Jimmy held the painted yellow skull in his right hand and studied it in a way he had studied at first glance the many compilations of mankind's knowledge. It was another piece, no different and presented no challenge to him. But soon the item began to take hold of his imagination and Jimmy found himself on a train of thoughts leading to a tribe in Africa. He had read in a book on Anthropology, how the tribe in concern always remembered to retain a dead forefather's skull before discarding his or her body, so that later on it could be used, much like most of mankind's pillow to rest one's head but also to ward off evil spirits and protect a person while he or she took to sleep.

Jimmy, on his part, had no feelings for skulls or for that matter bones. But the idea of a protecting spirit attracted him. He had seen a cousin of his, Joan, die out of grief when its mother died all of a sudden, one day. Jimmy wished he could present to Joan the potion that Joan's mom had transformed into a protecting spirit that would take care of him now in another way.

The need for protection and the fear of death represented by evil spirits was not peculiar to mankind. It was present in members of his species and other animal species too. Fear was universal , observed Jimmy.

Fear was as 'white' as love, he felt . Fear created the satisfaction of being alive. It gave to all minds the measure of their separation from another feeling that we call joy. They say, you can never know light until you know darkness.

But fear is 'white' for another, perhaps more important reason. Fear is the mother of the dichotomy called choice. Choice, without which, there would be no life, no journey through personal growth or evolution.

Jimmy patted his own back for his wisdom. He almost felt a soft affinity - an empathy- towards fear. Fear friend, he muttered to himself and chuckled. Suddenly he felt a strange feeling enveloping his being. He could hold fear in his awareness and he could hold love, and, he didn't have to hop from one to the other in order to 'see' any one of them. Oh, actually, the two had melted, and what was the new state that he was in? A state without the need for making any choices. A state which Jimmy remembered, one human had termed 'nirvikalpa samadhi'. But Jimmy struggled in his aspiration. He could make out that even the 'nirvikalpa' i.e. the one without choice type of awareness had to be chosen, had to be done, had to be produced. We were truly born in sin then. The sin was the presence of fear - the need to choose out of it.

Jimmy hugged the yellow skull. He had never realized this before. He remembered his buddies... how they must be busy dipping grass blades into homes of insects underneath the Earth, and then licking away the insects that came out stuck to the grass blades. In a way they were dipping grass blades into love and taking satisfying sips of it. Fear drove them.
One day when he would share his wisdom with them, they would perhaps no more be as hungry as they are now. They would eat the insects for sure but only enough to keep their selves with enough energy to choose 'nirvikalpa samadhi', the state of choicelessness. Choosing - the work associated with the suffering we are thrown into as we are born into this world, is compulsory for survival. As one of mankind's famous son, recalled Jimmy, has said, Life is Suffering.