We have a newspaper photograph at home of Bishop Tutu, his hands held in prayer position. Underneath it are his words, Please make it fashionable to be compassionate.
That photograph is many years old yet his words are even more relevant now. Is it not time to make compassion fashionable, to make kindness cool, to make consideration and care hot topics? We can do this and we have to. We have no real choice. We've already proven that war does not work, that fighting and killing in the name of religion, to gain domination or to claim control never has a happy ending, always there is suffering and anguish and continued pain. The dualistic belief that there is an us and them causes an endless no-win situation, blanketing our minds with ignorance.
Is it not time for a revolution that begins with ourselves, a bringing alive of fearlessness, courage, compassion and love for our own selves and from there towards all others? A revolution is a re-evolution, it is the willingness to take a higher step in the evolution of consciousness. We have come so far in our development but now we have to add to the technological wonders we are capable of by including the heart the one piece that has been missing. There is enough suffering in the world already. Opening the heart to unconditional love is the only way to break through the boundaries and separation that cause such loneliness and fear.
Even in the middle of great despair and crisis we can discover a place deep within which is totally beautiful, pure and powerful, and which is never victimised it never has been and never will be. SERGE BERRINGTON-BEHRENS
A revolution is also a revolving, a turning around of ourselves in response to an inner calling, and in this case it is the turning of our energy from being focused on selfishness, self-survival and closed-heartedness to caring and sharing for all equally, on open-heartedness and tenderness. It is a shift in emphasis. From being locked in the head with all its attendant fears, doubts, insecurities and dramas, we become aware that there is this other part of our being that operates in a different way and is actually a source of abundant riches, a wealth that cannot be squandered or lost.
If we genuinely want to end terrorism, if we genuinely want to bring real and peaceful change to the world, then there is one place where we can all begin, the one place that is our own personal responsibility we must confront and begin to heal the one war we can each help to alleviate. We have to open our hearts to ourselves and to all others, equally, for there will never be peace in the world if we are not at peace inside.
Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. MARTIN LUTHER KING
Trusting love In essence this sounds so simple just open the heart and get more loving. Yet the heart is tender, shy and reluctant to emerge. It is wary of love, wary of making itself known. Out walking a few weeks after the bombing of Afghanistan first began, we met a friend and talked together about this need for a greater expression of love and tolerance as the only real solution to the ongoing focus on war, a love that is not romantic or conditional but an expression of our shared humanness. She put her hand on her chest, on her heart. Yes, she said, but I find it so hard to do this, I feel exposed, fearful of sharing in this way, I don't really trust my heart because I don't feel like I know it. A heart that is a stranger how many of us can say we know our own hearts, have the courage to open to love let alone speak freely about love? How many of us dare to enter such a tender place? Yet do we have a choice?
Years ago I was on a plane flying from Philadelphia to Dallas. It was late at night with only a few people on board so we all had a row each and most people, myself included, were trying to sleep. Somewhere near Dallas we hit the tail end of a tornado. As we were pulled out of our sleepiness the plane became like a feather in the sky, jerking wildly, rocking and rolling. I was convinced I would die and mentally began to prepare myself. Then the thought suddenly came to me that if I died I would not be able to tell the people who I loved that I loved them! Suddenly love began to pour through me, filling my entire being with a power and magnificence I had not known before. Nothing else existed but this love, supporting, holding and caressing. At about the same time the plane began to pull out of the tornado and we eventually landed.
That experience stayed with me, leaving me in what I could only describe as an altered state of consciousness. I was fully immersed in the awareness that love is the source of everything, the essence of all life. However, after some days of this I suddenly had the reverse realisation that at the same time, deep inside, I did not trust love, in fact I had lived with this mistrust of love for many years without acknowledging it. Past experiences, childhood pain and rejection, a broken marriage - all had accumulated inside me and formed a deep mistrust of the very love that I was now experiencing as the source of all life. DEB
This lack of trust, accumulated through years of abuse and misunderstanding, causes separation, discontent, suspicion, unhappiness, loneliness, enmity and ultimately war. We close our hearts from each other, thinking that in this way we will be protected and safe, believing that if the heart is closed we cannot be hurt. But all we do is shut out the reality of our true nature, the tenderness of our own being, and so we can never be truly happy. What we are mistrusting is the expression of love the human expression that is bound up in so much ego and causes so much hurt and confusion - not the essence of unconditional love.
Tender-heartedness
As a species, we have developed our minds to a phenomenal degree. We have put men on the moon, we can communicate instantly with anyone anywhere in the world, we perform microsurgery by remote control, and we can hold all the technology we need in one hand. But can we cross the road to greet a new neighbour? Still people are lonely, there is depression, isolation, hopelessness, rejection and abuse, enmity, bigotry and greed. Human rights are violated daily, poverty and homelessness are so common we no longer notice them. Having put so much energy into creating the ideal material world that makes physical living so much more comfortable and luxurious, we have ignored the fact that for it to be so ideal we also have to embrace each other, to open our hearts and bring some joy and compassion into our lives. Without that our pleasure will be short-lived, it will soon become meaningless and empty. We have become so engrossed in the pursuit of material development, writes the Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama, that, unknowingly, we have neglected the most basic qualities of compassion, caring and cooperation.
