Halos

I have always wondered about halos. Note, please, that 'always'. So, it is not true that my interest in halos arises only from the fact that light is reflected by the shiny dome atop my body which has disdained all covering and preens itself in its naked glory. Unless, you choose to believe that I never had hair on my head, despite encouraging it to grow by frequent watering and copious application of fertilizers.

The days of my youth were spent with pictures of great men with a moon around their heads and ones without. Given that people told me that the former were Saints or Gods and the latter were great mortals, I developed a totally skewed notion about Saints in general. It is a fact that, subconsciously, I look for that moon behind and around the head of everyone who is called a Saint by people. I have to, sadly, report that I never have yet caught sight of one and, thus, have developed a totally unreasoning disbelief in the saintliness of those people.

Age brings with it either wisdom or pigheaded belief or, more often than not, the latter masquerading as the former. It is, thus, that I firmly believe that, some time soon, all these great mortals shall also be depicted with that halo. The difference between mortals seen as saints, and mortals who are merely seen as great, seems largely to be that we think we can emulate the latter and we do not think we can emulate the former. As in, the former are capable of producing miracles and the latter are only good even great people but human in their powers.

Now, we have started considering being good AS a miracle. It is no longer achievable by mere humans, as in phrases like, "I am only a human, I am not a Mahatma". Now that THEY, too, are now more than human and the doer of miracles, it is time to add that full moon to their portraits.

It would be a great service to humanity to do so. For, then, we can all happily relax, free of the guilt of failing to emulate them!