My new friend

My New friend is 16 but leads the life of a nine or ten year old.He loves to make Bows and arrows from twigs and strings and made tea yesterday all by himself.He loves mythology and talks nonstop about Gods and other divinities. A meeting with a life threating illness ( blood cancer) left him with Epilepsy and the gift of eternal childhood.He is in total remission but
suffers Seizures.He comes to "play " with me once a week.He is my teacher.

Yesterday he said "I have a costume on .A costume of being THIS" he said, pointing to his body. "If I go away in sanyas, I will cause pain to every one" he said." to my mother, to my father, to my sister, to my grandmother, to you. Thats why I am quiet. I donot talk about," he said.

I dont know if my freind is a great soul in this disguise or a mere child repeating things he has picked up. Thats not my right to know.But what really amazed me is his idea that his intentions may hurt people around him.

To deal with Ahimsa at the level of not disclosing even intentions of action that may hurt someone is something everyone can learn from my friend.

He doesnot have to be an avataar or a reborn saint. He is a great human being for me.

pain

thank you

you tell me I am alive

wake up

my

sleeping muscles

prick my being

into intolerable existence

yet

only you

show me

I am real

not

a wisp of Maya

floating in

in the unreachable depths of Nirvana

you are the here and now

excruciating

unbearable

pain

Karma Credit Cards- a card all of us have!

I stood outside the gate, looking at the burst water pipe discharging water in a stream on the road. My neighbour said “It is all our karma! There is so much water in front of us yet there is not a drop in the house. I must have denied water to someone at some time.” As I walked back indoors, I examined the popular idea of karma being interpreted by a sort of ‘Newtonian Karma Law’ (physicists, please excuse this phrase). This popular law states that “some action done in some past that is said to be recorded on people’s foreheads comes back and hits us in exactly the same way.” The karmic calculations of this ‘return ball Karma’ are really difficult and it leaves us like victims, bound by destiny and with no choice in our lives. In my reading of many scriptures I didn’t exactly come across this notion of action and reaction.
What then is Karma? I understand Karma like a credit card account. Each one of us gets a customized Karma credit card. Everyone comes with a credit limit or karma limit on their Karma card. Just like the credit card, it is a very personal thing. When your desire exceeds what your KC limit allows, you suffer as you will not get what you want. This is “bad karma”. If you desire things within your limit then it is possible to have great pleasure, this would be “good karma”. If you do not use your card at all you are said to be liberated. Just as in case of a credit card outward appearances cannot reveal your credit status so judgments about bad karma and retribution cannot be made. You can run bad debts (be unethical), pay high interest rates (pain) or some times by dramatic events change your card say by divine intervention of a God or guru .In the case of Shankaracharya for example, it is said he was saved from the jaws of a crocodile by taking sanyas. Part of the card customisation is also the body you have. Having the body to experience different aspects of life is also like having access to places which can swipe your card. You can swipe a karma card for sweets only if you are not diabetic.
When your credit card is cancelled you will die. You may however reapply, and change your card and come back with a new body and your credits are transferred to the new card in your next life. You can upgrade or downgrade your card by your actions in the current lifetime.
Perhaps offers have been included in the Karma credit card too. ‘Sharing love’ is a definitely a cash back offer and letting others use your card reduces interest rates. We also have add-on cards with the close people in our life and finally perhaps the divine can increase the credit limit at her discretion.
This karma card interpretation can be used to look at the interplay between what we want and what we have. It informs the idea of contentment in our everyday life. To be happy I just desire less. So I took a bucket out to the burst pipe and filled up my bath water with a smile.