The village in South India where I grew up didn’t have swimming pools, but we had something better: a river. And I don’t mean a creek that you can jump across with the help of a pole. Ours was a broad, rushing torrent that would swell to full flood during the monsoon rains, when most young people took great delight in trying to swim against the turbulent currents that boiled over the riverbanks and swept downstream. The game was to see if you could make it to the other shore directly across from where you started rather than let the current carry you downstream.
It was hard; that was the challenge of it. I was a good swimmer, yet often I would finish up somewhere down the river. Two or three of my cousins, however, were particularly skilled at gauging the strength of the current. They would single out a rock or tree on the opposite bank to aim for, far upstream, and then plunge in and swim for all they were worth. For every stroke they took, the river would take two – but if they had gauged the current correctly, they would climb out on the opposite shore precisely across from they started. Occasionally an alligator or two would get mixed up in the proceedings, and some of the slowest swimmers would put on sudden spurts of speed.
After an hour of this, most of us would just lie there on the grass to recuperate, exhausted but satisfied. The challenge brought a fierce sense of exhilaration and mastery. It tested every ounce of our stamina and resoluteness, so that we emerged from our swim much stronger than when we went in. What satisfaction would there have been in simply paddling about and letting the current carry us away?
I often remember those days when I look at the Prayer of St. Francis, which makes a perfect guide for how ordinary people like you and me can rise to our human stature. If you study the words closely, you will see that line by line St. Francis is calling for nothing less than a reversal of all our human conditioning – swimming against the current of past habit, present human nature, and all that the world values.
I can imagine him telling us personally, “Everything I tell you is difficult. If it is easy, it is not from me. I am asking you to go completely against the accepted pattern of life, where everybody says to make as much money as you can, pursue your own pleasure and profit and prestige and power without thought of anyone else, and then retire to your ranch to do your own thing, forgetting the world and by the world forgotten. That’s what everyone does, but I am calling you to something vastly higher – to live in the image of God.”
Seeking to console
The second half of the prayer begins, “O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console.” Our usual motivation is to ask for comfort, to seek consolation. This is all right for a little child, but Francis is reminding us that once we outgrow childhood, we should gradually learn not to ask for attention and comfort for ourselves because that is a form of self-pity, which is one of the most weakening of human emotions.
In the family, it is frequently the case that a less mature member will play for affection by constantly pointing to himself or herself as in need of help. Here Mahatma Gandhi, who reminds me of St. Francis in so many ways, joins him to give us the same let your heart melt with compassion for others, but stand firm where your own difficulties are concerned.
This is one of the simplest ways of leading the spiritual life, and the practical application is very simple: when you want to dwell on your troubles, turn your attention away from yourself to the welfare of those in your own family. Think only about the needs of the whole and forget your own problems – they will be included when you pay attention to the needs of all, in which group you too are included.
And don’t stop there. Your family can easily become only an extension of your own ego. Turn your attention outward until it is riveted on the needs not only of your own family but also on the needs of those you work with and those in the community in which you live. Eventually your concern embrace the needs even of those in other countries. You will find the sense of separateness, which is the source of all suffering, slowly being reduced – day by day, month by month, year by year.
When you feel you are in such a difficult situation that you need to go begging for attention, instead of seeking sympathy or a willing ear, go for a fast walk repeating your mantram: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, or Ave Maria, or Barukh attah Adonai, or Om mani padme hum, or Mahatma Gandhi’s mantram, Rama, Rama, Rama. You are calling on the source from which all attention comes, asking for help from that inner source which alone can strengthen you and guide you wisely – the divine spark buried deep in your own consciousness.
Learning to listen
The next line of the prayer is similar: “To be understood as to understand.” How many times have I heard people around me – students, boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives, children and parents – complain, “You don’t understand me!” It’s such a common refrain that someone should make a song of it. And in every argument, as soon as one party starts in with “You’ve got to understand me!” the other party immediately reaches for the earplugs and stuffs them into both ears.
