Twelve Facets of Reality

Author(s): Chitrabhanu
Publisher: New York Dodd Made & Company

Page 83

In Search of the Incomparable 61 are not creating suffocation. There is no binding; rather, it is genuine communication of life to life.
Knowing your reality, you will see that reality in all living forms. Then you will know the meaning of compassion. Compassion is not seeing the form of human, plant, or animal; it is seeing the life. Once Abraham Lincoln saw a pig stuck in the mud. He told his driver to stop the carriage. He got down into the mud and pulled the pig out. He lost concern for his dress clothes. He transcended the form and saw the pain of life.
Compassion is saying to yourself, “If I were in that condition, how would I feel?” So when you see pain, your heart flies there to elevate life from its burden. In this way, you come out from the old habit of identifying life with form; instead, see form as nothing but the externalization of inner life.
You also begin to see that nothing is permanent in this world of forms—of things and emotions and thoughts. You may think you have “urgent” work to do, but when you look very deeply, there is nothing you can call a lifetime mission except to live and to grow. In Rajkot, there was a police officer who made an appointment with me. He had something he wanted to talk about with me. As monks, we had the duty of complying with someone's request if we had free time to do so. I was a little busy, so I suggested we meet the next morning. He said, “I would be glad to make it tomorrow, but I have very urgent work tomorrow. I am expected to attend a big case in court. Please let us meet today.” So we agreed to meet at 4 P.M.
A few hours later, a fellow monk came to me and said, “The police officer has expired.” He thought he had a big case to attend the next morning, but life's mission had changed the date for him.
So what is your lifetime mission? To live day by day, to identify