“SO WHAT EXACTLY ARE WE DOING HERE?” Emily Asked.

With the permission of my patient and dear friend, Emily, from New York, I produce a copy of our conversation on Skype last Tuesday in context with her question.

Emily, a breast cancer patient living in New York, has been bravely battling the disease from April 2019, with steady improvements in her blood test results coming in with each new test she’s been getting done, and this has kept her in excellent spirits so far.

Last Thursday, we were discussing her health on Skype like we routinely did, and I asked her if she had stocked up on the supplements she was taking, which got off an uncommon reaction of frustration and anger from her.

She said she was facing several hitches owing to the Coronavirus lockdown that has been in place in her city from a month-and-a-half; they’d shut down most places, essential commodities were out of stock, home delivery services had become undependable & erratic and she feared stepping out for anything as she was already a cancer patient; she confessed she hated carrying on this way, then made a comment if only in anger which started the below.

E (Emily): Bharathraj, I have cancer; the world has Corona; what else did we need? Oh, why was I ever born? I sometimes don’t get what the hell am I doing here!

B.I (Bharathraj Iyengar): Indeed, Emily! You’ve posed a question that many before you have, but with only a handful having got to the answer, and a sprinkling from them that have lived by it! I’ll share my notions on the subject, and I hope it gives you some clarity.

E (chuckling): I wouldn’t mind getting clarity from you, a doctor, be it for questions that have nothing to do with medicine, and I dare say ones probably the clergies might want to answer albeit with their old biblical quotes we’ve all heard thousands of times before!

B.I: We must do something for a living! Anyway, I hope what I say differs from your clergies, he-he! Indeed, what exactly are you, me, and the entirety doing here, on planet Earth, or should I have said planet Karma?

E (laughing): You bet! I love the word karma, and I believe in it 100% — what goes around comes around! The Coronavirus is now around!

BI: Yes. Well said. Let me bring your attention to a set of questions; common ones we’ve all come across before. “What is your name?” “How old are you?” “What are your parents’ names?” “Do you have brothers or sisters?” “Which school do you attend?” “What are your favorite games?” Aren’t these the major questions you answered as a kid? Tell me.

E: Of course. I’m certain we all did!

BI: Right. Who taught you the answers? Your parents? For most, yes. Mine did. And you replied to the questions from the day you learned the answers, having done so ever since, meaning from the time your mind figured to interpret your mother tongue in a once unfamiliar language that you slowly grasped and learned to speak, which enabled you to put your thoughts into words. You then registered your name in your mind, to spell it to anyone when asked for it, yes?

E: Yeah. So?

BI: Hmm. What was your name before someone named you?

E: Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?

BI: It’s supposed to mean what it says. Come on, tell me.

E (pausing for a second to think, her face angled away from the desktop camera): How could anybody answer that? I didn’t have a name before they named me!

BI: You’re right, you didn’t. We will take this a step behind at a go; stay with me.

E: Right.

BI: You emerged from your mother’s womb the day you did. Where were you half-a-year before the day you were born? You were inside the womb as a three-month-old fetus. Now where were you four months before the day you turned a three-month-old fetus?

E: Would anybody know?

BI: Perfect. My last question. Where were you a decade before you entered your mother’s womb?

E (throwing her hands in the air and smiling): Search me!

BI: Come. Let’s get to the answers.

Scientists today have concluded that while the initial brain activity in a fetus starts six weeks post-fertilization, personhood, or a new identity, or the condition of being a human begins at fertilization, and this comes into play the second the sperm and the egg fuse. Understand what science says. The moment the zygote is ready, the immaterial part of any living entity, or the energy essence that some allude to as the soul takes over the assigned being, human, non-human, notwithstanding.

E: Wow. But how does this ‘entry’ actually happen?

BI: You’ll have to ask creation. However, there are pertinent questions begging for answers, and I place them for your scrutiny.

From where did the energy essence land? Was it somewhere, waiting all geared-up to step into the concerned womb when it was time? Or did it just spring up from out of the blue? It doesn’t make logical sense, does it? If someone or something appears in front of you, you would want to know from where the subject or object came! So what’s the game?

