13.5

Perhaps it was the music, gently lulling him into uncertainty, perhaps the hashish. More likely the presence of the two sadhus made its relevance poignantly pointed. Why would you renounce the world?

Perhaps you’ve taken it too literally.

Perhaps they don’t renounce the whole thing. You can’t renounce nature! And look at how easily the sadhus react with the crowd. They certainly don’t renounce humanity!

Perhaps renunciation is more subtle than that.

More about… the way the world is – the condition of the world.

The drummer sadhu was the undoubted star of the show, controlling the mood of the other musicians with his haunting, thumping rhythms, rhythms which pulsated through Max like a heart-beat – K-chunk- K-chunk- K-chunk – slicing a path through the detritus in his mind.

Perhaps they don’t renounce the world at all.

Perhaps they renounce the concepts that condition the world.

Man made concepts that we all have to conform to.

Like money… and power.

K-chunk.

Perhaps the act of renunciation takes the mind beyond these man-made concepts – beyond this conditioning – and sets it free.

K-chunk, K-chunk, K-chunk.

Human beings…

Born with a free mind – perfect, pure, uninhibited – only to spend a lifetime adjusting to the concepts….

My money.

My position.

My wife.

My family.

My things.

That’s it…

K-chunk.

That’s human conditioning.