All World
Gayatri Pariwar

TENDERNESS

[Abstracted from Catherine Ingram’s universally acclaimed book- ‘Passionate Presence’. Published with glad consent of the author. – Editor]

Even now one of them caught her eye. A large beetle on the path had somehow toppled into its back, its wriggling legs announcing its will to live and blending with her own. Without thought she swiftly responded. Gathering up two large leaves she carefully placed one on each side of the beetle and gently scooped it right side up. She watched it scurry to the safety of nearby foliage.

Over twenty years ago, while staying in Bodh Gaya, India, my friends and I began hearing rumors about a boy who had allegedly been found among wild dogs. The rumor in town was that his seemingly canine behavior, lack of speech, inability to walk upright or to eat with his hands indicated that he had probably been raised among the dogs. We were intrigued. So it was with enthusiasm that I accepted an invitation to see the boy at a private gathering with the Dalai Lama, who had expressed an interest in the child. The meeting was to be held at the Gandhi Ashram where the boy was staying among a group of social workers and behavioral therapists who had assembled around him. A friend and I attended the meeting of about twenty people.

Judging from his size, the child appeared to be about five or six years old. Crawling on all fours, his eyes darting from side to side, he was like a frightened animal. Seeing him made me uneasy, such as when I have seen depictions of creatures that are half human and half some other animal. I felt a primal recoil from something alien. This surprised me because I had expressed compassion to be my primary response to the boy.

The Dalai Lama was seated in the center of the room, and the child was brought before him. As the Indian officials and therapists began making their presentations about the boy to the Dalai Lama, he reached down and began to gently stroke the child's head, much as one would pat a dog. The gathered assembly pretended not to notice. Was it okay to treat the boy like a dog, or was that not good for his "rehabilitation"? The officials continued explaining their efforts to train the child to walk, to form words, and so on. All the while, the Dalai Lama continued to stroke the boy's head and shoulders, smiling and warmly murmuring until the child eventually curled up at his feet.

I could only imagine the comfort for that boy in those moments. Whatever his history had been, I was sure that his current circumstances in his new life with strange and powerful creatures must have been at least difficult and perhaps terrifying. Here, if only for a short while, one of the strange creatures met him - being to being - and communicated in his only shared language, the language of the heart.

Heart language has one thing in common the world over. It is the quiet offering of understanding to others without the demand for being understood oneself. Certainly, being understood is wonderful. It is delightful to be met in the deepest aspects of our being and a cause for celebration when it happens. But wishing to be understood by others, to be met in the deep places, often leads to disappointment. Understanding others, meeting them wherever their hearts reside, brings peace to oneself and has the greatest potential to transform difficult situations for others. No matter how seemingly great the gap in communication, most creatures respond to a loving presence. Almost all of us can feel when someone has our best interests at heart, listens with an open mind, and offers comfort without seeking benefit for himself.

In awakened awareness, a channel of communication easily opens because we don't need anything in particular from the other person. Real love doesn't seek to acquire. It gives itself away. Its very nature is that of surrender, service, and generosity. Just as galaxies gravitationally pull toward each other to explode in cosmic union, the force of love is such that it spends itself entirely. It gives away the store. And it does so for one simple reason; it cannot help it. It has no choice.

Many people feel this kind of helpless love only for their close relations. They have a few small concentric circles of dear ones for whom they feel varying degrees of consideration, but at the border of the outer circle, consideration comes to an abrupt halt. Everyone outside of this final circle is "other." From an evolutionary point of view, care for immediate relatives is; part of the genetic imperative, a trait shared by most animals. But while that is natural and beautiful in its own way, there is a more expansive understanding of love and relatedness that transcends our biological dictates.

In awakened awareness, love is not tribal but universal. While we deeply honor family bonds and feel special connections to our community, we abandon the mentality of exclusion. No longer a slave to primitive impulses and irrational injustices based on race, ancestral, or even species affinities, we can see the bigger picture. After all, on a purely genetic level, all creatures have emerged from and share a river of DNA.

There is an even greater understanding which knows that what animates us is the animating force flowing through everything and is the purest expression of being. That is our true kinship, our greater ancestor - the permeating universal force. Understanding this, everyone becomes family and every place, home. No matter how strange a given person or creature may be, we meet him in the understanding of our commonality. As psychologist Carl Jung once put it, "At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things, and am myself living in every tree, in the flashing of the waves, in the clouds and animals that come and go, in the procession of the seasons”.

Some people may not want to risk feeling this kind of expansion. They may point out that the world is too dangerous to let down our guards and that it is foolish to be so open. While it is true that there are those who are dangerous to others and whom it is best to avoid if possible, there is an understanding in awakened awareness that stays open even in times of caution. It sees ignorance instead of evil in people who wish to harm others and is therefore not as frightened by them. In awakened awareness, we still get out of their way, but we do so as one might avoid an oncoming cyclone. We have no belief that says particular person or being is an evil alien force. Though disturbed, he is still one of us. .

Sensing nothing as alien to ourselves, we embrace the world as our own. Some aspects of it are wonderful and some are awful, but it is all familiar because its fundamental essence is the same. The homeless guy on the street comer who smells of urine, the confident businessman at the committee meeting, the angry woman pushing in line at the theatre, the puppy sniffing every inch of ground it passes. In awakened awareness, they are each familiar, and we meet them in understanding, without the need to be understood.

[To be continued]