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Animals are connected to source energy on an unadulterated level. They have no filters, no preconceived notions, they do not pretend and most importantly they always live in the present moment. Guess where divine always resides, in the present moment. A tiny clumsy little bird has shown me that God can reach out in so many ways and it is not always a grand entry. When an animal decides to trust you, it trusts you completely, there are no reservations, and when it showers you with love, the energy is too pure to ignore. Blessed are those who experience this and even more blessed are those that realize what they are experiencing. When was the last time you ever trusted someone so completely? To be more specific, trusted a human that completely?
Animals are clumsy, dirty, stinky, they poop wherever they want especially birds and if they don’t like something they let you know by biting/hissing/clawing depends on the animal, in spite of all this, we find them adorable and we clean up after them, we forgive them if they react and we say “its alright it is an animal”. We do not hold grudges against our pets. Can we ever accept ourselves so fully? Can we accept ourselves like they accept us?
My dog passed away last year, after almost 17 years of giving us joy & love. It was devastating and I was heartbroken, I never thought I would get another pet as the attachment is inevitable and when they leave, they take a piece of your heart with them to heaven. Last month my brother decided to get a pair of cockatiels for my nephews and this idea stuck in my mind too. I thought they would be more ornamental and less work than a dog, you don’t need to walk them, and could be just good company, but I never imagined I would bond with them so much. I got these two scrawny little 3-month-old baby cockatiels, and for the first few weeks, they hissed at me and were very skittish. I would talk to them, change their food and water every day, and spend an hour or so sitting next to the cage, not trying to approach them but ignoring them so they would feel comfortable. At first when I left the cage door open they would not come out, but slowly one of them started exploring, it was the scrawnier of the two, and just like that one day as I sat near the cage, he climbed on my leg and looked at me with that weird one eye, like birds do and I burst out laughing. Over the next few days, he started climbing on me, and now he thinks I am a big perch. The day he enjoyed the first head scratch from me, my heart just melted. Then I started whisteling the tune “If you are happy and you know it, clap your hands”, and to my surprise within a month he has picked it up and whistles in the clumsiest possible way, bringing an instant smile on my face.
2020 has been a hard year for all, the energies are difficult and every day we hear more devastating news. Everyone is going through some challenge or the other and I am no different, the companionship that animals provide is beyond description. You see, they cannot talk the same language, so there is no way of having arguments or intellectual filters and judgements we have with human company. An animal is content just sitting next to you and radiating loving energy, teaching us by example how to just be, just be in the present. To show us that there is a way to stop that super-fast train of thought that keeps running at high speeds at all times, sometimes even in sleep, that there is a way to exist by keeping that aside. We can be content just sitting in someone’s company, with no exchange of anything, no exchange of words, ideas, food, sport, money nothing. Observe also the way animals look at you, not when you irritate them 😉, but in those moments of just being, their eyes will communicate that love and compassion beyond all. You can talk to them and pour out your heart and they will be content just to listen and snuggle a bit closer. No wonder, Lord Krishna is depicted in Vrindavan always sitting and snuggling up with baby cows and playing his flute, content and in the moment. In Hindu religion, every God has an animal associated with him/her and it makes me wonder the symbolism of the universal source and how animals might act as a medium to this source.
Not everyone can achieve a bond with an animal so close and personal and not all animals will respond to you that way. Everything has a time and place in our lives and when you are ready, the animal will find you. It need not even be a pet, I have seen videos of people bonding with a crow that visits their kitchen window everyday for scraps of food, or a stray dog someone feeds every day, or a stray cat. They are so connected to mother nature and not distorted by the human world view, having stated this, I have also seen unfortunate animals whose connection from mother nature has been removed by humans who abuse them. There are countless rescue videos online showing the horrible abuse they suffer and months and sometimes years it takes to get them out of that trauma. I know I have painted a beautiful description of animals in this article, but getting an animal as a pet is a huge responsibility, first ensure you have done enough research before you decide to get a pet. This should never be an impulse buy/decision, that is how hundreds of animals get abandoned on streets. Also do not approach an unknown animal if you are not aware how to handle them, every animal has specific way and you might end up seriously injured. It is really important for children to learn how to approach animals and are introduced to handling animals at a young age. I think the most important lesson they learn is how to be gentle, that even if one can cause harm to someone why not to, how to show kindness no matter how the animal reacts and how to forgive.
Perspectives change as our situations change, and our experiences influence the perspectives. The human world is full of Maya, distortions created by our own mind, and added on by the world. Our lenses are cracked and coloured and life’s lessons help us clean them slowly and steadily. One of the life hacks is to find these wonderful moments of just being, surrounded by pets or animals in general, for a short while get respite from this world of distortions and connect with mother nature as you, the true you. I do not believe there are animal people and non-animal people, I think there are people who have experienced the magic of animals and those that haven’t and once they do, everyone in essence is an animal person.
Do not go looking for an experience to bond with an animal, but when an opportunity presents itself, let yourself feel every moment and enrich your energies with mother natures outpour. I am sure you will come out of it a more compassionate person and some part of you will become more receptive, a subtle yet beautiful change. They say that grace is always pouring on us 24×7, it we who are holding an umberella, no one or nothing is too small or insignificant to not affect us or teach us something. Open your minds, close that umberella for a while and just be.