'our creation is that guru; the duration of our lives is that guru; our trials, illnesses and calamaties is that guru. There is a guru that is nearby and a guru that is beyond the beyond. I humbly make my offering to the guru, the beautiful remover of ignorance, the enlightenment principle that is within me and surrounds me at all times.'
Guru Stotram

Friday 28 November 2008

I need to learn to ride a motorcycle. The last time I rode a motorcycle I couldn't make it do corners and I had to get off at every turn and manually change direction. This time I'm going to be on the Malabar coast, where every other motorcycle will have at least fifteen passengers, where no noticeable differentiation exists between one side of the road and the other, and where headlights at night are considered a rash waste of fuel. It's all a bit concerning.

On top of that I was alarmed at yoga last evening to learn that, on top of my current myriad of existential angsts, I now have to add the fact that once I no longer have a physical manifestation I won't be able to work on improving my karma. Were you aware of this fact? I'm hoping that riding a motorcycle along the Malabar coast won't too greatly hasten the urgency of the apprehesion, but just in case, I need to crack on now, otherwise I'll never get to Enlightenment. It's a worry. Yoga, art, love... Enlightenment. That's my game-plan - and let's face it, in times like these, we all need a game-plan!

But remember, the road to Englightenment is paved with self-investigation and art is nothing if not self-investigation. So I'm in the right job at least. Well, that's a load off. And that's not where the good news ends. No, the best bit is that I'm not a banker. Close shave there.

In all honesty I never really saw myself as a banker but I could see the benefits of it. Up until now, that is. Finally the city boys are catching up with my financial game-plan. As Evelyn Waugh reminds us, it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Now it's not just me who's going to be going to heaven, hey? We'll all be going. By the bus-load. We'll take the char-a-banc along the Malabar coast. First left to Nirvana?

Silver lining. There's always a silver lining. With "banks falling over like fat Labradors running over a wet kitchen floor" and your hard earned savings on lock down, it begins to seem as though the bank mightn't be the best place to be stashing your cashola just at the minute. Perhaps a few wise investments in the contemporary art market might prove more profitable over the long term and more stable over the short? I'm plumping for that, so join me if you'd care too. I'll be only too happy to advise. Think of it like this: if you'd invested a few thousand in Rothko in the late 1940s you wouldn't be worrying about the small matter of global economic meltdown now. AND you'd be moving nearer to Nirvana every time you looked at the object of your investment... just a thought.

Brideshead without Anthony Andrews though. I don't know about that. On the up side, I can't really afford to go to the movies at the moment, so I'm going to stay at home and work on my Enlightenment programme, which is coming along nicely.


"Some people acquire collections of the most atrocious things just out of the sheer urge to collect. They imagine that because they have the impulse to do it, they should be let loose where they wouldn't be in any other field. In art everyone likes to think that they are their own expert, but you wouldn't try to do your own operation on your hand - you'd go to the best in the field."
Ivor Braka, London

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