Listening to someone say how much they love to watch horror stories (and about the exciting discovery how a new friend of theirs shared that same love), I woke up the next morning thinking about why I don't need to go to Netflix and so on to see a horror show. That's because I'm already watching a horror story every day in real life.
Imagine watching a movie where a group of young people end up together in some strange place where, one by one, each one is killed in different ways. One may be pushed off a cliff. Another fall into some kind of booby trap. Another may end up in a meat freezer (there are movies like that) . How similar that is to real life. We all come into this world young and ignorant of our surroundings, and we all are, one by one, going to die someday and no one can say how it'll happen.
But even more suspenseful... is not knowing who is next.
In Bhagavad gita 11.26-30, Lord Krishna did give a grisly outcome in advance. Arjuna described what he saw:
"O Lord of lords, O refuge of the worlds, please be gracious to me. I cannot keep my balance seeing thus Your blazing deathlike faces and awful teeth. In all directions I am bewildered.
"All the sons of Dhrtarastra along with their allied kings, and Bhisma, Drona and Karna, and all our soldiers are rushing into Your mouths, their heads smashed by Your fearful teeth. I see that some are being crushed between Your teeth as well.
"As the rivers flow into the sea, so all these great warriors enter Your blazing mouths and perish.
"I see all people rushing with full speed into Your mouths as moths dash into a blazing fire.
"O Visnu, I see You devouring all people in Your flaming mouths and covering the universe with Your immeasurable rays. Scorching the worlds, You are manifest."
But still, how each soldier ultimately died was not yet revealed.
And thanks to the daily news and remembering TV serials like 911 or 1000 Ways to Die, or even that unforgettable film they made us watch during Driver's Ed, we start to realize that horrible things are going on all around us every day and every moment. Accidents and murders and people disappearing. Animal slaughter. Wars. Sicknesses and losses. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur called the material world "an ocean of sorrow".
But what really prompted me to write this was not the obvious stuff. No, there is something going on that we are hardly aware of, or we take it for granted. But I get a reminder every day that I do housework.. I'm talking about house dust.
House dust consists of tiny particles that have broken down from basically everything around us over time. Some things faster than others, like when you sit on an old couch next to a window with a stream of sunlight shining though it, and you see all these little specks fly up into the air from its cushions. And no matter how much I clean, there is always more to come and haunt me with the thought that everything around us is very slowly, very subtly disintegrating.
But there's a way to become fearless. Like when people watch a horror show they know it is not really happening to them or others. Especially if they were to watch it with the sound turned off and in broad daylight rather than during the night, they'd realize that even more. Similarly, the light of transcendental knowledge that we are not these aging material bodies via engaging in the devotional service of Lord Krishna and hearing the holy name rather than mundane sound, gives one the power to be less sucked into the distress and happiness happening around us in daily life. But most importantly, we can have a happy ending.
Imagine watching a movie where a group of young people end up together in some strange place where, one by one, each one is killed in different ways. One may be pushed off a cliff. Another fall into some kind of booby trap. Another may end up in a meat freezer (there are movies like that) . How similar that is to real life. We all come into this world young and ignorant of our surroundings, and we all are, one by one, going to die someday and no one can say how it'll happen.
But even more suspenseful... is not knowing who is next.
In Bhagavad gita 11.26-30, Lord Krishna did give a grisly outcome in advance. Arjuna described what he saw:
"O Lord of lords, O refuge of the worlds, please be gracious to me. I cannot keep my balance seeing thus Your blazing deathlike faces and awful teeth. In all directions I am bewildered.
"All the sons of Dhrtarastra along with their allied kings, and Bhisma, Drona and Karna, and all our soldiers are rushing into Your mouths, their heads smashed by Your fearful teeth. I see that some are being crushed between Your teeth as well.
"As the rivers flow into the sea, so all these great warriors enter Your blazing mouths and perish.
"I see all people rushing with full speed into Your mouths as moths dash into a blazing fire.
"O Visnu, I see You devouring all people in Your flaming mouths and covering the universe with Your immeasurable rays. Scorching the worlds, You are manifest."
But still, how each soldier ultimately died was not yet revealed.
And thanks to the daily news and remembering TV serials like 911 or 1000 Ways to Die, or even that unforgettable film they made us watch during Driver's Ed, we start to realize that horrible things are going on all around us every day and every moment. Accidents and murders and people disappearing. Animal slaughter. Wars. Sicknesses and losses. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur called the material world "an ocean of sorrow".
But what really prompted me to write this was not the obvious stuff. No, there is something going on that we are hardly aware of, or we take it for granted. But I get a reminder every day that I do housework.. I'm talking about house dust.
House dust consists of tiny particles that have broken down from basically everything around us over time. Some things faster than others, like when you sit on an old couch next to a window with a stream of sunlight shining though it, and you see all these little specks fly up into the air from its cushions. And no matter how much I clean, there is always more to come and haunt me with the thought that everything around us is very slowly, very subtly disintegrating.
But there's a way to become fearless. Like when people watch a horror show they know it is not really happening to them or others. Especially if they were to watch it with the sound turned off and in broad daylight rather than during the night, they'd realize that even more. Similarly, the light of transcendental knowledge that we are not these aging material bodies via engaging in the devotional service of Lord Krishna and hearing the holy name rather than mundane sound, gives one the power to be less sucked into the distress and happiness happening around us in daily life. But most importantly, we can have a happy ending.