Take off the mask

Halloween is coming and we purchase costumes, mostly scary for our kids and/or ourselves, to get ready for the one night of the year when death and fear are tamed and given to children for play. But few of us realize that beneath the Halloween mask is another disguise, our persona, that we wear beneath our skin. We wear our karma like clothes bought at birth, already sewn by family, nation and race, and then we add pieces to it, stitching every choice and thought we make into its cloth, trying to make a prince or a princess, but most often we look like a troll, at least we think so.

We go through life smoothing and clawing our karmic garb, thinking the world is the seamstress that holds the cloth and sews. At times we feel this garb is a body bag with no zipper or buttons for escape; other times when people smile and give us candy, we think our costumes is the best on the rack. And when our costumes doesn’t seem to fit anymore, or we get tired of the tricks it collects, we try on other masks, hoping to get one that gets more candy. But we always come back to this awareness:” This damn thing doesn’t fit!”

But behind it all, after years at this masquerade ball, we become just faintly aware that it is all a sham, just a costume for the mind that covers the soul from fear’s frightful stare. As our light of awareness grows, we being to feel the shape of the rubber head from the inside, and we feel our hot breath warming the end of our nose. We feel the heat of our body trapped in the tight enclosure, and our fingers pulse to get our of the gloves.

Like the Hulk awakening, our soul begins to stretch its muscle and the old persona we’ve lived in—with light coming through the seams—begins to split and tear. “Who are we without the mask?” We fear to ask the question. But but the question won’t leave once we feel the rubber face and the smile made in some factory in China.

We must work with the karma we are given, with the circumstances of our life, with the feelings and thoughts that come riding on each moment because this is the only face we’ve got. Life is a Halloween party, full of ghosts and goblins from our past. We knock on doors for candy and hurt people when they are not nice. But trick or treats are for children, and one day our soul will grow up. And God will be standing there waiting as we drop our bags of candy and wake up.