Sometimes great lessons come in unlikely forms. Maya, my Australian Blue Heeler dog, came to live with us about 8 years ago. She’s taught me a lot about love, Presence, and the fact that Being comes in all forms.
Maya brought play into my life at a time when there was a lot of grief. My whole inner and outer worlds had been upended and there was a seemingly endless source of grief and anger. After an exhausting day commuting 3 hours’ round trip to work in Philadelphia, and spending 8 hours on the telephone with people looking for mental health help, I’d come home and lay down on my Yoga mat. I was doing a gentle form of Yoga, called Svaroopa, which helped me to relax my spine. Often, I’d start to cry. Maya would pace around the Yoga mat, cry with me, and literally lick the tears from my face.
Those days are over, and the ‘endless’ grief and anger disappeared too but, Maya is still by my side. If I ever lay down on the floor to do Yoga now, she’s still by my side, checking to see if I need help and love or if I’m okay.
I’ve learned to love sentient Beings, largely through the interaction with our dog. She needs her own attention, her own kind of love: to be played with when she wants (mostly), lots of love in the way a dog likes to be loved (scratched behind the ears, rubbed on the neck), to be fed and taken out for her constitutional. She even likes to have a job: she chases the deer, foxes, and rabbits out of the garden; chases the hawks off the henhouse; and likes to carry home sticks for the fireplace.
Each part of the Creation is One with the Whole, or so experience tells me. Whichever ways you find to experience That, will be helpful in your own awakening. If you pay attention, there are many ways to find the Truth and they are all right in front of you in your own experience Now.