Passage Meditation--A Complete Spiritual Practice by Eknath Easwaran

Author:Eknath Easwaran
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Meditation, Meditations
Publisher: Nilgiri Press
Published: 2016-04-09T04:00:00+00:00

POINT SIX

Putting Others First

MY GRANDMOTHER WAS a remarkable woman. We come from a tradition that has been matriarchal for centuries, and within our large extended family — over a hundred people — Granny had weighty responsibilities. She liked to get up before dawn, long before the heat of the tropical sun became oppressive, and though I don’t remember her doing anything just for herself, she would work throughout the day. Self-reliant, afraid of nothing, she stood steady as a pillar when a crisis arose — a death in the family, for instance, or a failure in the crops. In worship, in work, she set an example for everyone.

But Granny knew how to play too. She could throw off her years and join the children at their games — and not just the girls either; she played hard with the boys at tag and ball, and usually got the better of us. During a particular annual festival, she liked to stand up on the bamboo and palm swing we had fashioned in the courtyard, single out one of the strongest boys, and say, “Push me as high as you can!” And up, up she would go in prodigious arcs, wood groaning from the strain, while the women gasped and we boys stared in admiration below.

Granny possessed a great secret: she knew how to put others first. If she bothered to think about her own needs, it was only after everyone else had been taken care of. I think especially of little things that mean so much to a child. On school days, she always prepared something special for my lunch — a favorite dish, a treat — and I would run all the way home to be with her. “Here comes the Malabar Express!” she would say. Then, though it wasn’t her own lunch time, she would sit next to me and keep me company as I ate. One of the village priests called her “Big Mother” — I imagine because she nurtured and sustained us so well.

At one point, when I developed some illness or other, the local doctor prescribed a saltless diet for a year. Three hundred and sixty-five days without salt! I cannot convey to you what a sentence that was. In a tropical country where salt figures into almost every dish…well, my school friends said, “Why don’t you just throw yourself into the river?”

The day after the order had been given, I came to breakfast with a long, long face. “What’s the use?” I said, staring down at my plate. Everyone gave me a look of commiseration. But what could they do? They felt helpless.

But not Granny. Serving me, she said quietly, “I am going on a saltless diet for a year too.” I don’t think I have ever had a ­better breakfast.

I said Granny possessed a great secret, but that wasn’t because she hid anything. The sad truth is that most people do not want this knowledge — chiefly, I think, because they fail to see the joy it brings, the sense of freedom.

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