In every crisis, doubt or confusion, take the higher path - that of compassion, courage, understanding and love.”
~ Amity Ray, Nonviolence: The Transforming Power
Our smartphones, TV news, panel discussions and social media these days have busy traffic of information and misinformation related to COVID-19.
Conversations meandering through Wuhan animal market to China coming back to business, from the music on the balconies of Italy to the spike in the death toll in New York, from Indian government being quite upbeat in taking smart measures to rein on the virus to the lighting of lamps and candles throughout India at 9:00 pm on 5th April.
People are glued to the TV channels to see and predict the course of the pandemic in their respective countries. The virus has been giving a tough fight to the exceptionally powerful brains and skills in the world. At the same time, it has changed the palate of many from non-vegetarian to vegetarian or even vegan food.
In this testing time as we see how the developed nations are succumbing to the tenacious nature of the COVID-19 virus, we also witness Mother Nature healing its injured body; the metamorphosis of child mind into adult mind; the metal grit of the medical fraternity around the world, expanding their limits beyond their own expectations. There are many pink and grey hues in the present pandemic environment.
Crisis always brings out the best and worst aspects of people.
Didn’t your heart yank seeing the visuals of sordid behaviour by some insensitive people, hurling stones on the doctors, harassing the nurses, battering and heckling the policemen, palpable violation of the law and government orders in the name of religion, freedom, excuses?
On the other hand, when toddlers and small children are confined within the safe province of their homes, forfeiting their right to play with their friends in the open air, forgoing their pleasurable time in swing rides or the slides in parks, abiding by the diktats of parents for a hard conciliation of demands for a new toy or an ice cream, it startles me.....
I am sure it amazes you!
I am quite convinced that we are astounded by the resilience that kids are displaying worldwide with this sudden bolt from the blue in their lives.
This reminds me of a beautifully written book named ‘I m O.K, You are O.K’ by Tomas. A. Harris.
The book so beautifully textured around the concept of Transactional Analysis propounded by Dr.Eric Berne.
It basically stands aloft on the foundation that within every human being there is a child, an adult and a parent.
What we are seeing in kids presently is mostly the adult state within them.
The people who are disobeying the law, the rules of social distancing, thronging to the places of worship with utter indifference to the consequences and many of the COVID-19 victims demonstrating conceited behaviour to the very people who are tending to save their lives from the clutches of death are displaying the irrational, adamant child within them-the various ways in which a child reacts to the parent. It is a matter of concern to see a spike in domestic abuses and divorce cases waiting to be filed across countries.
The people in blue and white robes are working round the clock, defying their own biological clocks by being constantly either in adult or parent state even confronting death in hand to hand combat are the face and voice of God.
Can people not domesticate unruly behaviour in the circumstance of COVID-19 crisis?
Well unabashedly YES!
By just consciously trying to remain in the adult state irrespective of their chronological age.
Dr.Harris has so lucidly described that it is very much possible.
All people need to exert effort on being introspective, dwelling on the rationality of the consequences for their families and society, being spiritual in the right sense and understanding Newton’s third law from the perspective of good and bad deeds.
Berne describes the Adult as being “principally concerned with transforming stimuli into pieces of information, and processing and filing that information on the basis of previous experience” Stated another way, Harris describes the Adult as “a data-processing computer, which grinds out decisions after computing the information from three sources: the Parent, the Child, and the data which the adult has gathered and is gathering”
When people decide to conquer irrationality, when people understand the real interpretation of their own religion which has love and brotherhood at the centre and discipline their minds and actions, it becomes a natural behaviour to abide by the rules made for the need of the hour.
It is true we are sitting on a time bomb of COVID-19. However, we can unwire it, with our conscious, socially responsible, viable and required actions as the call of the day.
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