14 February 2010

Who do I serve?

It had been a beautiful class. It usually is when the subject is meditation and the teacher is a practitioner. It makes matters even better when the teacher is passionate about the subject at hand. I think the last part applies to all subjects. I have fallen in love with subjects just because of the passion with which they were delivered and likewise fallen out of them just for lack of the same.

"Soldiers are such great people, so sacrificing". The ears stood at end listening to the seemingly alien delivery. It refused to fit. People do same things for different reasons. By which, not everyone becomes a soldier because they have a love for their land and its people, it does not mean that they all give a darn or even understand the righteousness of what is at hand. Many are soldier because they found it easy to get in, because it came with great benefits, because it allowed legalization of the violence within. It was hard to cast instruments of war as a subject of compassion.

The group touched upon the PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) that the soldiers returned with from the battlefield. Their youth, their terrible experiences, their torturous memories, their un-erasable pasts, and their stained futures. All lost in the loud shouts of pride and honor, buried under the garb of patriotism. But after the outer din had subsided, after the calls to glory had faded, the inner voices still remained. Continuing to shriek in the night, scream through the day. When all who had cheered had disappeared, the cheered was left to face his own loneliness, sorrow, suffering, trauma, regrets, hurt, and unending pan.

Melting beads formulated on frozen compassion. Judgement cannot serve and service knows no judgement. To serve is to know the hurt of another and to be an instrument and available in its alleviation. Compassion does not inquire in order to judge but only to alleviate. Regardless of what brings about pain, where present, it needs tender tending, great attention, care, love, compassion. If one is left to suffer on account of being a cause of suffering to another, sooner or later we will all find ourselves alone and hurting in our lives.

Serve, love, offer, give, sacrifice, surrender. Do not let judgement stand in the way of love. Acknowledge, ignore, and continue to serve with all your heart, with all your love, with all your being. The other is us subjected to a different set of life events.