Trust comes easily to me. I’m
naturally inclined to err on the side of compassion and trust over apathy and
doubt. As with everything else, this choice too comes with its own pros and
cons.
I have learnt that life brings us
more and more incidents that seem to reinforce the energy that we emanate. So I
keep getting a lot of opportunities to be compassionate with and help people
around me in whatever way I can. But this signal from me also draws a lot of
unscrupulous characters ready to take advantage of this trait of mine.
Without getting into the details,
let me just say that my predisposition to trust has proven costly in many ways.
Help given with the highest of intentions was misused in many cases. It pained
me a lot although there was no feeling of revenge or retribution.
I still sought a power of
discrimination to separate the wheat from the chaff. I also realized that my
mind always seemed to have limited data and drew me towards not helping. One undesirable
outcome was good enough for the mind to close the doors of compassion. However,
every time I allowed my mind to takeover, a part of me died. What if the person
really needed it? The confusion pained even more than the pain of being
cheated. I accepted my inability to find out and hence surrendered my feelings
to God to help me with this dilemma. I want to help genuine people, I prayed. Please
show me the way, I beseeched. With that, I just left it to the higher
intelligence to take care.
During one such dilemma, I left
home one afternoon for some work. I stopped my car at a traffic signal. As I
waited for the lights to turn green, I noticed an advertisement hoarding by the
roadside showing a phone no. 5642067. Then I happened to look at the number
plate of the car in front of me: 54205. Then my eyes fell on the car clock on
the dashboard. It was 4: 20 pm. I chuckled as I said, ‘Char so bees’ (four
twenty, the number 420 for Indians means a cheat or a crook.) Just as I said that, something snapped in me. I
looked at the car number plate again: 54205.
I was zapped. I looked up at the hoarding and skipped a beat: 5642067. The number 420 being all around me
was not a tremendous coincidence. The divine intelligence was telling me that
the dilemma I was grappling with then was a case of a crook. So refrain from
believing the person who is seeking help.
I was drawn in silence at that
moment, unable to believe what I saw and the inference that I deduced from it. Can
I believe it? What if this is just a coincidence? My mind, beset in logic,
wanted to create all sorts of doubts. My heart wanted to believe this as a
message. Eventually, I stayed with the message and did not help the person
financially. Very soon, the choice was proven right.
Since then, every time I face
this dilemma, I toss it up for the universe to give me a signal. The number 420
has occurred to me in the most unusual of circumstances since then: newspapers,
magazines, books, TV, ID cards numbers, radio, two people exchanging phone
numbers and many more. If I don’t see 420 within 24 hours after tossing this
question, I believe that the person is genuine and I give more than I have been
asked for. If I don’t have the luxury of time, then I go by my gut feeling. One
of the more surprising thing is that when I’m trying to do something against my
heart, the number pops up from somewhere. It tells me I’m cheating myself. I
instantly hold off doing whatever I’m doing and bask in this wisdom from above.
I strongly believe that when we
accept our limitations and surrender our will to higher intelligence, it takes
care of us. Such messages are relayed to all of us in various ways. Higher
intelligence has as many ways of reaching out as there are people.
God talks to everyone. The issue is not who God talks to, but who listens. Do we really have our eyes, ears, minds and hearts open to receive what is coming?
