The Devil's Playground
May 19, 2020 There's a reason the idle mind is called the Devil's playground, not the stairway to heaven. मन चिंति ते वैरी न चिंति is a Marathi proverb. It means that sometimes, we conjure up such negative thoughts or scenarios for ourselves that with a mind like this, who needs enemies? There's also the story of the कल्पवृक्ष that my father told me once. कल्पवृक्ष is a mythical tree that grants wishes. A weary traveler once sits underneath the tree without knowing its power and wishes in passing to have a refreshing meal. The tree grants his wish, but the traveler is terrified, not knowing where the food came from. Is there a ghost here? The mind wonders and the tree delivers. Oh no, there is a ghost here! What if he eats me up? मन चिंति ते वैरी न चिंति . The moral of the story: be careful what you wish for. "(Noise)...is...for the bereaved and guilty," writes Veronica Roth in her novel, Insurgent . The character she writes about is facing trauma at some level...