Opening the heart means softening to the beauty and wonder in each moment. It means being willing to feel your feelings and not hide them behind a facade. It means sharing your tenderness, vulnerability and appreciation. Anger, resentment, hurt and abuse arise because you want to protect your tenderness, to shield your sensitivity and vulnerability from others by hiding it away. But opening could not happen if the potential for openness was not there. Already inside you, inside each one of us, is a softness, a place of tenderness, and it is only because it is there that so much pain and hurt and closing and hardening exists. If compassion, forgiveness and mutual respect are to become fashionable, then the first step you have to take is the willingness to feel, to touch your sensitivity, open to your softness, be bold in your vulnerability and share your inner heart.
To live with a loving heart to activate a compassionate revolution is to enter into an exploration of all aspects of your humanness and to discover who you are in relation to yourself and others so you can live sanely in a world that often looks insane, riddled with so much controversy. It is a breaking through the boundaries that separate and cause such deep loneliness and isolation. It means surrendering to unconditional love in a world that is fundamentally conditional.
If there is going to be some critical moment when there is a mass awakening, it will only happen because each individual person awakens her or his own heart. ROBERT THURMAN
Opening the heart begins by acknowledging and accepting yourself with honesty and courage, it is being a true friend to yourself. It means listening to your lost feelings, rediscovering your forgotten selves. It is a transformational process, taking you from who you have been to who you really are. It means accepting whatever is keeping the heart closed, and it means opening your heart to all aspects of yourself, to the mistrust, fear, shame or blame, to the child who was abused, the lover who was rejected, the times of torment, anger, guilt or mistakes made. It is a full acceptance of your humanness: the vulnerability, joys, heartaches and hopes.
So much hurt and denial, so many wounds and atrocities have taken place in the name of religion, politics, and through personal greed and selfishness: misunderstandings between families, friends, races and countries, abuse and disrespect, hatred and prejudice. Yet at the same time there is always that tender place inside each one of us that does not want to keep hurting, that wants to be loving and happy, that yearns for fulfilment. For the compassionate revolution to be effective you have to hold tight to that tender place and give it your priority.
Going out of your mind The much-loved spiritual teacher, the late Alan Watts, said, To go out of your mind at least once a day is tremendously important. By going out of your mind you come to your senses! When you come out of the conditioned, limited and unaware mind the centre of gravity naturally shifts to the heart. From there you can deal with the neurotic and needy states that arise in the mind. In the heart there is the kindness, patience and forgiveness in which to heal, to embrace yourself. Coming out of your mind is a way of giving yourself the spaciousness to be still, to touch deeper into your own depths.
For you know that you are more than just a mental, emotional and physical being, living in the dualistic realm of pleasure and pain, loss and gain, success and failure. Within each one of us is the yearning to find something more meaningful and fulfilling. Immersed in a sense of separateness of me and you and us and them - we long to relate, to communicate, to reach beyond our isolation. But my fears bump into your fears and we both retreat into opposite corners, unable to break the deadlock. Opening the heart and getting close to another requires a surrender of boundaries, a letting go of the need to protect, and you can only do that when you have begun to make friends with yourself.
You can start by being aware that you are alive. Right now. Just stop for a moment and become aware of your breath. Watch the breath enter and leave. Repeat, I am aware that I am breathing. Feel your body soften and welcome the breath. Belly softens. Heart softens. Feel the breath moving through your body. Feel the exhilaration of being alive. Do this for a few minutes. Now return to your normal breathing.
Growing roses out of compost
Opening the heart means accepting yourself just as you are. Not as you might want to be or used to be, but just now, like this. Without judgement or rejection. Just as a rose grows from compost but the flower manifests naturally, without effort, from acceptance you begin to come out of the conditioned mind; free of restrictions and restraints, you enter into radiance. In this radiant space all things are possible. When you look outside of yourself for fulfilment you are like the musk deer that has a beautiful scent in its body but searches the forest in vain for that smell. Your heart is within you and from there will fill you with grace.
If one completes the journey to one's own heart, one will find oneself in the heart of everyone else. FATHER THOMAS KEATING
To live with an open and loving heart is to accept your life with dignity, interest, wholeheartedness and tenderness. It means befriending your own weaknesses, anger and fear and transforming them into appreciation and loving kindness. It means you feel pain and suffering but also see beyond them so you do not become overwhelmed. Rather, you can use such feelings as a source of strength. To live in this way is to enter into the stream of love, pure love that is undiluted. This love is fearless because there is no place for fear to rest. Fear may arise but love holds you tenderly. With this love all confusion dissolves for with it comes clarity and insight. It makes the world go round, plants and trees grow, the sun rise, hearts to be warm. It is always present beneath your grief and sorrow; it mends all wounds; it has no enemies but is a friend to all. Like the sun, it casts no shadow but reveals the darkness. Love is what holds this world together and it will never desert you. It rests in your heart.
From Unconditional Love, copyright 2003 by Ed and Deb Shapiro, published by Time Warner.
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