BURPING AND ENLIGHTENMENT: The Hidden Link    (A paper presented at the Last International Congress on Holonomic Divergence, Psycho-Physical Asynchronicities and the Nature of Unreality held in Sophia, Bulgaria, in 2006)  The connection between burping and enlightenment first struck me about 25 years ago as I sat listening to the divine words of His Battiness Mendashi Burpish Yogi.  What I noticed was that every time he would mention the word "enlightenment", he would also emit an almost imperceptive, very "ethereal", as his followers assured me, but a definite burp.  A scientific study, conducted at my request at the Mendashi  International University at Earth's End, Tasmania, showed that parasympathetic overstimulation found in enlightened persons leads to increased peristalsis and thus to a slight tendency to emit air from the upper gastrointestinal tract. The benefits of this phenomenon include lesser need to emit air from the lower gastrointestinal tract (a definite plus at crowded meditation retreats), the strengthening of the esophagus, and creation of valuable pauses which allow an enlightened person to think carefully before answering tricky questions posed by the press. When performed properly, it also gives him or her (usually him) an "air of importance."  The rate of burping (the term used by scientists is actually "eructation") was found to vary widely among enlightened individuals. The most enlightened person in the world, a recluse found in a cave in Upper Uttar Pradesh, burped at the rate of 20 per minute, a clear lead over the runner up from New Jersey, who only burped 15 times a minute. The Uttar Pradesh champion, when he finally broke his 50-year silence to enable him to take his teachings to the West, complained that the rice and chapatti given to him over the last few decades were always undercooked.  Another scientist at the MIU thought that he located a burping centre in the grain's hypothalamus, which he suitable termed "substantia eructa." When stimulated intracranially in humans, it caused burping, feelings of inexpressible bliss, and a strong erection. In cats it caused burping, purring, and an even stronger erection, which the scientists at MIU thought was a proof that cats can also get enlightened. "The erection connection", as it was termed, was found puzzling at first, but was finally explained by the close proximity of "substantia eructa" to brain's sexual centers. (Some even suggested that it should be renamed "substantia erecta.")  Since these first findings were published, sociologists noticed a much greater acceptance of burping among the general population. References to burping were found both in the Bible and in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Scholars have pointed out that both St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross were apparently inveterate burpers, as was St. Augustine. In the Bible, the sentence,  "And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones…", the "little ones" were thought to refer to the minute burps described above, cold water being a traditional home remedy against them.  In the US, an "enlightenment" or "soma" pill soon appeared on the black market under the name "Belchaid." It was soon banned by the FDA because of its supposed aphrodisiac qualities, but only after the FDA and the DEA staffs managed to stockpile sufficient amounts of it for themselves. During the Presidential elections in the US in 1996 Bill Clinton took a clear lead over other candidates primarily because of the frequency of his burping (some said that he was boasting a little).   In the meantime, Mendashi Burpish announced that people who were practicing his Transformational Burping (or TB) were "simultaneously helping to alleviate suffering and wars all over the world." "Every burp," he said, "is a step to a greater collective harmony and is equivalent to one less bullet and one less starving mouth." The scientists at MIU have calculated that with only 1% of the world's population practicing TB, and burping on the average 5 times a minute, the world would be free of hunger and violence in 10 years. Advanced burpers were sent to the main trouble spots of the world, while people were paying up to $1000 a week for techniques and courses which would increase their burping rate.  What appeared at first as a mere fad was gradually becoming a mainstream activity. A Harvard physician published an erudite book called "The Burping Response," which made the whole thing seem very respectable even to MDs. A leading social analyst in the US wrote a book called "Megaburp" which predicted the effects of mass burping on social structures of the world. A prominent physicist has also published "The Tao of Burping" which linked humble human eructations both to convulsions in the deep space and to the merry frolics of subatomic particles.  Unfortunately, the 2007 Wall Street collapse and the subsequent depression have shifted public attention to the more mundane realities of life. A pity. It would have been so much better if, as the poet has predicted, the world "would go not with a bang, but with a burp."