This happens even where nations are concerned, as you would see if you could read the papers or watch television with my eyes. I have seen political leaders of great nations plugging their ears and shouting at each other for the benefit of the whole world, undermining the security of their countries by not listening to each other.
What I almost never hear is “I want to understand you.” St. Francis is telling us that it is much more important for us to understand the other person’s point of view than for the other person to grasp our own.
This seems upside-down, but it is sound spiritual psychology. If you can respect your opponents and listen with a one-pointed mind to their arguments – even their lack of arguments – often you will find they begin to attend to you. After a while, finding that you are really listening, they will take one earplug out. Then, gradually, they will take the other earplug out as well. At that point, if you do understand their point of view, you can present your own; they will be listening.
The reason most quarrels are not resolved is that each party tries to plug their ears where the case presented by the other is concerned. A great many other difficulties in communication are similar. I have seen this even at great universities, where the participants have been trained in communication.
I can give you a personal illustration. In my classes in India, I used to see a number of students regularly falling asleep. At first, naturally, I got irritated. Here I would spend hours preparing for a class and then go and pour my heart out to communicate with them, and they would use the time to nap before my eyes! Some of them showed promise, but they didn’t seem to care to understand what I was teaching.
Then I began to find out that in many cases, there were reasons I hadn’t understood. For one thing, English classes were scheduled for the late afternoon when everybody was tired, and I found out most of these students had other responsibilities and were actually short of sleep. Instead of berating them, I helped them to understand that adequate sleep is necessary for learning, and I found time to help them at other hours when they were more alert.
Most important, perhaps, I began to take extra care to make my lectures not only instructive but personal, practical, and even entertaining. When we were doing Romeo and Juliet, for example, I brought the action – two star-crossed teenagers in love – right into their lives. One of the finest tributes I ever received as a teacher came when I found that even students who were not enrolled were choosing to attend my talks instead of going home for a well-earned rest.
Practicing love
St. Francis continues, “Grant that I may not so much seek to be loved as to love.” This is just the opposite of the usual Valentine’s Day message, which has undertones very much like King Lear’s constant plea: “Do you love me? Do you love me?” The question I should ask is not whether you love me, but how much I love you. That is the only question a lover should ask. If I love you with all my heart, I won’t ever have time to ask how much you love me. I will feel certain of your love because I know with certainty that I love you.
To love like this means only one thing: the other person’s welfare is more important to you than your own. If your girlfriend’s welfare is more important to you than your own, you are in love with her. If your boyfriend’s joy is more important to you than your own, you are in love with him. Other tests are secondary.
It is a skill that we cultivate by reducing the size of the ego little by little, day by day, through the practice of meditation and the other skills in the Eight Point Program – and by going on cultivating this skill throughout the day, from morning until evening.
Practice begins when you come to breakfast. I think one of the main reasons that newspapers are delivered in the morning is so that people can take shelter from their family behind the editorial page. This is a common phenomenon in every part of the world I have lived in. But St. Francis is telling us to put the paper aside. Even if you don’t feel like looking at people, turn your attention outward. Even if you have a mournful face, display it so that others can remind you with their talk and laughter that their happiness is important to you – more important, St. Francis would repeat, than your own.
Of course, there are other ways to hide. I understand that many homes have the TV on at mealtime. A friend once told me that TV Guide had asked a thousand of its readers how much money they would require to give up TV forever. About half would settle for nothing less than a million dollars, and a quarter more were not prepared to part with their sets even for that. This is where their attention goes, and there is a very close connection between attention and love. Without attention, love simply isn’t possible. Share your time with others, St. Francis would say; don’t give it to the tube.
Habits like these can siphon love from the whole family. Many younger people, for example, apparently have the TV going while they are eating and studying at the same time. That is, at best, one-third meal, one-third study, and one-third show. No wonder we have such difficulties in our schools!
