The strange boy

This is a strange story. This is also a true story.

This is the personal experience of a brilliant & hardworking engineer, who is successful in the Silicon Valley. This is his story.

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I grew up in Puducherry (Pondicherry). As kids, we used to gather & play cricket.

One day, one of our friends had a strange demeanor when he came over to play. He was not friendly. He was rude & aggressive.

He then didn't go to his house. He went to a different house & said that he was hungry. The family fed him. He ate an enormous amount of food. He also drank an enormous amount of buttermilk & water. He was later taken to his home.

He continued to behave strangely in his home as well. He kept going to other people's homes, and eating a lot. He would come to play cricket but he kept behaving badly.

The boy's parents took him to the local temple. He was forced to sit down. After some rituals involving lamps, the Pujari asked him who he was.

The boy responded with a different name.

This was the name of a farmer in the neighborhood. The farmer had committed suicide a while back.

One day, when the boy was returning from school, he had traveled close to his place. The farmer had taken over the boy's body then.

I interrupted. Did they ask why the farmer had taken over the body? What did he want?

My friend responded that the Pujari didn't ask what the farmer wanted. He was stern in addressing the farmer that it was his mistake that he committed suicide, and that he had no right over the boy's body. He ignored whatever the farmer tried to say and simply kept angrily reproaching him for spoiling the life of the boy without any right, asking him to leave. The farmer left. The boy was normal since.

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Is there anything we can learn from this episode?

One of the primordial questions is: "What happens when we die?"

Atheism's belief is: "Life emerges out of nothing. Nothing remains when we die."

The Abrahamic religions believe that the bodies will be raised up on a judgment day & sent to eternal heaven or hell.

The Indic religions believe that only the body dies. Something beyond the body doesn't perish & moves on to yet another body.

Why did the boy eat the way he did?

This farmer had successfully killed his body. But clearly, he had an amplified hunger & thirst. Why?

Per the Indic religious thought, if you kill yourself, you have successfully managed to kill your material body. However, the real you continue to live on. A material body is not easy to come by. Without a material body, you will continue to feel hunger, thirst and the anguish that caused your suicide, without a material body to satiate your material needs. The material anguish will be amplified. You will lead a miserable existence. Suicide (Atma Hatya) is strongly discouraged for these reasons.