A horror story was in circulation in my hometown Patna when I was a child. It was about a young man who goes to a movie hall to see the night show. When he enters the hall he finds the lights have been dimmed and the movie has started. A hall attendant asks him to show his ticket so that he can direct him to his seat. When the attendant throws the light of his torch on the movie ticket, the young man sees that one of his hands is like a horse leg. In horror, he rushes out of the hall and takes a rickshaw for his home. The rickshaw-puller asks him why he is frightened. The man tells him about the movie hall attendant. The rickshaw-puller turns towards the man, thrusts one of his hands towards him, and with a wicked smile on his face, says, "Was it like thisIJ" The rickshaw-puller's hand is also like a horse leg.
The man jumps down from the moving rickshaw and starts running towards his home. A horse-cart comes by and the man boards it. He is the only passenger on the cart. The cart driver asks him why he is scared. The man tells him about the movie hall attendant and the rickshaw-puller. The cart driver shows one of his hands to the man and says, "Was it like thisIJ" The cart driver's hand is also like a horse leg.
The man jumps down from the cart and runs to his home. He thumps the door of his home and calls his mother to open it. When his mother opens the door, he embraces her, finding some relief. His mother asks why he is frightened. He tells the whole story. His mother shows him one of her hands and asks with gleaming eyes, "Was it like thisIJ" Her hand is like a horse leg. The man's heart flutters wildly as he looks at his own hands. One hand of the man is also like a horse leg. The man faints. End of the story. Children who knew the story told it to children who hadn't heard it with their entire range of dramatic skills. The drama of the narrator grew with the fright on the face of the listener. The horror of the story stayed with me in my childhood for a few years. But now I find a big lesson in the story. It offers a peep into the human psyche. For me, the story is spiritual now. I will explain how.
People have dark, evil sides to their personality. Most of the time, it is hidden in the subconscious or unconscious layers of the mind. A person may look normal and regular on the surface, but evil forces may be lying dormant and hidden within him. lust, greed, anger, jealousy, hatred and other dark forces commit atrocious deeds in the imagination of people. To look okay and to escape punishment, a person hurt by another in some way may in a flash imagine that he has violently reacted and brutally killed the other person. People often say, "I felt like hitting him." These dark emotions and the actions they give rise to in the imagination of a person disturb him, spoil his self-image and shame him.
People like to believe and show the world that they are basically good and the evil lies in others. It is very difficult to face the evil within. A person may fight the evil in others with the good he wants himself and others to believe he represents. But what is he going to do if he realises he is as dark as anybody elseIJ A person can violently counter the evil in others on the basis of the grand delusion that he has a right to do so because he is less evil and morally better than others. But what if Hitler realises one fine morning in the course of murdering Jews that he is a Jew tooIJ What if a person fondly nourishing the illusion that he is holier than the rest realises like Kabir that "Bura jo dekhan main chala, bura na milya koye / Jo man khoja aapna, mujh sa bura na koye"IJ (When I went looking for evil, I found no evil without. But when I looked at my own self, I realised I am the most evil.) The Bible says that "he that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city". It is much easier to subdue an enemy without than one within.
It is easy to confront the evil in others, but very difficult to face the evil within. Being human means being not just good, as the self-righteous like to believe to grant themselves a pedestal from where they can rule those whom they brand as evil. Being human, to my mind, means being as good and evil as anybody else. Being human means seeing every shade of good and evil, in latent or realised form, within every human being. Being human means living with the evil within as an inalienable part of the human experience.
The job is done if a person just accepts that all kinds of good and evil will always exist in all human beings. The problem arises when a person soars above others by seeing only good in himself or by trying to make others see only good in him. A person loses touch with his complete, real self when he creates the illusion within himself or others that he is better than others because the evil is not in him but in others. I think nature intervenes then by shattering this illusion and bringing the person back to reality. This can be a painful experience. But this is how evolution and growth happens. This is how a human being becomes human, humble and real. Nature has no need to teach any lessons, painful or not, to a person rooted in the reality of being human. Just like courts of law, nature is lenient with people who accept their culpability, even if it has not been realised and is just latent.
The horror in the story above is the horror of discovering the evil in the form of the horse leg first in those with whom a person has a distant connection, like the movie hall attendant and rickshaw-puller, then in those with whom he is closely related, like his mother, and finally within himself. It is at this final point that the person loses consciousness or awareness and faints. He does not faint before this point. Becoming aware of and facing the evil within shatters all the illusions the ego of a person creates about himself. The ego protects its illusions by making the person lose awareness and faint. That's why the story is a horror story-the young man is not able to confront, accept and rise above the evil in others and himself. He runs away from it. The story would be a fairy tale with a happy ending if he faces evil as part of being human.
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