Welcome to Walmart
What is the first thing that you hear and see when you walk in to the Walmart stores? A friendly face greets you and says ” Welcome to Walmart.” That’s it. When you leave the store, the same greeter says ” Thank you for shopping at Walmart, have a nice day.” Standard store policy or something more subliminal hidden in these words. I enjoy living in the world of subtlety. Words that have one meaning superficially and quite another if you dare to look deeper. Now imagine if you were a “Walmart greeter?” What words would you make your own when you meet someone, a total stranger ?
There is a Walmart greeter within all of us. Surprised? Don’t be. When I meet someone for the first time, whether it is a patient, or someone on the street passing by, I greet them the same. I maintain eye contact, smile and say hello. I have VERY rarely found that the greeting is not returned. Invariably I almost catch the person off guard, similar to when I walk into Walmart and am always astonished when I am greeted in this manner, yet always half expecting it. The greeter is almost always ignored. Yet looking at it from their perspective, one might say they are forced to say these words, or one might say they genuinely are greeting you. I prefer to live in the delusion that it is the latter, because the thought of a disingenuous greeter is just too repulsive of a thought.
There is very deep seated feeling that awakens when one is greeted by another person. Almost as if to recognize another’s humanity, or perhaps to acknowledge the other person’s divinity. My face and words are the first thing that the stranger whom I greet are thrust with, so why not make it a pleasant experience. A handshake is just the next step to further that greeting making it more personal and bringing the experience into reality. If we are all truly connected as One and our consciousness is a collective rather than divided then it only stands to reason that each of us are divided only in the physical. Ergo saying hello to another acknowledges yourSelf within that collective universal consciousness. I am as much a part of you as you are a part of me. What segregates us is our ego of mind into deluding us that there is a you and a me, and that I am “better” than you. And so problems begin.
Taking the perspective one step further, perhaps the “greeter” is really just another part of “Me” that I see that greets “me.” The higher Self greeting the rest of myself as if to always acknowledge it’s presence and for me to acknowledge it, kind of looking into a mirror. In any regard, the best version of me, with best step forward is a reasonable fun way to go through life. Staying in the moment of NOW keeps that greeting between me and anyone I dare to meet outside the confines of my house clear, friendly and genuine. I doubt that my being greeted at the entrance of the store pre-shopping makes me want to shop more, yet it definitely improves my overall experience at this behemoth international multiverse of a store as I am much calmer once I am disarmed by this simple “hello.” The fact that I cannot find anything once in the store, is a whole different topic and a different level of my blood pressure that I can explore at a different discussion. I look forward to my “Walmart greeter” in the store as I do not know who it is going to be. Someone new or someone I have never met before. Yet I am very much looking forward to the next stranger or passerby who I can greet, and just for a few seconds acknowledge as our faces and words lock and call them my friend. As if to accept that we are together in the same illusionary struggle we call life, yet part of the same conscious fabric of existence. Probably never ever meet them again, we will go about our ways. However if we ever to meet on that same road once more, AH well at least the face is familiar !!
The Divine within Me greets the Divine within You: “Hello !”
