Atma Under House Arrest.

This is the second day being under house arrest. About 5 in the afternoon I saw my sister out back watering the tangerine tree.

“Can I come in and watch the John Steward Show tomorrow?”

“Of course you can.”

“This has been a rather long day out here.”

“Well, you brought it on yourself, Susie. Just come out and act normal.”

“Act normal? Oh alright, I guess I can do that. Will your son be there? He wouldn’t want to watch John Steward anyway, would he?”(John Steward usually makes fun of the republicans)

“It doesn’t matter, Susie. Just come in and say hello to everyone. After all, we are all family.”

I went back in to my protected environment and spoke to Swami.

“This day has been a failure. I was going to talk to you all day and stare at your picture and instead I watched crumby daytime tv.”

Have any of you ever watched day time tv? Its really gorse with shows mostly for teenagers whacking each other and canned laughter every five seconds

I felt irritable and disgusted with myself and sort of sad.

“Swami, I haven’t spoken to you all day.”

I got on the inner, “Don’t you know that when you are talking to yourself you are talking to me. Who gave you those feelings of disgust. You must think I live only in the photo on your bed. You may not have been actually having a conversation with me but your thoughts are also my thoughts. We are one. Your inner dialogue is with your inner Atma which is what I am. Did you think I wasn’t there when you were watching daytime TV. Did you think I said, as I headed out the door, ‘I’m not going to be in here for this nonsense, see you later?’

I am always with you every moment thru thick or thin, daytime TV or having a conversation with my picture. Don’t you understand why?”

“Because we are one?”

“That is correct.”

“Ok Swami, then you can come in the house tomorrow and watch the John Steward Show, OK?”

“It’s a bit crude, isn’t it?” (I made up the last part)

Third day of House Arrest.

I was pretty tired of staying in the apartment. The Colonel and party had been out all the previous day at Busch Gardens. I hadn’t been there in over fifty years but it’s still going strong. Now they have lots of stuff to see.

This morning I decided to take the bull by the horns and go inside to read the paper.

“Good morning,” I called coming into the kitchen. “Thought I’d come in and read the paper.”

“Did you come in to watch John Steward?”

“No, Betty, its Saturday. I just thought I’d read the paper.”

I heard the scrapping of a chair being pulled out from the tab le. I came into the breakfast room to find the form of the Air force Colonel disappearing around the corner leaving his orange juice behind and the morning paper still open.

“Please, honey, stay here, for my sake.” My sister implored.

I stuck out my chin and followed him. After all, I am a Sai Graduate and besides my Daddy was a bigger colonel than him!

“Good morning” I called with a smile, stopping him in his tracks.

“You know I was thinking about what you do for this country just this morning. (Actually, that was true. You know how Swami will plant certain thoughts early in the morning to be used later on in the day?)

“Yes, I was, really. I was thinking that you have been endangering your life every day for this country of ours and how I must respect you and honour you.”

His face was frozen as he hadn’t expected this.

“”I don’t know you at all, (hinting that he also doesn’t know me and shouldn’t judge) but I can certainly be proud and happy that you are fighting for our country.”

I happened to have a huge red hibiscus in my hand that I had picked for my sister.

“Oh, this is for your mother. I think she is a goddess. Course, you would never think that but I know that you will agree that she is the finest person either of us know.”

“ I attribute my values to her, she has taught me most of the values I have.” Said the Colonel.

And he continued to walk out.

I was on my way back to the apartment when I ran into him again and told him about a bird’s nest under part of the roof of the apartment. Later he and family left to have lunch and I had lunch with my sister.

“I thought I handled that pretty well,” I said.

“You were an adult.”

“Hmmm, I was a Sai Graduate.” I thought outloud.

My environment was not so protected any more. The people next door were having their large oak trees trimmed way down to prepare for the hurricane season. My sister was glad because the limbs were so thick and overhung our driveway. The largest machine was as big and monstrous as an earth mover. I returned to the apartment but now two or three large machines were screaming around me, Beep, Beep It sat on four strong legs supporting a cage for the man cutting the trees. It was fascinating to watch him maundering that machine, taking himself up high and then to the ground as he hacked the limbs down.

