I Dreamt I Was a Jain
by Catharine J Anderson
I dreamt I was a Jain.
It didn’t feel like a dream, really. Just a cold morning in a town I’ve never visited. I was walking across a stone courtyard, bare feet, and I remember looking down at an ant crossing a crack in the flagstone. Usually, you don't think twice. You step over it, or you don't notice at all. But in the dream, seeing that tiny thing move felt like looking in a mirror. Not because we looked alike, but because whatever it is in me that knows it’s alive was in that ant, too.
Jiva. The living spark. It was everywhere, trapped under a mountain of heavy, non-living stuff.
An old man was sitting on a low bench near a dry well, scraping dirt out from under his thumbnail. I sat down on the wall near him, and we didn't say anything for a long time.
When he finally spoke, he didn't preach. He just talked about dust.
"You get hot, you sweat, the wind blows, and the dirt sticks," he said, not looking up. "That’s all karma is. It’s not a record book in the sky. It’s just what happens when you walk through a dirty world with sticky skin."
He picked up a dried-out clod of earth and crushed it between his fingers. He said every time you lose your temper, or want something that isn't yours, or even just stumble around half-asleep through your day, you’re just sweating out more moisture for the dust to stick to.
And after a while, the dust gets thick. It settles over your eyes so you can’t see straight. It gets heavy over your heart so you only feel your own small pleasures and pains.
"The real trick of it," he said, tossing the crushed dirt back to the ground, "is that the crust gets so thick you start looking in the mirror and thinking the dirt is your face. You forget there's a soul under there that doesn't belong to any of this."
We sat there while the sun moved over the wall. I wanted to ask him how you clean it off, but I already knew. You stop opening the windows to the dust storm. You let the old stuff dry out and drop away.
I woke up while it was still dark outside. My feet were cold. I lay there in the quiet for a long time, watching the ceiling fan turn, feeling the sheer weight of everything I’m still carrying.