In India and elsewhere, people gathered in droves to mark the first-ever International Yoga Day...
And across Europe, Salafism, a fundamentalist brand of Islam, is said to be on the rise.
Was there ever a time when, as confusions became more widespread, people did not look to simpler and 'truer' times? At Stonehenge, visitors were said to have kissed the stones. A kiss is a trusting and intimate gift ... vulnerable.
And where vulnerabilities feel unduly wounded, well, life is pretty simple, isn't it ... let's leave the charlatans and vulnerability-wounders behind. Kiss the stones; join a yoga crowd that probably doesn't pay much heed to religious roots ... religion is one of those dicey, manipulative arenas ... but yoga (meaning Hatha yoga) is pristine ... it's your body ... no questions or skulduggery needed. And if Salafism follows the Quran literally ... well, "literally" is so much less difficult than "interpreted" or "investigated."
There's no reason to sneer at a return to imagined simplicity. Doesn't everyone do the same? -- Where a problem rages, there has to be a first, simple, straightforward step in order to solve the problem? Whether anyone clings to or insists on this sort of base-line simplicity as time passes ... well, that's up for grabs. But the first step in hard times is pretty much the same.
Kiss the stone.
Crinkle the body.
Do what the book ... uh ... says.
Back to the future.
Whether we paint the gray canvas black or white. It's still trying to change what wont be changed.
ReplyDelete