It takes two to Tango

They moved very gracefully and silently. One following the other, hesitantly at times. One raising its head occasionally to see where the other was going. They were soon out of sight, and out of the grassy garden area altogether. There was no one around, except for a pair of bewitched eyes tracking the "intruders" like blips on a radar screen. You don't see ratsnakes here very often, and when you see a pair out in the morning sun "singing" their own version of "jaane jaan dhundtha phir raha" (an old hindi love song), you know it is a very special day. Snakes are entitled to their privacy, so we did not go chasing after them like some of those shameless camera totting Discovery mode naturalists do these days. Why not for a change, declare April 21st as the "Animal day"? Let all the zoo creatures out so they can see the human non-animal from close quarters. One is sure they would all want to get back into their cages in utter disgust after seeing the horrific things that non-animals are doing to themselves and others these days. Especially in Bangalore after one filmy hero died a natural death and other lesser non-animals went beserk, killing, burning, and looting without a care in the world. Ofcourse the pet tigers of Kanchanaburi,Thailand, will be the exception as they seem to like the company of buddhist monks. And why not? Buddhism is the most peace-loving of all religions and some practicing buddhist would go so far as to say that an ant crawling on his chin was his mother in a previous life. Do you think one of those rat snakes was your sister in a previous life? If you are an oriental who believes in reincarnation, you would think that there is a very high probability that the serpent was your sibling ages ago. What about Genghis Khan?... Right? Karma is the great equalizer! So why hate Hitler? Is he still around somewhere? For all you know he maybe one of those friendly tigers in Kanchanaburi. So like Karma, death is also a great equalizer! It is like emptying your bank account and starting afresh. A new job, with new tools and a new salary. You leave your old body behind, your old concepts, beliefs, ideals etc...Everything is finished! Totally! You need to let the old go, in order to let the new in. Years ago, when Mt St Helens in the northwestern part of USA blew up, spewing volcanic ash and fire all around, every plant, every tree within a radius of 5 miles was totally destroyed. Scientists thought it would take many decades before life could return to the land of sudden death. But they were wrong. In exactly 5 years things were back to how it was a day before the volcano erupted. Non-animals learnt a lesson that there are extremely powerful forces in nature that keep a delicate balance between life and death. The movement of time in nature is one of constant change. Indeed if change were not to happen, time would come to a stop. We humans don't want to accept that psychologically. We don't like to change deeply. We don't want to end our antagonisms, our hatred, our fears, our insecurities. Rajkumar is gone but the attachment is still there. Hitler is gone but the pain of world war-II remains if you are a jew. If you are a hindu you probably cannot forget Aurangzeb or Bhaktiyar Khilji. If you are a Talibani, your hatred for the American has only increased, perhaps. So psychologically we humans have not changed. We had fought, we are fighting, and we will fight in the future...if we dont change fundamentally, inwardly. We will remain divided as long as we dont understand the divisive process of our own thinking, in our very own brains. The dual nature of thought, which divides itself as the "thinker" and the "thought that is owned by the thinker"; the 'me' and the 'not-me'. All this is taken for granted. We never question this fundamentally errored approach to life. The first error (of duality) has led to innumerable other errors for which humanity is paying dearly now. There is every likelihood of mass destruction of the human race in the very near future. All it takes is one wrong finger on a wrong button to unleash destruction that we cannot even imagine. So why don't we change? Why don't non-animals begin to live, sanely, rationally and compassionately? Why don't we ask this question if we have a moment or two? It is far more important to enquire into this than watch some hero or a snake on TV. We will be in future, what we are now - animalistic, brutal, savage and in perpetual sorrow if we don't change. That is the law, whether you like it or not.