others
March 2024
What does the other need?
Learning to place one’s attentions on the other’s needs and not on one’s own, is the way to perfect concord and harmony, says Suma Varughese
My digestive system has been my biggest guru on my evolutionary path. For the last couple of months, I have been contending with a prolonged digestive issue thanks to IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) that has caused me to subsist on kichadi alone. In order to manage it and hopefully heal it, I have been working ceaselessly on my mind and in rising above its resistance. IBS is not, thankfully, a serious condition, but it brings considerable discomfort to the hapless sufferer. Many were the prayers I sent out to the Universe, asking for healing, for freedom from bloating, acidity, and blocked burps, for the ability to digest better, and to eat what I wanted. A couple of weeks back, I found myself asking a unique question. “I know what I want from the stomach. But what does the stomach want from me?” The answer was instant. “It wants me to be absolutely at peace. And it wants me to bathe it in loving attention.”
I was wonderstruck. In all these many years of wanting the stomach to behave in a particular way regardless of what I had done to damage it, it was the first time I had thought of asking what it wanted from me. I was to be there for the stomach, not the stomach for me. My job was to help the body, not expect the body to keep me painfree and comfortable. This discovery has completely shifted where I am supposed to place my attention. Not on me, but on the other. Nothing was about me. It was all about the other. When I dropped my agenda completely, and focused on what it wanted, for the first time I felt as if I was in perfect concord with my stomach, my mind and with Existence itself.
Since then, I have been asking the same question of all the other contentious parts of the body. What does the respiratory system want of me? What does the back want from me? What do my eyes want from me? The answers are absolutely crystal clear and direct me to what I should be doing, instead of moaning and groaning. I am not always able to do this, for the conditioning of the mind is still strong, but I have no doubt at all that this is the next step for me.
My primary insight during my spiritual awakening way back in 1991 was that it was the other’s happiness that mattered, and not mine. Only that, I realised, would truly make me happy. I believe I am moving towards that same insight once again, this time driven by the question, “What does the other need from me?” Need is preferable to want, because the capricious human mind has limitless wants. Of late I have been asking myself this question each time I have a conversation with someone. I was upset with my dhobi for not ironing my bedspreads well. When I asked myself what he needed, I realised that he needed me to express my displeasure firmly but dispassionately and focus on resolving the issue. When I asked myself what my helper needed from me, the answer was that she needed me to give her woes a patient hearing, and to also be as considerate as I could be, especially when she was burdened with chores or unwell. What does my sister need? Respectful attention and in being there for her as much as I could.
I have not perfected this capacity to erase myself out of the picture and focus only on the other. But already the vista of living in perfect harmony with life is causing my heart to sing!