I seem to be the only Grinch on campus who tells a
participant who is concerned about his health that he should be grateful for
the years of life and health that he has enjoyed and accept the aging process
of the physical body.
This isn’t a lament. Rather one of many self-observations
that seem to be coming to me lately.
Maybe I can be forgiven for saying that to a 49yr old, but
what about a 12yr old? Aren’t I supposed to tell him he will be cured of his
juvenile diabetes that he contracted overnight after being medically treated
for what seemed like an innocuous bout of viral flu? But I think the poor chap
is as carelessly stressed as a boy that age could be about a disease he doesn’t
understand. The least I can do is indulge him when he proudly tells me about
the middle-eastern country he visited with his family. He makes a
generalization about a particular sect of people which would have earned a
scathing retort from me if it had come from someone slightly older than him. He
has enough restrictions as it is without me telling him what and how he should
think.
Lately I have noticed that I’m slowly letting go of the need
to control and direct the outcome of things in my interactions with others.
This is not always easy here when being relaxed most often means relaxing one’s
principles. The general activities here like the morning meet and the evening
chant are insisted upon as ways to cultivate devotion. Failure to do so can
result in a large fine. I am trying to
decide if I’ll discontinue the course if they insist on me paying the fine to
sit my semester exams. I haven’t been attending for the past month or more.
Somehow the condescending remarks about other communities and faiths along with
the order one day to forge data in the clinic in time for an audit did it for
me. I may not be Indian or Hindu but that does not make me incapable of
devotion or high ideals. I am beginning to wonder at the beauty of discovering
my own truth within. I may have gone about gaining this insight the long way round,
but better late than never. And the journey is always worth it J
