The Eden Express_ A Memoir of Insanity - Mark Vonnegut [49]
“This struggle, is it in you or the outside world?”
“Both. There is no outside and inside. It’s all one. Where do I end and you begin? What’s outside and what’s inside? We’re all one. The struggle makes up everything. The struggle is between two opposites, good and evil, positive and negative, yes and no, whatever you want to call it. On and off. Everything is made up of an infinite number of ons and offs. Like computer language, where any piece of information is stored as a series of ons and offs.”
Simon and I got into a discussion of enlightenment. The talk was going pretty good. There seemed to be an awful lot of yeses going around. And then he said something that struck me very strangely.
“You know, stuff like this is really great. I really think there’s something here. I really think I might be ready to go somewhere to find a teacher to help me get further. You know, a guru or something?”
I felt betrayed. “Go some place? A teacher? A guru or something? Why? It’s all right here. What more do you need? You want a guru? Shit, right here you have the woods, the land, the goats, the birds, Zeke, Jack, Kathy, myself, and God knows how many other incredible teachers, right here. You want guru, shit. I’ll be your guru and you can be mine. What do you want to know?”
“I don’t know. I just have the feeling that there are higher beings, people who really know about this stuff who could help me out.”
“I don’t know, Simon. There’s something about the way you say ‘guru’ that brings me down. I guess I’m just reminded of priests, professors, psychiatrists, etc., and professional poets and musicians even. I just keep hoping that we can find a way to do all those things ourselves. You know, ‘get it in the streets’ type thing. If you’re really dense you might need signs to point things out to you and a real official-type guru, but I think a big part of getting there is just realizing that everything you need is right where you are.”
“Simon, what do you know about hypnosis?”
“I don’t know. Not too much, I suppose. Why?”
“Well, it’s something I’ve thought about some before and have just been thinking about more now for the past few days. I think that very possibly it’s a big clue. I’m operating under the assumption that I’m pretty much like other people and that everything I go through, other people go through the same thing to some extent and vice versa. It seems to be the only sensible way to look at things but I guess it could turn out to be a horrible mistake. If I’m sinking I don’t want to drag you along with me, Simon. That’s one of the things I’m afraid of now, that I’m sinking and am going to drag you and others down into the pit with me. Am I making sense? I think this is all somehow tied up with hypnosis and that I’m explaining it the best way it can be explained. Did I ever show you a book I started writing a couple of years back? It was all about stuff like this. It was sort of a manual about how to operate with a blown mind. Well, anyway, what I’m trying to say is that if your mind is in the right space of openness and awareness you can listen to what I’m saying and get a lot out of it, whereas some deadhead would listen and think I was crazy. I think maybe that’s what a lot of craziness is. People just not being creative enough listeners.
“ ‘Is the tea in the tongue or in the leaves?’ That’s a phrase that’s been popping up into my mind about every fifteen minutes day and night for the last week or so. Maybe some part of me is trying to hypnotize me with it. Sometimes I think I’m being hypnotized by compost. I guess it’s all pretty funny. Really, isn’t it?
“One of the things I might be doing now or want to do in some ways is to ask you beg you to hypnotize me. I guess I’m afraid of losing control somehow and running amuck and so if you could hypnotize