Thursday, January 20th, 2011

Will this Happen to Me?

Thornhill, Ontario

And speaking of shuffling along I still see the image of my dear Godbrother, a monk from New York, Romapada Swami, in my mind’s eye, forging ever so slowly ahead in the same street of Rosedale that I walked today. The swami came to Toronto to the world -renowned Shouldice Hospital for hernia surgery. It was a good twenty years ago or more that I walked beside him at what seemed to me to be a snail’s pace. He was hurting or at least he was careful and frankly I can’t recall if the stroll was before or after the operation.

One thing that was clearly set in to the recesses of my recollection was my inner thought at that time. “I wonder if this will happen to me? “ And sure enough it is happening. I find myself in the Shouldice getting first of all orientated with a shared room, the staff and the surroundings (beautiful grounds around).

I had to come to the self-admission that the machinery (this body) is needing repair from time to time. I’m not invincible or immortal but let’s settle for the word invincible first because mortality will find its way “down the road” (please Krishna). Wasn’t the word ”unsinkable” used to describe the Titanic before it set sail on that fateful journey? Invincible, unsinkable is practically the same thing.

On that summer along with the swami I do recall thinking that all my daily walking, all the exercise, should spare me of what my monk friend is going through. But no! Not a chance! Anything can happen to anyone. It’s profound.

And so the ego would say, “Oh no, not me!” The Truth will reveal otherwise. If we don’t see truth through a deductive rationale then hopefully it will work its way through another channel but it’s always there.

Here’s to quote Robert Browning:

“Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise from outward things, whatever you may believe. There is an inmost center in us all, where truth abides in fullness”.