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“I think Raichand is back to his shenanigans,” Swami said when we met at the café the other day. Jigneshbhai and I stayed silent. In the past, we had seen Swami suffer due to his boss Raichand’s penchant for making money by hook or by crook.
“He wants me to talk to some placement consultant and evaluate the agency,” Swami continued. “I suspect this has got something to do with the hiring budget Raichand has got approved for this year,” Swami mused with a lot of ugly memories from the past. We sipped our coffees in silence.
“What is it that makes perfectly sane and intelligent people do things that they know are not to be done?” Jigneshbhai asked me and Swami as he finished his coffee.
“Hmm.. Like Raichand? I wish I knew,” Swami replied.
Jigneshbhai looked up surprised.
“Most people have a good sense of right and wrong, good and bad,” he replied. “What makes them do the things that they know aren’t right?”
Swami rolled his eyes and remarked, “I am not sure Raichand has that sense.” He further asked, “Otherwise why would he keep doing this kind of nonsense stuff for some petty greed?”
Jigneshbhai and I could sense his dismay.
“Lying and playing games. Hiding stuff, not being transparent. All this crookedness that I see in people like Raichand or Somasekhar. I wonder why they do it,” Swami mused, referring to two of his favourite bete noire.
“Yeah, it is inexplicable. Perfectly sane, intelligent people, doing well in life, having no reason to do such things. Why do you think they do it?,” Jigneshbhai asked with his usual curiosity, laced with wonder and an iota of scepticism.
“Lack of willpower or discipline?” Swami ventured a guess.
“Well, they seem to have a lot of it, when it comes to other things,” Jigneshbhai said.
“Easy way out? Greed? Incentive to not work hard?” Swami gave a few more options.
“Well, these are highly motivated, even disciplined, people otherwise in many ways,” Jigneshbhai countered Swami.
“What else then? Genetics? The company they keep?” Swami was running out of options for sure.
“Hmm.. Nothing in their family suggests so,” Jigneshbhai still didn’t agree. “There must be something else.”
That’s when we heard Deja say, err bark, something. Swami scrambled for a pen and paper. He wrote what Deja barked.
“It is who you are. You have an enemy within,” Swami read out, converting the spiritual dog’s barks to words.
Jigneshbhai and I intently listened. This time we were the ones musing over it. Deja continued to bark, and Swami continued to write.
“You have a three-level existence; body, mind and consciousness,” Deja told Swami, as Jigneshbhai and I looked on in awe. Deja sounded like the real spiritual guru that he claimed he had been in his past life before he became a dog.
I could see that Swami had a look of awestruck pride about Deja, his spiritual guru from a past life, throwing out truisms and gems like it was nobody’s business.
He had a newfound sense of ownership over Deja in his eyes as he wrote what the spiritual dog guru said. But as he read on, that ownership slowly dwindled.
“That existence is like hardware, software and user,” he read out with a confused expression, rechecking if he had noted the words correctly or made an error.
Swami’s expression of pride now got tinged with a frown, unable to understand if he or Deja had got something wrong.
Why had Deja changed topics from spirituality to technology? Swami wondered. But Deja continued to bark, and Swami continued to read out.
“The you you think are not the you you are. You are above those yous you think,” Swami read, now with a look of concern. Jigneshbhai and I wondered what Deja had for breakfast. But Swami continued reading what Deja had said.
“The lower yous are taking you astray. Rise above to the real you. The other lower…umm.. yous are the enemy within the..err.. higher you,” Swami stuttered.
The earlier pride on Swami’s face now changed to embarrassment. He mentally disowned Deja, perhaps. The frequent you-you reminded us that Deja was, after all, a dog. But we didn’t say anything.
“The outer you is the.. well, hardware. The inner you is the software. The real ..umm.. you is neither. And it is.. err.. corrupted by the hardware and software,” Deja continued and Swami read, while Jigneshbhai and I rolled our eyes.
“So neglect those.. umm.. yous that are not the real.. err.. you. They are the enemy within you,” Swami read and sat down.
Jigneshbhai and I were more likely to neglect Deja instead of the various you’s he wanted us to neglect. We stole awkward glances with Swami ensuring Deja wasn’t watching. I could see that Swami was as lost as we were. No wonder these spiritual gurus go nuts after a while, I thought.
Swami was relieved and felt happy that his spiritual guru from a past life had become a dog. If Deja went nuts, as he seemed to have as of now, Swami could, at worst, let him bark rather than listen to his you-you.
With that thought, Swami turned his attention to a muffin. After such a you-you experience, some stress relief was required. Jigneshbhai and I also munched our muffins in silence. I can’t say which of our yous were silent and which you was enjoying the taste. But be that as it may.
“There is an enemy within, which spurs you,” we heard all of a sudden while we were gainfully engaged in the muffins.
For a moment, I dreaded that Deja had started speaking in a human voice without Swami doing the bark to words conversion. But thankfully that was not the case. I turned around to find the wealthy, old man standing next to us. It was he who was doing the talking.
With all our inner and outer yous, hardware and software entirely engrossed in the muffin, we had not noticed him walk towards us and talk.
Deja seemed to have had an influence on him. As he walked out with Deja, he turned around, looked at us, and said, “All of us have an enemy within that spurs us to act in crooked ways. Neglect the enemy within and he will then become your friend.”
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