Out beyond the ideas of ...

Over the last many, many years, I have wanted to settle down in a particular place.

But whenever people have asked me about this place, I have only had negative things to say: the rampant alcoholism there, the dowry menace in particular parts of that place, the cheating mentality, the crab culture, the political aggression, insincerity and the like.

And I had told myself that when I go there to settle down eventually, I will try and isolate and insulate myself as much as possible.

And yet, one thing that has parallely always attracted me is the concept of compassionate communities that the Charter for Compassion talks about and I have wanted to create compassionate community in that place.

And I thought I have an idea to do that through horticulture!

More on that some other time.

But for the time being, something happened a little while ago as I was listening to somebody speak about the importance of soul-to-soul connection as part of a coaching programme that I am attending online.

He spoke about an exercise in connecting with people simply for the sake of connecting with them and knowing more about; with no agenda to coach them.

As I listened to him outline the exercise, many flashbulbs went on inside my head and I think I found a way to pre-empt the threats I am fearing in settling in that place.

The first one is one of my favourite quotes from Rumi: "Out beyond the ideas of right doing and wrong doing, there is an open field. I will meet you there."

I realised that even though I have had a consistent set of first-hand and second-hand experiences to validate my perceptions and fears about this place, I realised that I can change the reality to quite some extent by applying Rumi's quote along with what that coach was saying.

I can reach out to one family a day in that particular place to simply connect with them without agenda to know their stories, history and aspirations.

I can also enquire to learn of their gifts and talents.

I will also be open to answering their questions about me so that they know about me as well.

I will invite them home for vegan food and I hope the invitation will be reciprocated.

And in all this process, I can keep practicing the Ho'opono pono prayer meditation, cleaning myself for the gaps in all of us as well as the soiled memories we all share.

As this would happen, I can bring down the barriers between us; one family at a time.

This would be the practical application of the second thing I have come to learn and value about in life: the definition of the word enemy.

I learnt that an enemy is a person whose story you don't know yet.

Stories of people help us humanise them and ourselves.

We begin to see people as people and not necessarily as things to be scared of or become jealous.

Lastly, I can explore jointly with them how we can actualise the two quotations that have had a profound impact on me:

"We have not come here to compete with one another. We have come here to complete one another."

and

"I am, because we are."

All the flashbulbs that I have spoken about have been close to my hear for some time now, including the doha from Kabir that I practice every evening at 7 pm: "Kabira khada beech baazar, maange sab ki khai; na kahu se dosti, na kahu se bair."

And yet, there have been numerous occasions when I found myself becoming judgmental; probably because of the self-preservation instinct we all have and our need for safety. And because of that I have had my misgivings and concerns about settling in that place.

Yet, miracles and ideas do happen from time to time.

Sometimes, we need repeated reinforcements from many different sources and angles for a message to sink in.

And for today I got that trigger from Michael Neill's talk about the importance of soul-level connection for great coaching to happen.

And those connections begin to happen when you try to know a person whole-heartedly through their stories; especially their life shaping experiences.