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Karma Talk
by Swami
Beyondananda
Dear
Swami:
More and more, I keep hearing about the health benefits
of laughter, but I'm not convinced. Is there any
actual scientific proof that laughter is good for us?
DeWitt Wright,
Dacron, Ohio
Dear DeWitt:
Well, I'll let you decide for yourself. In a
now-famous experiment, a group of psychology students
were given two hours off to watch comedy movies.
Another group was deprived of sleep for three days, then
given Croatian parables to memorize... and given
electric shocks each time they made a mistake. The
results were conclusive. The group watching comedy
had more fun.
* * * *
Dear Swami:
You know how they say people look like their dogs?
Well, for about two weeks last month around here, not
only did people look like their dogs, but they dressed
like them as well. In one case, I saw what I
thought was an Afghan hound being walked. When I
looked closer, though, I noticed it was really a
Standard Poodle with a Michael Bolton hairdo -- kind of
foofy on top, long in the back, short on the sides.
Sure enough, I looked up at the owner and he had the
exact same haircut! A few days later, I was
walking in the park again and there was a girl in a
black running suit with turquoise trim -- walking a
black lab with a turquoise collar. And on and on
... and then all of a sudden, after about two weeks of
this, everything changed -- and now people and dogs
aren't matching anymore. Swami, do you have any
explanation for why people would all of a sudden be so
attuned to their dogs?
Celine P. Sameet
Boca Raton, Florida
Dear Celine:
It is no accident that "dog" is
"God" spelled backward, for they are in many
ways the embodiment of love on earth. I think of
friendly dogs as love depositories. You make a
deposit by petting the dog, saying kind words, treating
them to a treat -- and then whenever you need to, you
can make a love withdrawal, and paradoxically the love
in increased and not diminished. So it is
perfectly natural for people to be lovingly in tune with
their pets. The phenomenon you observed is simply
this natural affinity between people and their dogs
intensified by just the right astrological conditions,
namely Venus and Pluto being conjunct.
* * * *
Dear Swami:
Am I the only one who thinks it ironic that we as a
society insist we want less violence, and yet we keep
manufacturing and selling more handguns? Not only
that, but here in California we are spending more on
building new prisons than we are building new schools.
Does that make sense? And take the war on drugs --
please! It's a financial hemorrhage that actually
ends up supporting drug dealers by keeping prices
artificially high -- and bankrupting the rest of us.
What is it going to take for society to see these
ironies and do something about them?
Henri Pentant,
Pacific Grove, California
Dear Henri:
The gun situation reminds me of a cartoon I saw many
years ago. A mother is handing boxing gloves to
her two young sons and saying, "Now, don't
fight!" In the same way, we have glorified
gunplay, so it shouldn't be surprising to see our
children playing with guns. Not that handguns are
themselves to blame. After all, guns don't kill
people, bullets do. And you can get bullets at
K-mart. Which is why we seem to need more prisons
than schools nowadays. And, just for the record, it's
not only drug dealers who benefit from the war on drugs.
It stands to reason, the more laws you have, the more
law enforcement you need. And the war on drugs is
a multi-billion dollar industry.
Like the two guys sitting in a bar having a few
beers. After a while, one let on that he was a
cop.
"Oh, we're in the same industry," said the
other.
"You're a cop too?" asked the law officer.
"Nope, I'm a criminal."
Talk about co-dependency...
So, back to your original question: How do
we bring these ironies to consciousness and do something
about them? Well, as you probably know, I have
long been involved in raising consciousness about that
silent crippler, irony deficiency. And as you have
pointed out, our inability to digest these ironies is
crippling our society. The solution as I see it is
to circulate more and more irony supplements through the
body politic. Each time you see an article
pointing out one of these huge ironies, pass it along to
all your friends on the internet -- and the outernet.
Maybe if we keep pumping ironies like this, the body
politic will realize that the best way to overcome our
societal addiction to guns, drugs and prisons is to
invest in improving reality.
* * *
*
Copyright
2000 by Steve Bhaerman. All rights reserved.
Read also:
"Who
Is Swami Beyondananda?"
and
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