“Beats a step ladder, don’t it?” he called to me who stood in awe.

I returned to the apartment and turned on the TV to drown out the noise.

Then I finished my pudding (sugarless) and my sugarless muffin giving myself a treat. My sister came out and said she was going to the store.

I said that I had just turned on a new movie on the Hallmark channel.

By the way, Sai Graduates, if you insist on watching TV by the way, try to get the Hallmark channel. The movies are reasonably good and not crude or obscene.

“Do you need anything?” she asked

“Yea well, maybe a few more sugarless muffins.”

Big mistake. I am being given everything I need in the world by my precious sister without asking for anything. It was greedy. One of the divine names of Goddess Lalitha is, “No seeking or rejecting” and it’s a pretty good rule to live by.

Youall will be happy to know that today Swami and I spent lots of time talking. I talk and He listens. And His picture seemed to be smiling. It was in preparation for the zinger.

So at 5 o’clock I picked up my tea and went into the house to visit my sister in her very cold air conditioned room. I opened the door and there was the colonel and his kids sitting there, staring at me.

No one said, “come on in or even, Hi”

I mumbled “excuse me” and closed the door.

I thought of saying to the Colonel sitting in my Daddy’s room.

“My Daddy was an officer too, you know. To bad you never got to know him.” He was an officer and a gentleman. Too bad you couldn’t learn good manners from a real gentleman. I’m sorry that you didn’t know him and that you never had any kind of a father to teach you manners. Your military leaders probably taught you only how to be brutal and strong preparing you for combat but not polite society. My Daddy went to West Point, to bad you didn’t.”

Ok. Ok, but what about the lessons here for me. Its so easy to see the lessons for others isn’t it.

I used to worry that I had developed bad karma from being so rude as a teenager. I wondered how I could go through that karma in this lifetime and make it to realization. I should have known that our Dearest Lord takes care of all that. I was wilful and wanted my own way when I was growing up and I hurt others like my parents, especially my father the Colonel who loved all of us so much.

Besides, what was happening now really didn’t affect me that much. Swami tells this story often

The Buddha was sitting under a tree meditating when some villagers came along and began making fun of him and calling him names. One of the monks who was sitting there asked him why he didn’t react.

Buddha said that the names weren’t true and so he didn’t claim them. He explained that it was like calling a man with a great head of hair , “baldy” It simply wasn’t true. I felt the same about the Colonel’s attitude. It certainly had noting to do with me, with who I am.

Alright you’re going to find this next part a little strange but it has helped me to understand things in the past.

Our waking life is really just a waking dream. And sometimes if we look at things that way, it helps. At the ashram if the tap had a leak I would realize it was really my mouth that had the leek which was usually true. A stopped up toilet often meant that I wasn’t getting rid of some feelings what weren’t good for me like repressed anger. Ok well. That huge four footed efficient machine may have been a symbol for the Colonel and the good part was that it was cutting down tons of useless dead limbs that could cause trouble in a storm. He was getting rid of my bad karma. Neat huh?

Well, just like the movies on the Hallmark channel, this movie has a happy ending.

The Colonel bought my sister a brand new computer and installed it last night. Her old one had caused her endless trouble.

But all the computers are sort of tied together in this house on some kind of internet connection which is in a box in the garage. When they put in her new computer they didn’t have that connection and so my computer had no Google this morning. I went over to her window and told her about it. She said she’d tell the computer savvy grandson.

Another thing to. My sister brought me a huge cantaloupe a few days ago and this morning I ate about a quarter of it. I ran into the kitchen with the rest and just left it on the counter.

Anyway this morning I got smiles from the kids when they fixed the computer internet connection.

But just five minutes ago all three of the kids came out to my apartment with smiles ,”We wanted to say good bye” they said with hugs and kisses.

It was every bit as good as a Hallmark ‘made for TV movie.

And they just drove away. Wheeeew