dehydrated water

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I have always had a soft spot for the ridiculous. The ridiculous makes me laugh or smile not just because of the superiority it most notably inspires but also because, in some wee corner of my heart, I can imagine myself being drawn into the credulous maw and, well ... suckered again.

For example, the American magazine Psychology Today once ran an imaginative contest for its readers. The contest invited one and all to come up with the best scam they could think of. And the winner was ... a company in (where else?) California that invited its customers to sign over all their worldly goods. In return, these customers would receive a slip of paper with a number on it. When the customer died and was subsequently reincarnated, all s/he had to do was present the number to the company and retrieve all the possessions relinquished in the former lifetime.

To this day, I have a hard time imagining that such a company does NOT exist.

What brought this recollection to mind this morning was a less ornate bit of ridiculousness from an earlier time -- a booming business that sold packets of dehydrated water ... just add water and voila!

Silly and ridiculous and ... how much like spiritual life is that?! Just add water and ... voila!

Just add aches and pains, worries and woes, bliss and elation, dull and clarified understanding, kindness and serenity, incense and hymns, texts and temples, tears and lamentations, rigors and rituals, promises and vows ....

Just add water and, as if by magic, you get water.

I am not about to sit here and claim with a distanced superiority that I have not been similarly suckered.

But neither am I about to turn away a good laugh.
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