How is the vow supposed to work in difficult or life-threatening situations?

QUESTION

How is the vow supposed to work in difficult or life-threatening situations?

ANSWER

In difficult life-threatening situations you must respond instinctually to protect yourself. I would like to give you two personal stories as examples. The first is an incident that occurred when my daughter Mallika was only 6-weeks old. We were living in a tenement apartment in a very poor section of Boston.

I was a resident in Internal Medicine at Boston City Hospital. My wife Rita had gone to the grocery store and I was baby-sitting. Mallika was in a little basket next to me and I was reading a medical journal. The doorbell rang and when I opened it a 6’ 11’’man suddenly entered the apartment wielding a baseball bat in his gigantic hands. I let out the loudest scream in my life. It was so piercing and shrill I’m surprised it didn’t shatter all the glass in the place. The baseball bat fell from his hands. Without thought, I instinctively picked it up and hit him in the back. The next thing I knew, he was crumpled on the floor and police sirens were wailing outside. It turns out he had just escaped from prison where he had been incarcerated for multiple murders. The police handcuffed him and took him back to prison. The next day my photo appeared in the local newspaper as a hero. The second situation occurred only five years ago. After giving a lecture in a Southern city, I was walking back to my hotel through a dark alley behind a theater. Suddenly I found myself surrounded by four male teenagers. One of them had a gun which he held against my head. This time, I remained calm and centered. It had been approximately 30 years since the first encounter with violence and I had been practicing meditation for much of that time. I took out my wallet gave my terrorist “friends” all the cash I had. Then I found myself saying to them “You don’t want to be in prison for murder for just a $150. Will you please allow me to keep my credit cards as they will be of no use to you? If you throw the gun away and run as fast as you can, I promise you I will tell no one about this episode except my wife.” They hesitated, and I said “Please throw the gun away, and run quickly.” The apparent leader of the group then threw his gun away, and they ran off. The next day I went to an ATM and took out $150 to replace the cash. I kept my promise and did not tell anyone but my wife about this episode for 6 months. If you stay connected to your soul the right response will occur as it needs to happen.

Deepak Chopra