Integrity

Life just happens. It is really beyond our control. Our perception shapes the experiences we have. How we react to things depends on where our consciousness is at any given moment. There is a difference between just showing up and being present. Just showing up can mean your body is present but your consciousness might be mulling over the past or planning for the future… kind of like your car running on two cylinders. It is still running, but you can’t really depend on it to get you where you want to go. When we are fully present in the moment it’s like having all cylinders running optimally, and we have faith that we will get to where we want to go. Let’s say you have four cylinders in your engine, you can consider integrity as one of them with the other three being truth, faith and courage.

I have still been thinking a lot about integrity lately. I think that’s a good thing. I can think of many less valuable things I have spent my time thinking about. Integrity is something that makes you feel good about yourself. I am watching my behavior to see if I can catch myself before I do something that lacks integrity. I don’t always catch it before it happens, but I feel that if, in the least, I can recognize it that my truthfulness to admit it shows integrity. I also want to recognize when I do things with integrity so that I can remember feeling good about myself. I would like to build an arsenal of these experiences to refer so when I am feeling down on myself, I can remember that even though I get stuck in the mud at times, sometimes I shine. More often we remember how we messed things up by just showing up more than how we glorified a situation by being present in the moment.

Maybe next blog I’ll share a story in which I lacked integrity, but tonight I need one of those “feel good” stories. This past March in Haridwar, India at the Kumbh Mela, a Hindu religious festival and the largest gathering of people on the planet, my display of integrity brought out the integrity of others. It was a ridiculously hot day. We would head out for our daily wanderings early in the morning because by just 9:00am it would already reach 90 degrees. A 20 foot high embankment creates a path that winds along the Ganges and on one side there are a row of ashrams and huts along with big circus type tents set up for the mela. On the other side are more tents and then the main drag and the city itself. In India, animals roam free including cows, goats, horses and donkeys. Donkeys are considered the lowliest of animals to most Indians. Not to me though. I find them even more adorable in India, as I do with most livestock there. They all seem to have sweeter faces. Maybe it’s because of their freedom.

On this particular morning walk, about 7:00am, I noticed a lame donkey on the town side of the embankment. My heart went out to him when I saw him dragging that swollen, obviously, broken back leg. No one seemed to care or even notice. Maybe they did, but they were just like me. They didn’t know what they could do, so they did nothing. Many hours had passed since I saw that donkey, and I had forgotten about him. After lunch in India you take rest, partly because by that time of day it’s just too damn hot to do anything else. We had developed a sort of ritual by taking a refreshing dip in the Ganges, then eating lunch and resting. Our friend, Swami Sevanand, was a most gracious and kind soul who welcomed us to rest in his cottage anytime we wished. His cottage was located along the Ganges and, thankfully, only a short walk in the noon day soon from where we usually ate lunch.

It must have been close to 100 degrees by the time we finished our lunch. Lunch was incredibly delicious and as usual, I ate too much. Why super spicy food tastes so good in super hot climates is a mystery. If it weren’t for all the walking and sweating, I would be the size of a cow by the time I leave India. All I could think of was Sevanand’s cottage, and although there was no air conditioning or even a fan, just being horizontal in the shade sounded blissful. We walk in the blazing sun, down the steps of the burning hot, concrete ghatt leading to the river, across another ghatt when we had almost reached the shade… and there he was. My lame donkey laid there in the burning sun where he must have just collapsed from pain, thirst and heat exhaustion. I could not imagine how he got up that 20 foot embankment, down it to the other side and then hobbled the quarter of a mile to the river with that broken leg. He must have been dying of thirst to attempt it. The way the ghatt is built it would be impossible for a large animal with four good legs to be able to get close enough to the water to drink without falling in.

After his long, painful journey to the river, he laid there 10 feet from it unable to quench his thirst. It broke my heart. This was a very popular ghatt and there were many, many people milling about. No one cared or even seemed to notice this poor creature. I was frantically searching for a vessel to bring him water in. I tried to fill discarded plastic bags only to find they all had holes in them. Shantji suggested I ask a woman in a nearby hut to borrow a bucket. She gave me a bucket and came over to see my donkey. I put the bucket in front of him, but he did not drink right away. I scooped some water into my hands and put it under his mouth so that he could drink. Slowly he drank from my hands then the bucket. I began to sprinkle water on his overheated body. A man who had been watching the scene also got involved and suggested that I shouldn’t do that because it might be too much a shock for the donkey’s system considering the heat. A few others watched and began to share my concern for this dying animal. We all knew there were little hope for his survival, and we were sharing with this donkey the last of his life.

For most Indians a white woman at Kumbh Mela is certainly of interest, wandering with a Swami makes it quite intriguing, giving water to a dying donkey is a downright spectacle. In those moments of unity we all shared because of that donkey, all that was forgotten. There was no culture conditioning, no foreigner and no lowly creature. There was only compassion for a suffering being. I can’t take the credit for the integrity I showed that day, but I feel empowered that it flowed through me. I could of thought to myself, “oh that poor donkey” and went along to rest in my shady spot, but integrity did not allow me to. I doubt anyone else would have done anything. I am not placing judgment on them. I understand it was just not part of their conditioning to help such a lowly animal that was going to die anyway. I was only present in that moment. Because I was, I acted with integrity. That donkey gave me a gift, an experience for my memory bank when my integrity sparked that in others and brought strangers together for the common good.