and on.
If the mind is clear, then all these satsangs and gurus are great teachings (almost as great as the barking of a dog!). If the mind wants something, then all gurus speak demon words, and even Buddha can't help you.
Stuart
http://home.comcast.net/~sresnick2/socalled.htm
http://stuart-randomthoughts.blogspot.com/
Jody said....Like all this whining you're doing?
Hehe.. Cmon Jody, me whinin' ?
Strangely thats the exact word this gal used. Sorry to tell you this but she said "why does this guy whine so much about nothin"
She is a white female
(note- she is not a shemale)
from San Diego. But i said "jody is talking loud while others are muttering gutlessly"
Jody said....You want varied content, then send me stuff I can comment on. As it is, material is in very short supply.
Me want nothing jody, Just a pipeful of weeds and some hot roasted chestnut to go with it..
You cant deny the fact i had sent you material more than once and you have made use of them too..
Good take on the 2012 thing, Jody! You want to know how simple that thing is too debunk? The Mayan timescale begins with the assumption that 2012 is the end of a several millenium cycle of life on Earth. It assumes that the world is only a few thousand years old! While the Mayans may have been right about many things, their scale of time is about as accurate as the most extreme Christian fundamentalists who believe that the Grand Canyon is only 9000 years old. So, to accept the 2012 thing as dogma, you are also accepting the view that the world is only a few thousand years old.
As one of those "post urban psychedelic shamans", I thought what you wrote about Pinchbeck indicative of the "discernment" that is so seemingly lacking amongst the mystically inclined.
Personally I found that his last
book "Return of Quetzalcoatl" a waste of planetary resources, but then nearly everything
that claims to be "psychedelically inspired" in recent years has seemingly become hypocritically just a method of "extorting tithes and monies from the faithful".
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