Daily Theosophy

The cremation of his body had been surrounded by a lot of pomp. After his death he had quickly freed himself from all evil desires and after that had spent considerable time in “heaven” (as he would have called it in his present life) – that is, a kind of very beautiful dream where all his good ideas came true. He had really developed some feeling of wishing to do something good for mankind.

(31)

(peter became king of the Disco)

Peter had been a very promising kid in the beginning. Kind, good at school, totally non-aggressive, he had been no worry ever for his parents. He went to church with them without protest, and though it was quite boring for him, he somehow liked some of the atmosphere of the old building. His sister had been like a second mother for him. He had nothing to worry. His parents were stern, but honest, and they taught him how to behave.

But that was all going to change. After his disappointment about Krishna, he had come to believe that Jesus was the only one who really cared for children, and was still present today, even though you could not see him. That was what the minister and his parents had told him many times. And apparently Jesus understood that he loved computer games, and allowed him. And as early as his thirteenth year he had decided that he wanted to put his life in service of Jesus. He always did his school work to satisfaction, even in times of the greatest difficulties, he failed one year when he was fifteen, but finally made the grade. This was one side of Peter.

A few months before he became fifteen he began to change. Not only physically, as all boys do, but in the first place emotionally. He was invited by some schoolboys, who were fifteen and sixteen, to join them in going to the disco. But they said, “don’t tell your parents.” “Of course not,” said Peter, “they don’t understand much of me anyway.” He heard himself say that, and realized that he had never said or even thought that before. Peter hardly knew what a disco was. So on Saturday evening he asked his parents whether he could go and do some computer games at the house of a friend. They let him promise to be home at eleven. Peter could not believe his eyes and his ears. Between his two friends he entered a building with an exiting atmosphere, with flashing lights. Inside it was half dark. Everywhere lights were flashing in fierce rhythms, and even more stimulating was the uninterrupted hard and rhythmic dance music. It was too noisy to talk, but you didn’t need to, because everyone was dancing. After a few minutes Peter began to find it exciting, and he started to feel the rhythm in his own body. He had never danced, and felt a bit shy, but he had quickly noticed that you just had to shake your arms and your body, and that the rest seemed to go automatically. One of his friends had walked away and came back with three glasses of beer. He had never tasted beer, but you cannot be fourteen and refuse beer. It was bitter, and it was only after three glasses that he thought he liked it. And he was dancing ! Would his parents be happy or angry when they would see him there? For him it was marvelous. After what seemed a short time he happened to see a clock – and it was almost eleven. How did he regret that – he could have stayed for hours. It had been the best evening in his whole life – so far.

The next day his parents saw that he was more cheerful than otherwise on Sundays, and trusted that he had really had a nice evening at his friend’s house. In the mean time Peter could hardly wait till the next weekend. Again he enjoyed. He had discovered a whole new live – a life where he could be ‘himself,’ and life in his emotions, in stead of always pushing them away in order to behave neatly. And this went on for weeks and weeks. He had also discovered that some people were standing together in a corner, bowing over something he couldn’t see, as if they were eating something. Others were smoking – about twenty kids in a separate room, because officially smoking was not allowed. Peter’s father also smoked, but what these boys and girls were smoking had a very different smell. Peter tried it, and despite the strange laughing behavior of his friends, it didn’t seem to have any effect on him. But next week he tried again, and suddenly felt himself extremely stoned, as they called it. He found it a better experience than being drunk.

He didn’t come at eleven any more – his parents slowly became used to that, though in the beginning they had threatened him to keep him inside. One Saturday evening he didn’t come home at all. Peter was worried about going home, so he called, and apologized for missing the last bus last night. He had indeed missed the bus – by five hours, but that he didn’t say. And next time he said that he wouldn’t come home, because he could just as well sleep at his friend’s place that night.

In reality Peter never went to bed at his friend’s house before six next morning. He had begun to lead a double life. One with his parents and at school, and another in the disco. He now went directly from school on Friday to his friends and the disco, and came back only Sunday evening – forgetting about the church – something his father was very angry about. It was a difficult period for Peter’s parents, who were in fact desperate, but didn’t have the force of character to interfere. In fact they still didn’t know he was spending his nights at that disco.

He started to experiment with all kinds of drugs. He wanted to have more and more experiences, dance, pushing away his education, having some pride of himself. First he started smoking, and then wanted to try everything possible, and sometimes mixtures of this and that. He had learned that Jesus had died for the people’s sins, so for his sins also, and that nothing could ultimately go wrong with him. He thought that he knew what he was doing. The drugs he took most were hallucinogenic drugs, and each trip kept him busy for some eight hours. He yearned for ‘wisdom’ but he had no idea what ‘wisdom’ was. But at the end of most trips he had a feeling of being wiser than before, of having understood something new. He noticed the futility of ‘normal’ life, and the unimportance of worldly pursuits of the people. He also saw in a kind of mind-created vision in a faint blue color that everything in the universe was related by having some things, feelings, particles, thoughts, in common, and that these related things tended to aggregate, and that therefore the universe was both infinitely diverse and united. He saw people walking in the streets that seemed to be made of cardboard – merely a façade, a paper mask that everyone had put on, and after which they tried to hide their real nature. He himself never wanted to be so hypocritical, and would have nothing to hide. His body, he thought, was only his façade, his person, but not the real, secret Peter. He wished he had someone to share the real Peter with. But all his friends were on their own trip, so he kept just as lonely. He wanted things to be real, open, honest. He clearly understood now that even ministers and parents showed merely their facades, because they were afraid to recognize the reality of themselves. Sometimes he saw and heard things, crazy things, sounds, sometimes monster-like creatures in the air which nobody else could perceive. He saw that ‘beauty’ was universal, visible in everything, even in the shit of a dog, and had nothing to do with what people define as ‘beautiful.’ It was only part of their façade. Beauty was something independent, and if you looked right you could see it everywhere. And everything moved, and was intense, and out of proportion. He liked it when he could no longer see the difference between his drug-mind and reality: whether things were strait or round, long or short. He wanted to go to the limit. Once he had a ‘bad trip’ and saw as it where his own desperate situation, with himself, his life, his parents, his unanswerable passion for ‘wisdom.’ It was such a terrible experience that he never forgot it. He even vowed to stop with drugs, but that only lasted for two weeks. He thought that Jesus must also have gone through all these experiences, and therefore understood and would forgive him. He sucked in one experience after another, until even his mates were afraid that he would go crazy and never return to normal. Because that had already happened to some. They were crazy for the rest of their life, some shouting around, obsessed as it were, or they couldn’t stop seeing weird things that nobody else could see. But Peter always kept his self-confidence, as if something in him knew that this was his way, and the right way. Well, that is disputable of course. But probably that is what saved him.

(32)

(the covenant)

The result of his rough life was that his eyes seemed to lean back in their orbits, and that a crazy light seemed to be shining through them. Once his mother told him that she was worried about him. And he answered: “Ma, don’t worry,