(5) Azraq

Dear Master, In your last last communication you were critical as regards humour—and, in particular, comedians. Yet I often listen to your lectures on my phone and I find that I begin to laugh. It seems to me that you are quite a comedian…So how can you be so harsh on other comedians? In devotion, Frater DOS.

Dear Frater, this matter has been raised by several other correspondents, so that I understand your position perfectly. What you must understand—what I urge you to meditate upon—is the slogan that this brotherhood venerates; indeed, it is the slogan with which I end my letters: Honesty our honour. What does this mean? It means frankness, frankness even unto brutality. Yes, even brutal honesty has regenerative power. Earlier masters liked to draw a veil over their honesty, I am the first to say: give it to them both barrels—and in the face! What is the result? Arguments—often, yes; yet, as the old philosopher said, “War is the king of all”; if we are not in conflict, if we do not have an antagonist, we have stopped growing—we are dying, in fact.

Let us say if you are honest then sometimes what you say will be very profound and at other times very funny—yet it will never be funny ha-ha. The comedian is contrived; he has an act—an act that disguises his weakness; we in the brotherhood have no act—we know that “to go naked is the best disguise”. As we say, we say—it is profound, it is comic; it is silence. When you touch reality you will find people are silent or they laugh—but it is not how they laugh at a clown, at his self-abasement. They give the genuine laugh, from the belly—the cosmic laugh. This is why I say I am a fool, not a clown—the fool has no act, he just observes what is. Honesty our honour. In devotion, Frater 000.