!CRAZY!

David listened to Colleen rant about her frustrations for ten minutes.
Then he stood, walked toward her and looked her in the eye.
She stopped, mesmerised, and held eye contact, but without his changing the slightest curl of lip or raise of eyebrow, merely by his thinking a thought of jocular disdain, she twitched her head, looked away, and fell into a silence of introspection, as if for the first time she had actually heard herself carrying on.
Immediately they moved. David calmly turned to the kitchenette sink. Colleen, as if in shock, walked into the lounge, where she sat pensively on the two-seater sofa, stunned into reconsidering everything she had just been castigating David on, about his earlier commentary on Spirit, on the powers of the mind, about the strength which comes to one who aligns their whole being with the “Greater Whole Reality”.
He lifted a glass from the “washed” side of the sink, and turned to pour himself some water.
Without looking at her, he knew she had raised her head to watch him, and knew she was now submissive.
“We are not One” he said. “While you are liberated from the traditional role of woman-the-servant, you have become fixed in the celebration, and lose your Self in egoism.”
Colleen shifted in uneasiness.
“Of course this goes against your controlling Spirit, but Knowledge on these matters can only be heard by those who have dedicated themselves to wanting to hear.”
“What is truth David?” Colleen said after a few moments silence, remembering an earlier conversation, which also left her feeling a little vacuous.
“I can’t tell you” he said, emphasising the word ‘tell’. “All I can do, all anyone can do is make you aware of what is not Truth, and make you aware of the deception of people’s words,” he paused, “..... and of your own ability to observe the processes of mind which feed on and perpetuate ever greater delusion...... then finally..... hopefully...... I can guide you to trustworthy literature and teachers.”
He moved into the lounge room and sat at his desk, swinging his office chair around to look at her.
“Even then” he continued, “everything I say is useless unless you want to know, and you must want to know from the depths of your Heart”.
“Do I want to know?” Colleen said, half asking herself, her head bowed and resting in her hands, with elbows on her knees.
“One half of you does, but the false ego, the one which grows from untruths, would have you believe in anything but a Higher Spirit, and will fight tooth and nail to convince you that Truth is the illusion.”
“That’s why, if you’re serious, you must take that hardest step of all and reject your opinions..... reject, or better, let go of all you’ve come to believe about such matters.”
“Oh-God!! Colleen retorted in exasperation and laughter. “What are you asking? How on Earth can I - can anybody do that??”
As she threw herself back on the sofa, ‘til looking up at the ceiling, in a restrained, guttural tone she cried “ARGH!!!? You’re sending me crazy with your weird statements!!”
Immediately David responded to prevent what she’d just said from taking hold in her mind.
“Truth won’t send you crazy! It’s the untruth, the devil if-you-like, which sends us over sanity’s edge, into craziness.”
They said nothing for a while. Colleen eventually said in a gentle voice, “the devil hates Truth!” then, after a further pause, “How do I let go? God! Isn’t it crazy?!... I don’t even know how to let go!!”
“Maybe you can’t.” David said. “It isn’t easy! Maybe life is too good for you to want to ask such esoteric questions of yourself.
For some, these ethereal equations are logical, while others find them positively repulsive. The “Vedic” Teachings say this is due to our different Spiritual development through many lives, a positive or negative legacy from our own Karma and Sanskara from past lives. The analyst perceives it as psychological nurturing in the family and early social environment. Both are quite feasible to my mind, but those who believe in the genetic theory, are, well, some way short of any real understanding. It’s such a shame that “qualifications” are yet only literal and not Spiritual. But that’ll come.
But besides, rarely in Kali Yuga are people raised to see beyond the temptation of the “Great Delusion”.
Colleen was uneasy. Her mind was wavering between chaos and calm. She knew enough about herself to observe that somewhere inside, she wanted to agree with what David was saying, but whenever that feeling showed signs of warming her Heart, her rebellious emotional self launched forth a torrent of thought and question - thought and question - question?-question??-question??? -
Rebellion!!
This inner duel was ripping at her Soul, giving her no pleasure, confusing her, causing her to react with more challenges to David’s powerful presence.
Again she stood up and began to verbalise all kinds of shallow question and statement about the “evolution” and “animal” theories, none of which David sought to answer.
After a minute of babble, she exhaled with a deep sigh. She was unable to keep it up against the calmness she found herself falling more and more for each time she listened to him.
Her facial expressions had changed several times in the last half-hour, from aloof to idiotic, from enraged to submissive, from demonic to angelic, but her mind was even more varied in it’s fill.
At last without speaking she turned and walked into David’s bedroom. As if in an hypnotic trance she removed her blouse, shoes and socks and climbed into his bed.
David came in, saw she was withdrawing, so changed his shoes and told her he was off to work.
Colleen anxiously raised her head from the pillow.
“Do you want me to go now?” she asked.
He responded by saying “You can stay here as long as you need to. You know I trust you”.
-=oOo=-
Colleen slept until ten o’clock that night, when awoken by a loud car on the road. It took her a little while to orientate herself with David’s bedroom in the darkness. When she remembered, she calmed down and lay there for ten or fifteen minutes, listening to the ambient neighbourhood noises.
She began to think. About David, and his “aura”. She had trouble with her thoughts. “He’s almost too calm, too honest.... he can’t be for real!?”
And by the standards she was used to, having lived with Trevor on and off for eight years, and having mixed with heroin users of the night-club scene for almost as long, she found David to be quite alien....., yet so-o attractive in more ways than just his looks, which is why she couldn’t stop herself from calling on him.
But there was something else...... his calm mystique......?
She got up, dressed and made herself a coffee and a sandwich.
After reading some of David’s poems and short stories, and browsing through the bookshelf, she wrote a short note and left.
Trevor arrived home as usual, at five-thirty in the morning after work as a stripper in a night-club.
After they’d eaten the burgers he’d brought home, and were sitting back smoking marijuana, she worked the conversation round to the subject of Spirituality, something they had tried to discuss over the years, a subject which always ended in ridicule and derogatory jokes against Christians and Jews and Moslems.
Cleverly, she inspired Trevor to actually bring up David’s name, and so was able to talk about what David had said, though in a way as to not divulge her activities of the night before.

