--- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], bob_brigante <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > the joy of drinking... > > http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/books/review/Harris.t.html > > Many thanks for this, Bob. Such a funny, well- > written review makes me want to order the book. > > The Bar is certainly a source of fascination. > Honestly, I really don't drink that much -- too > fuckin' old to get away with it -- but I really > do appreciate a good bar. I'm a fan of the Bars > With Ambiance Of Their Own. It doesn't have to > be a classy, upscale, designer-Buddhist ambiance, > like the Buddhabars in Paris and in Barcelona. > Obviously. I blew out of the Nirvana bar in Sitges > within minutes. By comparison, the Bar Pay Pay > down the block is tacky to the max. But it's got > soul, man. One feels good sitting here and watching > the passersby. One has cool conversations here, and > has them consistently. What more can one ask of a > bar? > > The "social lubricants" of human society such as > aloohol have been around as long as there have > been humans, and thus are an important part of > the sociology of the human race. I mean, *cave > men* found ways to distill plants and get high. > Ponder that. Even though they were only one rung > up the evolutionary ladder from chimpanzees, the > earliest humans carried with them the chimps' > inherent desire to "get high," to shift their > state of attention. > > In the absence of technologies such as meditation, > bars are where humans go to shift their state of > attention. Most of the humans on this planet are > unaware of technologies such as meditation. There- > fore, in my book, bars are interesting. That's > where you would go if you were a seeker who had > found no other way to shift your state of attention. > > The best bar I've ever had the privilege of > sitting and writing in is no more. It was Windows > On The World, in the World Trade Center. *Magnif- > icent* ambiance. The next best bar I've ever been > in is the bar at Yab Yum in Amsterdam. This may > be a stretch for those still attached to the puri- > tanical ways of the TMO; Yab Yum is a brothel, > the highest-class brothel in Amsterdam, at the > time I was going there. But, it's also the kind > of brothel where you might run into the Stones > at the bar, or politicians from major countries > of the world. It's a real trip.
Man, how prejudiced you are. Around about 1978 (+-) there was this rare Yogi who visited Seelisberg. Almost every night Maharishi let him lecture in the Main Assembly Hall. All he would talk about was unity in all it's facets. Evening after evening. Unity, unity, unity and the need for seclusion to reach that state. Nothing wrong with that, the Yogi, who's name I no longer recall, was obviously firmly established in that state. One day Maharishi told his secretary to take the fellow on a trip to Lucern. And he was rather surprized to suddenly find himself in a well known bar in that city where the secretary insisted they should spend quite some time. When the Yogi's time in Seelisberg was up and he was going home to India someone asked him how his stay had been. Marvelous he said, then he declared that Maharishi is a generous and great Mahapurusha. But, he said, Maharishis secretaries are rather strange ! The lesson ? Perhaps the Yogi needed to grow into Brahman, to experience that he was in fact everything, including bars and their inhabitants. Would Maharishi denounce brothels ? Me think not.
