The thought of going to prison never bothered me. I’d survive and flourish behind bars where I’d have more than enough time to reflect and write which I have found is my true love in life.

No, I could kill without worrying about the consequences. It would be my first offense. I am certified as a Vietnam veteran with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and I don’t see any judge or jury putting me to death for the crime.

All of this went through my mind when I was waiting at the train platform and a rather tall, white guy walked in front of me. I was standing near the tracks. I was close enough and in line with others stranding on either side of me that I never thought someone could make their way between me and the tracks. But the man did. He walked around me. He stood directly in front of me. No one else stood that close. I recall thinking how totally inappropriate and rude his actions were.

That’s when I planned to kill him.

I know how to kill, having been trained in the infantry and as a parachutist who learned not to care about pain. I got used to it, and bared up under it so many times, it became almost second-nature to welcome it during a new and challenging task. Like murder.

No, I don’t know any Kung Fu or any martial arts. But I could break the man’s neck from behind. And, if that failed, I would wrestle him to the ground and die before letting him get up as I smashed his head again and again on the platform caring not a whit about the mess I’d make. I’m strong. More importantly, I’m strong-willed.

He deserved to die, I rationalized, and actually saw myself as a champion of the underdogs who play by the rules on train platforms. You have to honor another persons’ space. You can’t stand too close to another person, until or unless you see the train pulling up and everyone tightens up the ranks, bunching together to stand at the spot you believe the train steps will come to a halt.

Why break such a rule? Why place yourself in front of someone else, just because you’re taller than them? Or younger? Or slicker? Someone like me may just kill you and use the opportunity to leave behind a staid and predictable life that’s losing whatever meaning it once may have had.

My action could be considered justifiable in a weird sort of way. No, not in a legal sense, but in a Karmic sense, if you know what I mean. I’d create some negative karma, but prevent others from getting such negativity in their thoughts and desires to kill as much as I wanted to kill him. I saved them and the rest of all sentient beings a large and cumulative amount of negative karma, that I could be considered a saint in some religions.

* * * *

I bring this up now only because I asked the universe to correct my old way of life. Certain actions occurred in response to my wishes.

But instead of acting, I became a “watcher.”  I was no longer the actor, but someone above myself looking down on my speech, my thoughts, my relations with others and events that became ripened by different  causes and conditions.

No, I killed no one. But I entered a state of mind where I saw a different reality. A reality that has always been there, but was blocked by my mind. My mind kept me busy with one thought after another; a fear here, an anxiety there. It jumped from an emotional thought from my past to a future where nothing but catastrophes existed. And then my mind would race, with me having no control of it.

I feel better now. I control my mind even in the most disastrous moments of life. Who’s to say they’re disastrous? Not me. Not any more. I’ve gained the equanimity to treat the glorious and the profane the same way. As an observer. Not a slave to emotional and useless thoughts. Just an observer of the thoughts. Try it. It could be worth dying for . . .