Trevor was calm but mocking for a short while, then suddenly changed tack and launched into a rave.
He jumped up from the couch and began gesticulating wildly with his arms, throwing his head up and down as he ranted and pranced around the room, just to doubly ensure he had her full attention.
For a full five minutes he shouted blasphemous accusations against all forms of belief in God, deriding all religions as the cause of all wars etc. David was slandered as a naive gutless idiot with brain damage etc, and sworn at as being satan himself, who only wants to make everyone as miserable as he is....... etc.
“More people’ve died..... in the name of God!!..... Ha!!.... than anything else. Besides!!.... everyone knows Davids a total nutcase. Naah! Piss ‘im off! Forget ‘im. All he’ll do is try to make you poor and a slave to some bullshit guru..... ha! like he thinks he is!!
Colleen remained silent when she remembered that this is exactly what Trevor had done to her over the years they’d been together. She looked up at him and felt her blood run cold.
“Come-on, let’s go and score!” Trevor said, changing the subject while he still held the limelight. “I ran into Felix tonight, an’ ‘e reckons ‘e’s got some wicked hammer, like top shelf shit. Can’t wait to try some. Says he’ll lay a taste on us for nix, an’ if we like it ‘e’ll do us a spesh deal.”
Colleen fell silent. In her mind she was remembering David’s words about Happiness-big-H and the false happiness of another bottle of grog, another whack of hammer, or another barrage of meaningless words and loud noise to stupefy the insatiable, out-of-control mind.
While she was sitting in reflection, Trevor had showered and was back in the lounge room in another leather outfit, ready to score.
“Come-on!” Trevor gestured.
She returned from her thoughts, and looked up at him. He sensed her reluctance and quickly turned on the charm, walking over and smoothly falling onto the couch beside her.
“Loo-ok. Everyone knows that that’s just some shit dreamt up by some naive goodie-goodies who can’t handle the scene they’re in, so they start imagining all sorts of cosmic crap to try and escape the truth. We’re just animals, life’s all just one big accident, we’ve just got to make the most of whatever comes our way. We’re here for a good time, not a long time, so let’s just get into it and have fun!!”
Colleen was silent. Since her afternoon with David she had become aware of how Trevor and his kind knew how to turn on the velvet tongue and caress her ego into felling “loved”, and kind-of warm inside, making it almost right to accept the heroin habit she’d developed, and the prostitution.
But she knew better than to create a scene now. Felix’s offer was too tempting to let pass. But she noted the thoughts about the devils temptation. Coolly she got up from the couch and grabbed her handbag.
“Come-on!” she said.

-=oOo=-

It was over a fortnight before Colleen was in the city again.
This time she wasn’t there to thieve lingerie or cosmetics.
In a Book shop in Russell Street she asked the assistant “Do you sell a book called ‘The Geeta’?”
“Yes we do.”