Our Guru Max the cat inspires us on a daily basis. We wake up and there he is, purring with contentment. He is a constant reminder of the beauty and value of communing with the Divine.

In recent weeks, however, the Guru’s bliss has been interrupted. Indeed, every summer, the Guru undergoes an annual rite of passage to strengthen his spiritual conviction.

The annual passage of which I speak?

The Fourth of July.

We humans who live in the U.S. think of the Fourth in various ways. As a celebration of our independence from Great Britain. As an opportunity to take a vacation from work. And, of course, as an excuse to indulge in pyrotechnic displays, aka fireworks.

For our Guru, however, the Fourth has a different connotation.

For our Guru, the Fourth is when the world ends.

Loud Noises which cannot be explained erupt every evening, often for a week or weeks at a time. These Noises signal the imminent demise of all living beings on the planet. One must run for cover and pray to be spared the wrath of the evil ones who are clearly in charge of the Noises.

To make matters even more terrifying for our Guru, the Noises seem to originate from upstairs in our house. Never mind that this conclusion on the Guru’s part is an erroneous one. The windows in our house are always open in the evenings, and the Noises are coming from the windows, so the Noises ARE upstairs, and that is the end of that.

This year, the fireworks were cancelled in Santa Rosa, so the noble citizens of our town took it upon themselves to shoot off fireworks every evening for weeks.

This provided a supreme test for the Guru.

We tried to help by bringing him inside early, running noise machines throughout the house, and closing the windows upstairs. But the damage had been done.

He “knew” the fireworks were coming from upstairs and he refused to go up there.

He stopped sleeping with us at night. We had to feed him his meals downstairs instead of on his usual upstairs feeding perch.

As soon as dusk came, the Guru started crouching around the house as though the sky was about to fall upon his little, furry body. And as far as he was concerned, the sky was falling. The Noises proved it.

Even when the Fourth was long gone and the Noises had stopped, the Guru continued to crouch when evening came.

And this is where his teaching kicked in. As Melissa and I watched the Guru’s behavior, we applied it to our own lives.

How many times have we been convinced that “the fireworks are coming from upstairs”?

We see someone scowling and immediately assume we did something to make them upset.

We try something new, make one mistake, and become convinced that we’ll never get it right.

We take an outside stimulus and make up a story in which said stimulus is either all our fault or puts us in grave danger. Or both.

Boom! It’s an Upstairs Fireworks Show.

With his dusk-induced crouching, the Guru was perfectly demonstrating the power of the mind to Tell Stories. Stories of pain, suffering, and woe.

Once Melissa and I fully ingested this lesson, the Guru stopped crouching. He made friends with upstairs once again. He started sleeping on our bed every night, allowing us to awaken every morning to his furry, purry bliss.

Did the Guru stop crouching because we’d learned the lesson?

It’s best not to question the ways of our Guru. He exists on a highly-advanced plane that we can’t even begin to understand.

We’re just happy to wake up to his beautiful face again every morning.

When have you been convinced that “the fireworks are coming from upstairs”? Share your comments below!

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