Jiva to Atma

Last evening, R took Winkie to his karate class. It was parent participation night. They were showing a video on how to deal with strangers. Some of the parents were called upon to play a stranger in different situations, and the child was supposed to demonstrate what to say and how to deal with them.

For instance, if a stranger came upto you (a child) and said…Hey, do you want some candy?….you are supposed to say NO. If he says…do you want to get into my car and show me the way to the police station?….you say NO. If he says…get in the car, I am a cop…you say NO and ask for a badge.

This is to keep yourself safe. Its an awareness training to identify potential threats from strangers and use your discrimination and act accordingly.

R came home and told me about the class. And how it set him thinking. These lessons to kids, were life lessons for all of us. We also face strangers in our life everyday. Every once in a while, greed comes knocking and asks….Do you want more of this?….The ideal answer is NO, but many a times we do not manage it. We come face to face with anger….and let it completely take us away in that car, without asking for a badge….without saying NO first. Hatred makes our acquaintance and we take its hand and get embroiled in its grip. Jealousy works in much the same way and we are hopelessly trapped. All because of our inability to identify them as the strangers to our divine soul, and use our God given intellect to say NO.

As we chewed on this clear thought, it finally dawned. That there was in effect, only one true STRANGER. The mind. That part of the mind that fostered divisiveness. That fed into the duality of existence, denying the oneness of all creation. That part of our mind, led away by the senses, was the one true stranger that created all these other sub facets of it. If we could learn to observe the inner workings of our mind, we might just find the key to saying NO.