Anything in life has a beginning and an end–a starting point and a reaching destination, correct?

E: Yes.

BI: The Eastern school of thinking believes in the tenets of transmigration, or rebirth.

Transmigration, reincarnation, or rebirth is the religious theory that says the soul, or the cause for animating any living substance right from microorganisms to humans, inhabits the body for a limited span, then exits once the body meets its biological death, to only re-enter and re-animate a new body, or a new life, and start afresh.

When the soul, human/non-human, regardless, exits the body it once lived in, it finds itself in the astral body, or the spirit body, and heads to the realm picked by the karmas or the deeds it created on planet Earth while it lived within the body.

Unseen energies donning unique astral forms made up of light and energy govern the Universe and operate beyond the control of humans to ensure no mistakes are happening where it concerns a soul’s admission into the realm its actions have chosen. And these governing energies, or in charges of the astral realms, oversee the shunt of each soul from Earth to their elected astral realm and back.

E: I see.

BI: Now why do souls enter from and return to these planes of existences? Must they? Souls, while they find themselves encased in human forms on planet Earth, perform actions via their physical bodies which draw equal rebounds; good for good, and bad for bad–the law. The doer would have to either endure or enjoy the rebounds of their negative or positive actions in the plane where they committed their actions.

E: But is this compulsory?

BI: I’m afraid so. Why? Here is a real-life perspective. The newspapers scream rapes and murders every day. Assume a serial-rapist repeatedly raped, brutally tortured, and killed a close friend of yours who’d shared her childhood days with you, and the cops have now caught him. What would you do if the Supreme Court was to grant you the power to deal with the perpetrator and gave you two options to choose from in doing the same?

Option #1 — You could have the psycho sentenced and sent to the toughest of prisons, and for two hundred years at a stretch; no bail.

Option #2 — You could let the man live to a ripe old age, which would give him the chance to commit a few dozen more rapes and other evil deeds, then die.

Pick one. You have five seconds.

E (shooting her reply the next second): I don’t need any! I go with the first!

BI: Welcome aboard. Humans either enjoy or suffer the outcomes of their deeds, or karma, on planet Earth, their ‘chosen’ playground. Are we here to do this? I’ll leave the answer to each to figure, but let’s look at what happens when we do.

Right off the bat, the never-ending voyages between Earth and the astral realms would go on, owing to the ramifications of our endeavors while here. And because we’d haul a mix of both positive and negative karmas, knowingly or otherwise enforced, while we’d claim our rewards for the former, we’d willy-nilly face the music for the latter.

E: Hmm. Again, karma.

BI: Yes.

And the boomerangs of one’s unfavorable deeds of their current birth, which they left unresolved, or unsettled, would show up in their later incarnations, and in different forms, like inferior conditioning from birth, abuse during one’s tender years, chronic health woes, financial losses or troubles to the household in which one was growing up, hurt and mistreatment from siblings and dear ones, and more.

E: Hmm.

BI: While many are still okay with the repeated fast ones their mis-actions pull on them; it could be because of their ignorance on the workings of karma and their lack of understanding regarding why what is happening in their lives, or because they couldn’t care less; some say enough and decide it is time they did something about changing things for themselves.

• The reason you are born here is to prioritize working on breaking away from your karmic binds.
• The reason you are born here is to awaken to the one reality, the single truth that states you are God as much as each minuscule atom around you is.
• The reason you are born here is to cleave yourself off the cycles of birth and death, thus the interminable bouts of pleasure and pain, and to head into a zone exempt from either.

E (wide-eyed): My God! You’re so damned right! Are you a doctor?!

BI: Indeed, but only professionally. I am not the body you think I am. You aren’t, either. None is. And I have chosen to live by this truth, having attuned my subconscious mind to the reality that says I am nothing.

E (laughing): Jesus! I have a question, if I may. What would happen if one was to perform only noble karma? Wouldn’t the game of birth and death then end?

BI: Unfortunately no. You’d have to come back to Earth to collect the yields or rewards of your good deeds.

