The Stranger Within Us
There is a stranger within us that we do not know about. We do not know how it came to be, nor do we know of his* destiny. What we can say is that he is like a shopkeeper, as a businessman. He claims to give us services of companionship, of good fate during our good times, and of teaching us lessons during bad ones. We know his deal but are seldom aware of it. He wants nothing more than our times because he knows that time is valuable and the most limited of all the resources.
Who knows, maybe he does really care about us. But he does what he does: his business is to give us life and continue the same process it has run for at least the past thirteen billion years (although my guess is infinite time). We can try to escape from this dealer but there is neither an alternative nor running away. And the way we deal with his business is how we face the consequences in our lives. He does not seek our attention, but the more or the less the attention we give to him is how we can prioritize our goal to dissolve in Reality, as it is.
If we can make him our friend, if we decide to take his business as our absolute Dharma (our way of life) and as our biggest trading associate (or even as the only one that matters), then and only then might we be able to escape from our painful worlds. He does not discriminate against us for race, caste, religion, gender, nationality, preferences, beliefs, or values. He is just a businessman doing his usual thing.
This stranger is the invisible businessman with whom we signed our contract upon our birth.
Some people call him God. Others call it the Self. And there are also those who call it the laws of physics. But in either of these frameworks, the stranger lives — through different names and deeds— and takes all of us through a similar journey of wonder, excitation, frustrations, realizations, and the rest that our lives offer us. Above all, his business never fails, and it is the only one that will not go bankrupt. His business is tied with all beings that live and ever lived — equally with the ants as with any human — as well as with all the beings that will come into existence after us.
Technology is changing, and humanity, as always, is rapidly making changes in all of its frontiers. The rise of artificial intelligence is making us question the fundamentals and our moral beliefs. The rise of rocket science and space travel is questioning our understanding of the land and our position in the cosmos. The rise of psychology and neuroscience are questioning our definitions of consciousness and righteousness. But this stranger will live through all of these, as he is the source of all of our progress and stands atop as its leader (in other words, each frontier will take us one step closer to him).
That contract which was witnessed by Existence can not be tampered. The contracts we signed to come to this planet can not be nullified until they expire. This contract, as I have come to understand it with my experience of the world, is much bigger than my ability of imagination and comprehension. All my travels to broaden my mindset do nothing more than to light small dark corners in my fragile mind. Here I sit among humankind far away from my place where I can think with a free mind, occupied only with the minimal business of travel. I think that travel opens our minds and lets us see beyond our ignorances.
Traveling through time and through the land: although they are unequal in comparison frameworks, they both are similar in the sense that we grow with them. Ultimately, I think that our travel logs will bring us closer to our business with this stranger. The creator of all lives and the destroyer of them all.
Note: My use of the pronoun “he/his/him” is completely arbitrary to the context of the topic. Having only eyes and deeds, the Stranger does not have a sense of gender.
