Salvaging the Savior

Often in life, we wish to be saviors, redeemers, and don the mantle of patrons, parents and trouble-shooters. We are on the lookout for people, whom we can adopt in a psychological sense, and help them come up to our expectations, and these are the people who are vulnerable in one way or other, and wish to come to terms with their own dreams and aspirations. There is a greater amount of selfishness in any patronage and desire to “help” someone in need; the parent in us pops up at a moment when we find a scope to exercise certain amount of control over the vulnerable, and what a joy it is to have someone who listens to us with ears and heart wide open, and even promises to follow our roadmap to happiness.

When we sincerely seek to help someone who is in dire need of assistance, counsel or a helping hand, subconsciously or unconsciously we are trying to help ourselves, even though we may not accept this fact easily. But how do we test if our spontaneous help to another person in need is genuine or it has a reasonable dosage of selfishness? The criteria is rather simple: if the person we seek to help is someone we do not know, one with whom we do not have longtime association, one who may not remember us after the help is rendered, one who may not even say ‘Thanks’ for the valuable help we provide, one who does not ask for our mobile phone number or address, one who may not even speak kindly to us after receiving help, then we can say with certain amount of certitude that our help had been genuine. Needless to say, if it happens to be otherwise, then there are all the chances that it is our need and not that of the other person.

As an average human being, we all of us are born with same amount of selfishness and self-centeredness, and what makes us different is the tactics we use in order to fulfill our ego. Human mind is capable of devising any amount of ways to “trap” others, especially those who are in some way vulnerable and limited, and most often we may not even be aware of the fact that we are on the prowl looking for a victim. But the tragedy takes place, when the victim begins to seek his/her own selfish needs, and we are caught unawares. We realize the sheer futility of our “sincere and genuine” desire to help others, when the recipients take advantage of our generosity, and ultimately make us suffer in the end.

But does that mean I should not be prepared to reach out to others in need? Of course not; that is not the point. The point is that I need to be conscious of the fact, while I am trying to help someone in need, I am trying to help myself too, and the other person is also going to make use of me (either positively or negatively). The tendency to be saviors and redeemers can go to a higher level, when on realizing that I had been taken for a royal ride by the victim I was trying to help, I begin to console myself saying that it is alright even if I lose, so long the other person is happy! That is the savior-syndrome entering through backdoor, while we let the ‘victim’ has his/her final laughter!

I am surely not against reaching out to others in need; we all of us need to strengthen the bonds of cooperation and collaboration, and it may not be possible for us (human as we are) to completely overcome selfishness, which is mixed with our blood. Even an eternity may not be enough to remove this dosage of self-centeredness from us. So, let us not camouflage ourselves as doing good to others, while in fact we are trying to do good to ourselves. Being conscious of this tendency in us can make us reach out to those who are in real need of our help, and if we are there to give a helping hand without counting the wounds or the cost, not even the psychological satisfaction of doing good, then we can be proud that we have climbed yet another difficult step towards divinity.

Letter to a Wounded Soul

I am aware that a letter is not the most soothing balm to a wounded soul, but I stand here before you on behalf of the whole universe, to tell you that the wound that you bear in your heart today is carved on our bones, and no one in the whole world will ever be spared from the sin of the fallen humanity; and I too am a victim and victimized, just as you are, and I would not try to shed my futile tears to express how I vibrate with your soul. I wonder why the earth did not protest against such a violation of life, when you were subjected to such an ordeal; I wonder why the heavens did not roar to stop the ferocious lion leaping onto an innocent lamb; I wonder why the birds of the air did not protest this gross injustice done to a voiceless child! I stand here to condemn the entire creation, which had let your little heart be pierced so violently that you cannot hide your wounds. I am here to condemn the God you believe in so religiously for not taking your side, and bring justice! Oh no, here I am at last to condemn myself for not opening my mouth in protest.

I can see the wry smile on your dry lips, and you had not believed in anyone speaking on your behalf, not even the very people you thought your own. How could you ever doubt that the enemy could be from within your fold and not from out? You had taken for granted that the people whom you thought would be your guardians had turned against you, and yet like a lamb you spoke not! I am here to condemn you too, not because you silently bore the scars, and did not utter a word against the sward piercing through your heart, not because you did not even open the matter to the parents who callously left you to the stars, not because you dared not jeopardize your future by claiming justice for what had been done to you; but I am here to condemn you for not condemning the world, and teach her a lesson. But you had known how to punish this world – by bearing courageously the scars that bear witness to the world that so long the scars remain on your body, the world cannot be absolved from her heinous crime.

The anger and the vengeance that you bear in your heart is enough to explode the Himalayas, and throw the endless Ganges into her depths; the earth that had given shape to your body is a mute witness to all that had happened to you, and the sky and the naked walls, and the cold earth are witness to what the earth has gifted to you! But were you in your ripe age to receive such a gift? You carry even today the scars of the crimes of humanity in you, like the blood stains of Lady Macbeth, it cannot be washed away, the scars you bear in your body will haunt humanity till there is breath in you. But there is no reason for you to suffer any more, today I have come to reverse the annals of history; I would like to rewrite the pages of the past, so that there will not be a little soul carrying the indelible scars of the crimes of humanity. I may not succeed in removing the scars from your body, but I may succeed in revealing to the world that what has happened to a little soul in a remote corner of the world has the potentiality to bring down fire from heaven and burn the whole universe.

Alas, the world has not changed much even after so many years, and do you think that the one who pierced your heart so willfully will one day return to you with folded hands, and fall on his knees and confess in public that he was not worthy of your forgiveness? No, what has happened to you has made history, but not what they make; it is a routine exercise for some, to pierce the hearts of others, and do it till there is energy in their bones. No water from the holy Ganges can every absolve the world from the crime, and today we have come to pay our humble homage to the scars that still remind us what we had done to you. I wish to bend my head with reverence and kiss the spot that still bears the scars, and shed tears till there is none, so that you may be free from the scars, and return to the fullness of joy and happiness that the universe may offer to you.

Forgiveness is a silly word, and you can only laugh at the people who may recommend it as an easy solution to hard problems. I know even the people who preach the notion of forgive and forget know not that life is not a night of drunken revelry that you would not remember what happened a night after; that would be the last thing that I would ever propose. But I have something else to offer to you. Break my heart with a blow of a sword and break me into pieces, so that the blood flowing from my flesh may wash away the ugly scars that cover your skin; I am no hero to venture into an heroic act of laying my life for humanity; I am no saint to offer my life in vain for no cause, but I would like to do this as a humble expression of what I owe to this universe. If even one soul on earth has been blind to you, it is a disgrace to the very universe. I would like to kneel before your presence and behold your scars in my bloody hands and tell the world, spare this child! Let my words reach the ends of the earth, and return to you, so that you know you have become a healer par excellence, with a power that can heal the broken, wounded universe!