I notice too how many people walk or exercise with things in their ears so they can listen to music. If you want to listen to music, sit down and give it your full attention. In everything we do, we should cultivate the habit of doing one thing at a time: not only because the activity deserves full attention, but because we are training the mind so that we can love others freely. One-pointed attention is the very essence of love, and we cannot teach the mind to be one-pointed if we go about dividing it during the day.
In giving we receive
“For it is in giving that we receive.” We often act as if we believe it is in grabbing that we receive. If we don’t take what we want, we are afraid we won’t receive anything at all. Francis is telling us just the opposite: the more we give, the more we receive. Even in my own small life, I find every day that the more I give, the more I have to give on the following day. The more I give on the following day, the more I have to give that evening.
So keep on giving – your time, your energy, your talent, your resources. Everything is a trust given to you to be used for the benefit of others. And you will find that the more you give, the more energy and understanding you will have, and the more love you will have for giving even more. This is the very best way to increase your capacity to help and to serve.
The gift of forgiving
“It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.” What a wonderful statement! If you want to show your love to your family, your friends, your colleagues, your students, the best way to do so is to forgive them whatever offenses they may have committed against you – or, as St. Francis might add, whatever offenses you imagine they have committed against you.
Whenever Christmas draws near, I always remind people that it is not by hanging ornaments on a fir tree that we celebrate the birth of the Christ child; it is by hanging jewels of forgiveness on our hearts. It is Jesus himself who tells us to pray for those who have offended us and those whom we might have offended. “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Of course, only the rarest of saints begins at these heights. It is by practicing every day, especially under provocation, that we learn to forgive “as the sun shines,” as Jesus says, radiating forgiveness on all. For as Francis explains, “It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.” I have committed mistakes in my life, but I don’t hold them against myself because I have learned to forgive anybody and everybody for any harm they might try to do to me. When we forgive everybody, we forgive ourselves as well.
When people offend you, Francis would say, don’t avoid them. Court their company. It will be difficult. They may insult you again. That’s where endurance comes. Court their company and “do good to them that hate you.” This is how you can test your practice of meditation. Can you spend your time with those you dislike? Can you help those who have hindered you? If you can, you are making great progress on the spiritual path.
Our age has been rightly called the age of anger. Look at what is taking place in the many disturbed areas of the world today. People have not forgotten animosities or forgiven hostilities which stretch back hundreds of years. Such tragedies do not belong simply to this century; often they are stories of generations of hostility.
Here is where Francis would play peacemaker on an international scale by saying, “Close down the doors of history. Let the past bury its dead. Build the future from today onwards by forgiving all that has been done by one race or ethnic community to another.” It is by this kind of forgiveness, and only by this kind of forgiveness, that international good will grows. If leaders could only join hands, they could pull their countries out of these desperate situations in which they are moving because of their incapacity to forgive. The Compassionate Buddha once stopped a fratricidal war by reminding the leaders of both sides, “Hatred never ceases by hatred. Hatred ceases only through love. This is an unalterable law.”
Empty of selfishness
The St. Francis Prayer concludes, “It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.” It sounds hard, but this is a very joyful statement when we understand the joy it means – not in some afterlife, but here and now. In practical terms, what it means is that when I die to all that is selfish in me, I truly come to life. In traditional religious language, it is only when we empty ourselves completely of selfishness and self-will that God can work through us as an instrument.
All the world’s great spiritual traditions tell us over and over to reduce our self-will little by little, day by day, by putting others first instead of dwelling on ourselves. Put your partner first, your children first, your parents first, your friends first, your boyfriend or girlfriend first, and you will find that gradually you are forgetting to think about yourself at all. I don’t think anything is more challenging. But in the evening, when you go to bed, you will find a fountain of joy welling in your heart just because you have done your best. In time, through the grace of the Lord, you will find that you are becoming an instrument of peace, helping to make the world a better place for generations to come.