The fruits of such karmas would reach you through a tension-free life filled with an abundance of every kind. You would get a supportive and loving family, the right upbringing, conducive subconscious characterizing, best health, the essential knowledge and know how to reach your goals with ease, an adoring spouse, charming children; the works.

But nothing would ensure you freed yourself from the incessant cycles of birth and death, something you’ve been undergoing since goodness knows how many lifetimes, unless you were to bring your karmic balances to zero. No good. No bad. No collectibles from planet Earth, or planet Karmas. Period. You must shut the accounts you opened here.

E: Jesus! But wouldn’t I be better off doing good?

BI: Absolutely. You could work towards creating only worthy karmas for starters before you’d proceed to the next and final step to consummate your life’s penultimate goal: To escape the repeated sequences of birth and death.

E: And what exactly would I have to do to get there?

BI: You’d have to disclaim ownership from the results of your karma and offer them to the creator. Trendsetters do it. They acquaint equanimity to the core, accepting pain and pleasure with equal gusto while proffering all the rewards of their good deeds unto the Almighty’s feet — whoever or whatever they think it to be!

E: Super!

BI: Now, speaking of equanimity, there is a mandatory dictum one must master if one needs to get to the same, “the dictum of acceptance”. No two ways about it.

Do you accept whatever comes your way and thank the Almighty for the same?

Think. Acceptance is a parameter we all fail to sustain at some point or the other in our lives, and this is because of the expectations we nurture regarding the outcomes of events that concern us. The topics or issues that would test us on the acceptance front could be trivial or grave; it doesn’t matter.

E: Hmm.

BI: Yes. It could be someone’s behavior or attitude towards us, or decisions taken by family members or dear ones which weren’t exactly in sync with ours, or something else. Our expectations grow and heighten with time, and we don’t always immediately welcome changes in plans that go against ours; yes?

E: Bingo! You couldn’t have said it better! But this is so bloody tough!

BI: He-he, humanity struggles with the dictum.

E (sits upright, then asks a few serious questions): What then should I do? Should I delete the expectations I expect from others? How can I stop expecting from those who matter? How can I stop expecting from my parents, my spouse, my siblings, my children, my kith; oh, there are so many! Next, I expect stuff at work from my juniors, my seniors–I expect something or the other from just about everyone in society! The delivery guy fucked up last evening and I got upset because of it!

BI: Yes, I know. Here you go.

Expect, but before you do, prepare and set right your subconscious mind to accept the outcome of anything without letting it affect your happiness or peace. There you have it. None may disrupt your peace. Let no one do it. It is in your hands alone because your peace rests within you. Why hand it over for someone to stomp all over it and shred it to pieces?

E: I agree!

BI: Stay calm. And offer everything to the Supreme. Trust the maker to deal with stuff in the best manner. This is what I follow. Keep affirming to yourself that your happiness and peace aren’t dependent on external factors. Drill it into your subconscious mind by telling it to yourself over and over until it becomes your nature.

E: Hmm. This is a practice. It’s not something that’s going to come by overnight!

BI: Precisely. Learn to train your subconscious mind before coaching it to familiarize equanimity–to habituate happiness under all circumstances. Run away from your current subconscious breeding if it isn’t working for you.

E (cutting in): How do I know if it’s working for me or not?

BI: You can be sure it isn’t working if others’ words or actions hurt you, or land up making you unhappy; the contrary holding true!

Human perceptions vary and do not always match, and not you, but none can do much about it. But where it concerns your happiness within, the choice lies in your hands. Delete any borrowed, unwanted taglines you back, those that do not belong to you. Delete the unsavory past. Adopt the right mental set-up that shall sail you through and make you win over your karma.

E: Aptly put! Yes!

BI: Remember, none owes you anything, and I mean none–the law says so. You got into whatever in life because you wanted to, and you had a karmic role to play, which brought you into the game that is your life now. Play intelligently. Watch what you think, for where thought goes, there energy flows. Overhaul your subconscious mind. Fortify yourself, then play.

E: Oh my God! Today has been a day of revelation! God bless you, doctor.

BI: To serve all is to serve the maker. And when I say all, I mean all beings, regardless, for we do not differ from ‘that’, Emily. Take care and stay safe. And be in touch to let me know your progress :)