A Drive With God

Khoj is driving his car. He is going to get some mundane work done. He sees an old woman in a sari who looks like a villager. She stands on the side of the road. She is waving to him. Not generally. Not to anybody who will stop. She is waving to him.

Khoj takes his car to the side of the road and rolls his windows down. All the while hes wondering what the heck is going on.

Old Lady:

Can I get a lift to Camp?

Khoj (taken a back that she is speaking fluent english):

Ahh. Okay. Sure.

Old lady gets into the car. Khoj starts to drive.

Old Lady:

Okay, let me get this out of the way. I am God.

Khoj, afraid about what is going on starts to evaluate if hes in danger. Is this old lady crazy. She looks harmless. Shes frail and old. Will she will try to talk him into something….

Old Lady:

Yes. Its all a little bit scary. But you not believing that I am God is the boring part. So, lets get through this quickly.

Khoj:

Okay…

Old Lady:

Let me show you a little trick. I have been trying to perfect this for some time now.

She squinches her face for a second. Everybody on the road all around them yell out “Hi Khoj!!” in unison. They do not even pause their driving. A dog on the side also seems to be barking a bark that sounds almost like “Hi Khoj!”. A bird swoops down and almost slams into the windshield. But it swoops back up last minute. It seems to be screeching something. Its also trying its best to say “Hi Khoj!”.

Old Lady (with a smile):

You see Khoj. I am everything.

Khoj (trying to process what he has experienced)

Okay…..ahh…. I am going to need a minute.

They both sit in silence. The old lady looks ahead. She waits. She has time.

Moments later they hit a traffic jam. The car comes to a halt. 2 cars try to bypass the jam by taking their cars on the wrong side of the road. Khoj looks at them and thinks, “There is always a few idiots like this. People who think, “why don’t I just break the rules and go from the other side. And they always end up casing a bigger jam. Its funny….”

Old Lady:

Yeah. I know. But see, the guy in the red car is rushing since hes late for a meeting. He had to drop his kid off today at school. The teacher asked him if he could wait for some time for some work. Then she got pulled in by the Principle for something else. This guy was waiting there for a good half an hour. All the while he was looking at his watch. Thinking, “Man, I am going to be late for the meeting. This is big client. They have arranged this meeting with the owners after so much followup.”

Khoj:

Ahh. Okay. You can read my thoughts?

Old Lady:

Yeah. I am you. I am everything. Remember?

Khoj:

Okayyy..

Old Lady:

Now the guy behind him. Who tried to by pass everybody in the little silver car. That guy always had people around him express them selves with too much force. As a kid, he saw them get angry and throw their weight around. He feared them. At some point he decided that if you don’t always respond with excessive force people will push you around. This driving on the wrong side of the road is an expression of that.

Khoj:

Okay. I see.

Old Lady:

The thing is that you can judge them. Call them “idiots”. But for me, it makes no sense. They are me. I am everything.

Its like, remember the other day, you were a little hungry. You were waiting for your wife to eat. She came home. You had kept everything ready and hot so you guys could eat together. Then she decides to go do something else. You felt irritated. And you were a little rude to her also. But then, even tho you noticed that you justified it to yourself. You told yourself, “I told her I am keeping everything ready. I told her I am waiting for her. And then she comes home and goes and opens up her laptop to send a file??”

Since you knew your situation so well, you did not think you were in the wrong.

I am everything and everyone. I don’t think anybody is “wrong”. I know why everybody acts how they act in every moment. And so for me there is no “idiots”. No judgement.

You, Khoj are a slice of me. And you can see what you can see. Which is not much. And so for you they are “idiots”.

Khoj:

Yeah…

Old Lady:

But you can “act” like me even tho you do not have my sight. The “output” of knowing everything about everything is “non judgement”. Nothing stops you from acknowledging that you don’t know everything about everything. And nothing stops you from acknowledging that if you did, you would not judge.

So, jump right to the end. Stop judging.

Yes, you will not “feel it in your bones”. But, not judging is what you would do if you had perfect knowledge.

Khoj:

Yeah I see. It does make sense.

Khoj pauses for a min. Taking in all this.

Khoj:

But, imagine that there is a genocidal mass murdering dictator. Thousands are dying of hunger due to him. Do you still not judge him?

Old Lady:

This has two aspects. Firstly, no I don’t judge him. Once again, I am him. I know how he ended up becoming who he is. If you lived his life, you would be him.

Secondly, I am not only him. I am him and the people he kills. I am also the maggots that eat the dead bodies. I am also the vultures and crows getting easy meals after the murder of a village.

Morally good or bad actions do not exist for me. Everything is different forms of me. As a village dies, crows, vultures and maggots rejoice.

Khoj, you have 2 bank accounts right?

Khoj:

Yes. I do.

Old Lady:

If I gave you some money I owed you into any one of your bank accounts, would you care? It does not matter. Both are your bank accounts.

Again, you as a human see a slice of reality. Because your vision is so limited, you draw lines around what you can see and relate to. You can see the murdered humans and feel sorry for them. But, you do not know anything about what its like to be a hungry crow. Even tho the hungry crow is having a feast you think a tragedy has occurred.

Khoj:

I get it. But, if there is no right and wrong, you do not have any specific guidance for how I should live my life? What I should do with it?

Old Lady:

Nope. Sorry. Why would I care about such things? I am infinite. I need nothing. I have everything. I am everything. I am sure you get it by now.

Khoj:

So, no opinion at all. If I were to turn into a mass murdering dictator, you would not care.

Old Lady:

No.

But, see you are a human. So, your big brain does allow you to do one thing that the crows cannot. You have the ability to observe. And if you did not use that ability, it would be a waste.

It would be like, getting Einstein to do the work of brick laying. Its good work. But, its a waste of Einstein’s ability.

Khoj:

Okay. Observe? Observe what?

Old Lady:

Firstly, observe that all living things are hungry. Not only hunger for food. But hunger for all sorts of emotional things. Like love, appreciation, attention, security, meaning etc.

Besides having hunger, when they satiate their hunger, its for a short amount of time. The hunger is back soon after its satisfied.

All living things are hungry for food. At the same time they “are food”.

This makes everything interdependent.

Does that make sense?

Khoj:

Yes it does. But is that all you want me to do? Observe?

Old Lady:

Well firstly, observing this is hard for you. You have access to a small slice of reality. You cannot, for example, feel joy for the hungry crows eating the villagers who were murdered.

But, you can try to expand your observation. Start with the species you can relate to most. The humans around you. Its easy to classify them as “idiots” as you did above. Its hard to spend the time and energy to try and “observe” and be “curious” why they act they way they do.

But, if you do, you might be able find a way to satisfy your hungers while simultaneously satisfying theirs.

The crow does not have your brain. The crow cannot do this. The crow can only focus on its hunger. At best it can look at its children’s hunger and empathize with them. Nothing right or wrong with the crow, mind you.

You can do much more.

If you only focus on your hunger, you are Einstein choosing to lay bricks. Its a waste of all that brain power.

Khoj (taking in all this):

Okay. I see….

Old Lady:

Hey. This is my stop. Can you take the car to the side. I gotta let go of this lady here.