After 9/11, our teacher asked us to write an essay on when it is appropriate to kill someone. I guess the first thing that came into most students’ minds was: “Is it appropriate to kill Osama bin Laden?” “What are the moral and ethical implications to kill a religious or political figure that is presented in the media as an evil person?” “If it isn’t appropriate to kill Osama, would it be appropriate to kill any other political leader such as Adolf Hitler or Idi Amin Dada?” My mind went somewhere else. I wasn’t interested in the politics of it. To me, obviously, if someone rises to the top as a political threat, there are ideas or beliefs that put him there, and killing that person does not eradicate those beliefs, it only fuels them and gives them power and, therefore, reality. Then what? That can’t be conducive to peace and harmony. No, my mind went somewhere else, somewhere personal, very real, and, up to yesterday, very painful.
I was five years old when I saw my dad shoot an intruder. The blast, the face pierced and distorted, the blood, the brain pieces, all real, forever indelibly set in slow motion in the deepest fabric of my being.
It was just past three in the morning. I remember hearing the living room grandfather clock’s chime. I had just woken up from a nightmare in which a hooded man dressed in black strangled my dad. I could not see his face, only his hands. It took minutes. Breathless, dread-filled minutes. Mom and I were hiding under the couch. She was holding my mouth so I wouldn’t scream. Her hand felt limp suddenly. I knew she had fainted. My dad’s killer had disappeared. I woke up with a strange feeling of trying to scream without being able to, as though my voice had been tampered with. That’s when I realized it wasn’t real. I heard the clock. I heard some unusual noises downstairs. I walked softly to the top of the stairs and I saw my dad shoot a man dressed in black with no hood. I was shaking and sweat was pouring out of my pores drenching my pajamas. I did not know I had so much water that could merely leak out through my skin.
I could not speak for several days after that and I did not want to be around dad. Dad and Mom knew it had to do with the events that night but they could not get a word out of me. They sent me to a counselor lady who asked me to draw pictures, anything I wanted. All that I could draw was lifeless bodies, missing parts, lying in blood, with many, many, angels hovering over them.
The essay homework came eight years later. I was still torn inside. Torn about the need for one man to die to save another’s life, and his family. I felt guilty for preferring us to live over a stranger I did not even know. I did not know how to express any of that to the lady counselor at the time. The essay was giving me a chance to talk about it and not keep it all inside; a mysterious and confusing forbidden land.
I started to write about the shock I felt, the nightmare which at first made me experience losing my dad from a horrible death, and then the relief that he saved himself, and us. I was left with the pain that it was at the expense of someone else’s life. I could only describe the sequence of events and the roller coaster of emotions. I could only escape in the hope that angels were protecting and healing everyone involved. I did not find any true resolution. I could only cry.
At school, the teacher thought I had made it up and told me it I had watched too many horror flicks. My voice failed me. All she saw was my face turning white and tears, that may as well have been pearls of blood, emerging, one at a time, from the inside corners of my eyes, like the count of the chimes that night, punctuating the irreversibility of everything. My teacher’s face turned vary pale then. She said: “Oh! My God! Oh! My God! Oh! My God! …” She did not seem she would ever stop her endless litany. It penetrated deeply in me and touched that place where I could not believe my dad had shot someone. I walked away.
Ten years later, everything is coming back. I saw my boyfriend Davis kissing Sheila yesterday. I dumped him, of course. But I felt disgruntled and disgusted when I got home and saw all the dishes on the kitchen counter from lazy roommates. I went to bed upset and asked life how I could ever fill my heart with love again. An angel appeared, genderless, as if it had been waiting for me to ask that very question. It kissed me on the lips, and vanished. It all took seconds. I was instantly filled with lightness and love. A tensionless love. A freeing love. A love that is never lacking, never taken away, infinitely present, available, and pure.
I got up, cleaned up the kitchen and went out for a walk. It was fall and the sun sprinkled light through the remaining leaves on the trees onto the sidewalk covered with a tapestry of red, orange and yellow leaves. Such a feast for the eyes feeding me with even more love than I thought possible.
I thought my heart would explode. And it did. Something burst open inside of me and I saw clearly for the first time before my eyes a truer nature of the world. It wasn’t what I thought of Heaven or God. It wasn’t what I thought people thought of Heaven or God. It was as though everything was made of the same essence and I could communicate with it. Trees, leaves, wind, pavement, light, birds, people. Everything. We were all bathing in this essence, we are this essence together, and we can communicate with each other through it with our thoughts, with our beingness. Anxiety or fear creates static interference with it, a disconnection, and a sense of dread and emptiness. Openness, compassion, creates a connection with it and, as a result, a profound joy and sense of fulfillment.
I wondered if I could use this connection with Essence to make peace with that fateful night when my dad shot the intruder. Indeed, I immediately saw the intruder’s and my dad’s essence and mine too. Essence was made up of all of our individual essences, like an ocean is made of drops of water. From the essences’ perspective everything happened with all of our approval. It wasn’t merely my dad doing something to the intruder and the rest of us being victims of his actions. I saw other versions of realities that could have happened if all of our bodies and minds had aligned differently. One version was had I not feared losing my dad in my nightmare, I would not have been unable to forgive him for killing a man until he was on his death bed. Another version was my dad laughing instead of shooting the intruder, surprising the intruder who then turned around to walk away apologizing for getting into the wrong house. There were hundreds and hundreds of versions and I stopped paying attention to them.
Knowing there were so many possible realities, and seeing that our essences were at peace with each other no matter what version of reality took place, changed my entire view of life. What perpetrated suffering was the attachment to one version of reality. That attachment is what creates karma. The acts we are involved in play but a minimal part in our karma. Change your self-perception and your karma changes instantly. Our essences were celebrating. The whole experience was about learning lightheartedness. It was about seeing our judgments about and fear of each other. It was about recognizing how limited our preconceived notions of reality are. Our drama and individual reactions were one tiny step toward understanding that.
Today, I cannot see the essence in everything anymore. I only remember it is truer than anything. To experience this connection is now my life’s purpose. I need to worry less, and feel compassion and patience with everything. Deep breath.