Vraja Kishor Dasa
CHEW THE THORN. Drink the blood. Call it pleasure. "Quench that thirst."
Sex is suffering. Bleed envy. Bleed jealousy. Bleed heartache. Call it pleasure. Chew the thorn.
I won't.
Go ahead, say it. Call me a fanatic. I don't mind it's not the first time. Hey, I'm a brahmacari (celibate). Okay so I'm obviously a crazy.
Anyway, let me tell you a crazy story about a camel. Camels have strange behavior. Plodding through the desert for days on end gets them really thirsty. But there's no water in sight, which freaks the camel out a bit.
Now the weird part: The thirsty camel walks up to some scraggly shrub brush, sticks his big lips around it, and bites off a thorn. Smile on his face, eyes staring blankly to the horizon, he begins to chew. Thorn slices tongue. Tongue bleeds. He lets the blood well up inside his mouth and anticipates the pleasure, the wonderful pleasure.
Swallow. Yes, oh yes the sensation. Quench that thirst.
Anyway, another crazy story: Human camels plod through this desert world. Astray from the lands of abundant waters, we crave to slake our parched throats, to gulp down the cool waters of pleasure. But there is hot, sandy reality beneath our feet, and no water in sight. We freak out a bit.
We human camels have strange behavior. Wide-eyed and hopeful, we saunter up to the scraggly shrub brush of material happiness, eager to imitate the more "experienced" camels around us. We slap our lips around the most inviting thorn of them all: sex.
Heart beating fast, eyes blankly lodged in the horizon, we vigorously chew the thorn: and it slices the tongue. Everything is lost in the immediate sensation we don't want to hear your fairy tales of "real water" in a far-off land. This blood will satisfy us.
The wounds bleed. Wounds of envy. Wounds of jealousy. Wounds of Romeo and Juliet. Wounds of conquesting another human being. We hardly care to notice. Just let the blood well in your mouth, and anticipate the pleasure, the wondrous pleasure.
Swallow. Yes, oh yes the sensation. Quench that thirst.
No. The thirst is not quenched. We shall die in the desert. Alone, barren.
Vraja Kishor Dasa joined the Hare Krsna movement three years ago. He and his band, 108, are based at ISKCON's temple in Dallas, Texas.