Saturday, April 12, 2008
M.A.D - part 1
the christians among you; you have to forgive me but every time i try to comprehend christian god , a shampoo bottle comes floating by into my mind. and it's a particular brand of shampoo. a rather cheap one that you get from giants or tesco . the brand is 'follow me'.
this three in one follow me shampoo god is quite alien to non-christian thinking and i guess not too many christians really understand this trinity dogma either. i personally find it repugnant for humans to be so conceited as to believe that a mere human being is a partner to god. no, even worse! we humans have the gall to claim this one particular human being to be god in human flesh! and doubly worse! a jew of no particular significance and triply worse! of questionable historical existence and at best a very insignificant minor player of the jewish history if any at all.
but for some reasons humans like things in threes. hindus have their version of brahma-siva-vishnu trinity and i kinda like hinduism idea of god. unlike christians that see god as three in one, the hindus sees one in all instead. this pantheism which sees god in everything is very charming. thus it's not difficult to understand hindus worshiping different kinds of avatars of one godhead and all kinds of living things can be worshiped. some hindus worship cobras, some hindus in some parts of india worship rats and some even worship film stars. i wish some people come and worship me as god.
that reminds me of an article i read today in the times. it's paul theroux's piece about the new damning biography of v s naipul. and reading this makes me want to read theroux's sir vidia's shadow, his memoir of a friendship with naipul gone sour (which i've just picked and read the first two chapters now). i never like v s naipul's writing much , not that i've read too many of his books (though i've quite a few in my library). But even as far back as in the eighties , after reading his 'among the believers' i've come to the conclusion and i've commented to someone that i view this writer as a damned wog. and i've proven to be right which i feel quite pleased because it's not too often that i get things correct.
but what reminded me of him right now in relation to what i've been banging on about hindu pantheism is this. describing about naipul's much abused argentinian mistress theroux wrote this in the article:
She acknowledges that he is her black master, that he regards his penis as a god, that she will worship it, abase herself.
which is not a surprising thing. phallic worship is not only restricted to hindus but common to many primitive cultures. and naipul being of indian race, regarding his penis as god is understandable and charming. which reminds me of another book fascinatingly titled a mind of its own: a history of the penis which among other things divide human history into three phases. first phase is the religious penis era, the middle period is described as the power penis and we are now living in yes folks, the entertainment penis era. (although it must be said and ladies would be happy to know that throughout history the pussies call the shots -in more ways than one- and make the world go round).
the funny thing about the spat between theroux and naipul is this. a) the review of the biography and theroux's description of naipul as whoremongering, indulging in 'gruesome sex' his meanness and racism among other things make him sound interesting to me (despite him being a wog) and i'll certainly keep an eye for this Patrick French's The world is what it is. The anauthorized biography of v s Naipul.
and b) although theroux went to a great length saying naipul is a racist and viewed 'negroes' disparagingly , he himself isn't exactly free from the same low regards towards the africans. his book which i find very enjoyable The Dark Star Safari :Overland from Cairo to Cape Town is a long grumble about how lazy and useless the africans are. one memorable scene among many was the description of a group of blacks sitting under a lone mango tree in a village bereft of any other shades , sheltering away from the hot sun and he wondered why it didn't enter their heads to grow at least another mango tree?
what theroux probably didn't know is that even that lone mango tree was most likely grew out of a seed thrown out carelessly by a mango eater . and not actually planted by anybody.
but oh my, like an old geezer, how far i've digressed from my original theme! ah trinity. yes, but it's not only in religion that humans like threes. some randy goats prefer a treesome in sex. before any race we count up to three (why not four or six?) , we give prizes up to number three and so on. and currently in malaysia we have what i call an unholy MAD trinity that is shaping our life politically. and i'm referring to mahathir-anwar -dollah. but to do justice this has to be in part 2 of the post soon.
this three in one follow me shampoo god is quite alien to non-christian thinking and i guess not too many christians really understand this trinity dogma either. i personally find it repugnant for humans to be so conceited as to believe that a mere human being is a partner to god. no, even worse! we humans have the gall to claim this one particular human being to be god in human flesh! and doubly worse! a jew of no particular significance and triply worse! of questionable historical existence and at best a very insignificant minor player of the jewish history if any at all.
but for some reasons humans like things in threes. hindus have their version of brahma-siva-vishnu trinity and i kinda like hinduism idea of god. unlike christians that see god as three in one, the hindus sees one in all instead. this pantheism which sees god in everything is very charming. thus it's not difficult to understand hindus worshiping different kinds of avatars of one godhead and all kinds of living things can be worshiped. some hindus worship cobras, some hindus in some parts of india worship rats and some even worship film stars. i wish some people come and worship me as god.
that reminds me of an article i read today in the times. it's paul theroux's piece about the new damning biography of v s naipul. and reading this makes me want to read theroux's sir vidia's shadow, his memoir of a friendship with naipul gone sour (which i've just picked and read the first two chapters now). i never like v s naipul's writing much , not that i've read too many of his books (though i've quite a few in my library). But even as far back as in the eighties , after reading his 'among the believers' i've come to the conclusion and i've commented to someone that i view this writer as a damned wog. and i've proven to be right which i feel quite pleased because it's not too often that i get things correct.
but what reminded me of him right now in relation to what i've been banging on about hindu pantheism is this. describing about naipul's much abused argentinian mistress theroux wrote this in the article:
She acknowledges that he is her black master, that he regards his penis as a god, that she will worship it, abase herself.
which is not a surprising thing. phallic worship is not only restricted to hindus but common to many primitive cultures. and naipul being of indian race, regarding his penis as god is understandable and charming. which reminds me of another book fascinatingly titled a mind of its own: a history of the penis which among other things divide human history into three phases. first phase is the religious penis era, the middle period is described as the power penis and we are now living in yes folks, the entertainment penis era. (although it must be said and ladies would be happy to know that throughout history the pussies call the shots -in more ways than one- and make the world go round).
the funny thing about the spat between theroux and naipul is this. a) the review of the biography and theroux's description of naipul as whoremongering, indulging in 'gruesome sex' his meanness and racism among other things make him sound interesting to me (despite him being a wog) and i'll certainly keep an eye for this Patrick French's The world is what it is. The anauthorized biography of v s Naipul.
and b) although theroux went to a great length saying naipul is a racist and viewed 'negroes' disparagingly , he himself isn't exactly free from the same low regards towards the africans. his book which i find very enjoyable The Dark Star Safari :Overland from Cairo to Cape Town is a long grumble about how lazy and useless the africans are. one memorable scene among many was the description of a group of blacks sitting under a lone mango tree in a village bereft of any other shades , sheltering away from the hot sun and he wondered why it didn't enter their heads to grow at least another mango tree?
what theroux probably didn't know is that even that lone mango tree was most likely grew out of a seed thrown out carelessly by a mango eater . and not actually planted by anybody.
but oh my, like an old geezer, how far i've digressed from my original theme! ah trinity. yes, but it's not only in religion that humans like threes. some randy goats prefer a treesome in sex. before any race we count up to three (why not four or six?) , we give prizes up to number three and so on. and currently in malaysia we have what i call an unholy MAD trinity that is shaping our life politically. and i'm referring to mahathir-anwar -dollah. but to do justice this has to be in part 2 of the post soon.
