Article: 179075 of talk.bizarre
From: sweth@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu (chutzpah)
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
Subject: why I am tamasic.
Date: 5 Dec 1994 15:37:30 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
Lines: 76
Sender: nobody@cs.utexas.edu
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9412051625.A23117-0100000@gwis2>
Status: O

	I am tamasic.  At least, a very wise old man once told me that I
was tamasic.  He said that that was the root of all my problems--that my
outlook on life was too tamasic, and at best it became rajasic.  What I
needed to do, he said, was learn how to become satvic.  ("But why would I
want to become Satvik?  He's my cousin in L.A.")  He explained how I could
change my outlook on life--a simple regimen of prayer, meditation, and
karma yoga (selfless service to others).  I was sceptical at first, but
then he began to talk about atoms.  He claimed that the cube was the
building block of the universe, and that this was reflected in the atom,
which was itself a cube.  He pointed out the cube-faced lattices of
molecular bonding as his proof.  He talked for hours about the cube shaped
atom, and when he was done he had me convinced of its truth.  And then,
once he had me hooked, he reeled me in.  "You are tamasic," he said.  "Like
the round atom you so want to believe in, you are tamasic.  If you are
lucky, the power inside you will come out, and you will be rajasic, but
that is not enough.  You must surpass all of that, the tamas and the
rajas, and instead find your moksa in your inner satva--you that are now a
sphere must become a cube."
	I thanked him for his advice, and returned home to begin my new
life of satva.  I gave up meat.  I donated all of my belongings to the
poor.  I meditated, I prayed, and I found my inner peace.  The 
world raged around me, fiery and untamable, but I was unperturbed.  For I
had found the truth--that the world could _not_ be tamed.  So I did not
try.  Instead, like the uncarved block of which Lao-Tzu spoke, I sat in
the middle of it all, untouched, and contemplated the vastness of the
universe.
	Then, one day, as I was making my daily pilgrimage from one end of
town to the other, begging for alms and casting my blessings on those who
needed it, I saw that wise old man, sitting contemplatively on the side of
the road, unbothered by the loud traffic that roared past him.  I smiled at
him, and he smiled back; between us I could feel the unbreakable bond of
true satva.
	Suddenly, a truck lost a tire, careered out of control, and ran
over the wise old man, killing him instantly.
	I froze.  I knew I should feel some sorrow, but the satva which I
had found had no room for such mourning.  Then again, I realized, the
satva which I had found had no room for dodging rajasic trucks, either.
	I calmly continued down the street until I found a poor, innocent
young man standing at a crosswalk.  Without a further thought, I grabbed
him by the shoulder spun him around, and lay a vicious backhand across the
bridge of his nose.  I grinned as I heard it break, blood spurting into
the air.  A quick jab with my other hand knocked out a few teeth; as he
stood there, dazed, I grasped his hand, laying my palm across the bridge
of his knuckles.  I flipped his hand over, so that his palm faced up to
the heavens, and wrapped my other hand around his as well, letting my
fingers curl just over his.  Exhaling forcefully, I felt my ki flow out of
my hara and down through my hand; I pushed my arm forward, curling my
fingers up as though they were drops of water flowing over a waterfall. 
He crumpled to the ground, like a wilted petal from a long-dead lotus.
	Locking elbows with him, and bracing his hand in my armpit, I slid
behind his prone form, straightened my own arm, and leaned forward.  With
a sickening crack, his shoulder popped out of the socket, and his humerus
broke as well.  He lay there, whimpering in pain, blood dripping from his
face and his arm hanging at an unnatural angle.  I reached into his back
pocket, pulled out his wallet, and continued down the road.  Spying a pair
of Golden Arches, I walked inside, ordered three Big Macs and a McRib
sandwich, and paid with my recently-won cash.
	I used what was left of the money to send out a few hundred of
those pyramid-scheme get-rich-quick chain letters; within a few months I
was richer than I could imagine.  I bought back all of my old stuff, got a
new car, and went back to my old tamasic ways; I stayed that way for the rest
of my life.
	But something always bugged me.  So last night, I dug up an old
chemistry book.  Sure enough, there it was, in black and white, a diagram 
of the electron shells of an atom: polar bulbs, spheres, and toroids, all
overlapping at odd angles.  Square atoms indeed--what a crock of shit.

	satvically violent,
	sweth.

<sweth@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu>
dark, fruity, nutty... vague smoky overtones...
sweth--a refreshing beverage, and a way of life.