I've proved myself unable once more to produce anything but junk, and my mind is crying for mercy. So I turn my back on the angel, turn my back on the devil too. And take to more profane considerations.
As you might expect from a foreigner to both Christian religion and English language, I didn't expect anything at all, and for me your remark that "glass" was an unexpected term, used instead of the expected "cup", was an unexpected and interesting point. So I asked the internet:DBCohen wrote:still there is a little problem with the use of “glass” rather than the expected “cup”
"During the 1st century BC glass blowing was discovered on the Syro-Judean coast, revolutionizing the industry. Glass vessels were now inexpensive compared to pottery vessels. A growth of the use of glass products occurred throughout the Roman world.[citation needed] Glass became the Roman plastic, and glass containers produced in Alexandria[citation needed] spread throughout the Roman Empire."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_glass)
This means that at the Last Supper they had expensive pottery cups, not cheap glass or plastic "vessels".
And I asked about the Last Supper:
"The last meal that Jesus shared with his disciples is described in all four canonical Gospels (Mt. 26:17-30, Mk. 14:12-26, Lk. 22:7-39 and Jn. 13:1-17:26)."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Supper)
Under the first of these four references I found this:
"17 On the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where do you want us to make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?” 18 He said, “Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is near; I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.’” 19 So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover meal."
(https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... rsion=NRSV)
Which means that the table was not Jesus' table at all, as I had wrongly assumed, but that of "a certain man", who sponsored the meal — and who most probably provided the earthenware as well.
So if indeed the lines "I sit at your table every night / I try but I just don't get high with you" refer to the Jesus' Last Supper, then the narrator would be sitting at the anonymous sponsor's table every night, not getting high with that sponsor. (Jesus at any rate would be "out of the game".)
The sponsor then could be the Roman catholic church...
All of this gives an unexpected turn to my "hunch", too:
The last time I saw such a plastic bottle ("Glass became the Roman plastic"...), there was some writing on it, in very long (high) and very thin (narrow) letters, like a bar code (probably all in capitals, too, so as to make reading even more difficult, but I can't remember that). Holding the bottle tilted, its bottom closer to the eye than its neck, those letters seemed optically shortened, and one could decipher the text: "Vin de différents pays de la Communauté Européenne" (Wine from different countries of the European Community).Jean Fournell wrote:A hunch is telling me that this is where "wishing" does help (and not only wishing for a treaty between two kinds of love, by the way)...
And if this supernatural wishing is worth 1.50 €, and thus quite obviously insufficient to buy a table, it should yet be enough for a piece of bread, and for a sip of wine or two, out of a plastic bottle.
An abject mix of the worst stuff, at the bottom line of what is legally allowed to be called "wine", and possibly somewhat "borderline", too. That's what clochards keep themselves warm with, after having spent most of those 1.50 € on buying decent food for their dog.
It's coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet
It should be clear by now that I'm not exactly searching for God — but if ever I should, I'd know where to find Him.
●
Of course I do not know what happened in India. But the difficulties a monotheist might have to find a synthesis between zen and faith are not so very difficult to imagine. Zazen causes your hips and knees to hurt, monotheism confronts you with an unanswering God. These are things that happen.
We all obviously want money, and health, and our neighbour's lawnmower to be busted (or similar stuff, you name it). And we experience that zen and God just won't obey our orders or prayers.
Since Leonard Cohen's going to India seems to be a problem, I asked the internet about Balsekar. And I found, for example:
"What is the significance of the statement 'No one can get enlightenment'? This is the very root of the teaching. It means that it's stupid for any so-called master to ask anyone to do anything to achieve or get enlightenment. The core of this simple statement means, according to my concept, that enlightenment is the annihilation of the "one" who "wants" enlightenment. If there is enlightenment - which can only happen because it is the will of God - then it means the "one" who had earlier wanted enlightenment has been annihilated. So no "one" can achieve enlightenment and therefore no "one" can enjoy enlightenment."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesh_Balsekar)
Quite obviously I do not know what happened in India. But Leonard Cohen's approach seems perfectly lucid and coherent to me. He read books by Balsekar, and since they spoke true, but written transmission was not enough, he went there to hear oral transmission spoken by a voice of authority.
It seems perfectly comprehensible to me that thus the pieces of a stubborn puzzle may suddenly have clicked into place, and that the picture became more than the sum of its parts, and awakened to life.
That's when the real value of all such parts can be recognised.
One never really knows in advance which way it is going to happen,
nor how much will be needed
to welcome the banality of ordinary day light.