To a Beetle

Dear brother night beetle-- I don’t even know what to call you-- you who stealthily bite and sip blood from my loved ones while they sleep and cause them to have giant bumps from your venom, please forgive me. I have to whack you with this slipper for you are causing us a lot of misery. I could have taken you away in a box or something and set you free somewhere far, but I’m afraid of you, with your mysterious terror. I feel sorry not only for crushing your hideous body, but falling to the floor, it has caused me more sorrow to hit you again as you squirm away. I ask forgiveness to the cause of this squirming, to that beautiful force of life whom I have ended, whom no one in this world, with no amount of money or scientific power can duplicate. I have offended you, the life force in the beetle body, to whom I as another force of life in a human body is related as atmas, spirit. You are my brother, as both of us are parts and parcels of the Paramatma, the supreme life force. I understand that as you had suffered so too shall I suffer in this life or the next, such is the simplicity of divine Karma. Because His love for both of us is impartial, I beg the mercy of our Father, the cause of you and me, the cause not only of all living force, but the cause of everything, to forgive me of my offense. Haribol.