… Mujhse Bura Na Koe

I spend a fair bit of time on airplanes. Long flights usually. Plenty of time for...

Catching up on reading; Reflection;
Movies; Reflection;
Getting to know the person sitting next to me; Reflection…
Each activity seems to affect my back-burner thoughts. Lately, I’ve been thinking/reflecting a lot… “Yeh Sab Kya Ho Raha Hai Yaar?!!” (Roughly translated What the heck is happening to this world?!!)

One one such flight recently, as I watched The Post, I reflected… How lucky we all US Residents were back in 1971 when a Few Good Men and One Strong Woman of the press stood up to decades of deceit by the US Government, across several Presidents. The Pentagon Papers. How damn lucky that the sitting US Supreme Court at that time threw out a challenge by the Government to squash the move. Judge Hugo Black, writing for the 6–3 U.S. Supreme Court majority, wrote:

“In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.”

In today’s America, I’m not so sure this would play out like it did in 1971. Scary thought.

To get away from the scary thought, I transitioned to a few chapters of Osho’s The Art of Living and Dying. That brought different thoughts, like, what the heck am I doing with my time? Am I living like there is no tomorrow or am I simply drifting like I will live forever? Gosh, too deep for 35,000 ft, so…

I switched to The 15:17 to Paris. The fascinating story of three Americans who saved the day averting a catastrophic disaster on that potentially ill-fated train to Paris. How lucky were their co-passengers. Those three almost did not make it to the train! And the grace with which the French President thanked these three Americans, totally distancing himself from the limelight.

And then my thoughts turned to our sitting President. The. Mr. Donald. Trump. This guy would have totally hogged all the limelight. And then some. How singularly unlucky we are to have the shallowest of the shallow leaders of the Free World. How free are we really?!! Scary thought again…

And then popped into my mind this doha (couplet) by Kabir,

Bura Jo Dekhan Mein Chala, Bura Na Miliya Koe
Jo Dil Khoja Apna, Mujhse Bura Na Koe

(I went looking for Bad, Bad I could not find
When I searched my heart, There was none more Bad than I)

Wait, what? Bad I could not find?? There was none more Bad than I?? Dude, Mr. Kabir, Sir, you did not meet Adolf Hitler; Or Omar al-Bashir of Sudan. Or Kim Jong-Il of North Korea; Or Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe; Hu Jintao of China; Mummar al-Gaddafi of Libya; Bashar al-Assad of Syria; Or, heck, Mr. Donald Trump and his Administration of the USofA! Had you met any of these, Mr. Kabir, Sir, you’d never have written the couplet.

This was my thought: Surely every one of these guys who makes the top 10 world dictators’ list, ok, except Trump who is not a dictator in the strictest sense, but still, is more Bad than I, surely!! Hence, if I were to go looking for Bad, I would find!!

Then the confabulation rectification happened. Huh, you say, what happened?!!

“Confabulation” is the fabrication / distortion of memories. This leads to incorrect understanding and hence more distortion and it feeds back and kaput! Finito! Khel Khatam (Game Over).

“Rectification” is the action of putting something right; correction.

The key line is Jo Dil Khoja Apna. When I Searched My Heart.

On the path of Yoga, there are 8 branches. Some call them The 8 Limbs of Yoga. The first branch is Yama or Social Ethics. The first sub branch of Yama is Ahimsa or non-violence. The first sub branch of the first branch, literally, is Non-Violence. Step numero-uno is NON-VIOLENCE!

Recently, I had the great privilege of attending the SANYAM program under the expert guidance of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. On the SANYAM program, in a controlled environment, under expert guidance, we went on a self-reflection journey. And a light bulb went ON:

“There is no such thing as Violence, per-se. Violence is simply the absence of Ahimsa.”

Ahimsa. That is the instruction on the first sub branch of the first branch of Yoga. Ahimsa in everything; Actions, of course, but also primarily in thought. Because the seed of all action is thought.

This instruction from Maharishi Patanjali is the oldest and first consolidated text on Yoga from year 400 CE. The first social ethic to follow is Ahimsa.

Now the circle of rectified thought process closed rapidly. The corollary to the light bulb realization is:

“There is no Bad per-se. Bad is simply the absence of Good.”

(Aside: Is there such a thing as Dark? No. Dark is simply the absence of Light. There is a story floating around on the internet about Einstein answering such to his school teacher, which, I doubt if it is true. But, there is this fantastic work by NASA called the Hubble Deep Field and Ultra Deep Field. Google these to see images for yourself. The Hubble Space Telescope was pointed to a dark portion of the sky. And they kept it there. What they found was beyond our wildest dreams. There literally is no dark. It is simply the absence of Light.)

Realizing this, that the root, the fabric, the base of everything is Good; Bad simply is the absence of the Good. How can you therefore find Bad?

Bura Jo Dekhan Mein Chala, Bura Na Miliya Koe. I went looking for Bad and did not find it!! Of course, how could I find something that is not!!

Jo Dil Khoja Apna, Mujhse Bura Na Koe. When I searched my Heart, the lack of Good was right there. I was the source of the lack of Good!!

We are indeed very lucky to have Mr. Donald Trump and his minions. His administration and he are the distilled sum-total physical manifestation of all the inner lack of Ahimsa in all of us. Mujhse Bura Na Koe. The source, the lack of Good, is internal to each one of us.

Mr. Kabir, THE Dude, The Great Saint, was right! Is right. Will always be right.

It is ours to lose this fantastic opportunity; To recognize the inner lack of Ahimsa; To allow it to be drawn out. Then in one fell swoop, chop of the head of the dragon:

November 6, 2018 and November 3, 2020.

Good Luck.

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