Over at the elephant journal, Henry Schliff offers an interesting post looking at pop culture’s treatment of crazy wisdom:

Deconstruct the Joker, take away his violence and you have al-Khidr or any crazy mystic in comic style, the wrench thrower, the coyote, you can even keep the violence and he is Bhairava (sans-matted hair). The Joker character is another incarnation of Tyler Durden brought out of the split-psyche of humanity, the side ruled by chaos and destruction, a veritable force of nature whose only impetus is to derail the constructive impulse. I would say the Joker could almost be a budding Milarepa cutting away the constructs of religion to attain the heart of knowledge, except he falls short accepting the tried/true societal conditioning of evil, wreaking mayhem with violence and destruction, the expected norm of evil and fear.

The following point perfectly illustrates the danger that lurks within and without any teaching that readily reveals itself through a teacher like the Joker:

In the final analysis, this character inspires awe, fear, and confusion because he exhibits disinterest towards the trite and over simplistic concepts of good and evil we so often cling to and scoffs at attempted heroisms defined by chivalry and martyrdom. He embodies incorruptible chaos without logic, law, or code.

While great teaching helps us push through the boundaries of time and mind, if it isn’t met with some type of ethical code that supports “nonharming”, crazy wisdom can easily bring out the shadow elements in any of us; a shadow, by the way, that thinks it is Divine Light.

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