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Calming the Cobra
By admin | April 6, 2008
In Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda featured his interview with Mohandas K. Gandhi
“Mahatmaji … please tell me your definition of ahimsa.“
“The avoidance of harm to any living creature in thought or deed.”
“Beautiful ideal! But the world will always ask: May one not kill a cobra to protect a child, or one’s self?”
“I could not kill a cobra without violating two of my vows: fearlessness, and non-killing. I would rather try inwardly to calm the snake by vibrations of love. I cannot possibly lower my standards to suit my circumstances.” With his amazing candor, Gandhi added, “I must confess that I could not carry on this conversation were I faced by a cobra!”
How can we experience or generate calming “vibrations of love” as we face the cobras of everyday existence in our daily interactions? How can we live in harmony when we experience discordant vibrations in our environment, in each other, and/or in ourselves? Like the strings of a piano or guitar that resonate with a loud sound made nearby, we, too, hum or jangle with the tensions in each other and in our environments.
In Parenting from the Inside Out - How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive, by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. and Mary Hartzell, M.Ed., at pp. 20-21, Daniel Siegel relates an experience he had as a pediatric medical intern that later impacted his ability to parent his son. Siegel delved into his own emotional depths and found insight into what leads to abuse:
“As interns, we attempted to avoid the overwhelming awareness of the patient’s passive, helpless and vulnerable experience by identifying ourselves only as active, empowered and invulnerable medical workers. The child’s vulnerability became a threat to our active but non-conscious effort to avoid our feelings of vulnerability and helplessness. …. Vulnerability became the target of our anger….
“… having an emotional intolerance for helplessness … may lead to a more assertive act such as irritability or an outright though not consciously intended attack on the child’s emotional state of vulnerability and helplessness. Then, the unsuspecting child becomes the recipient of hostile responses that…directly impair his ability to tolerate those very same emotions in himself.”
Siegel very concisely describes how the typical coping patterns of everyday life and business-as-usual lead to, and can perpetuate, abuse in the home, and in the work place.
Sura Hart and Victoria Kindle Hodson, in their book The Compassionate Classroom, discuss the research presented by Daniel Goleman in Emotional Intelligence and how student performance is affected by tensions in the environment:
“This research has shown that the emotional center of the brain is so powerful that negative emotions such as hostility, anger, fear, and anxiety automatically “downshift” the brain to basic survival thinking. …. The brain is so thoroughly preoccupied with survival needs that these students are literally unavailable for the complex activities of the mind that learning requires. Tragically, their curiosity, wonder, and awe have been usurped by the state of heightened vigilance and an immediate need for protection and security.”
Learning to turn toward ourselves and our emotions with acceptance, rather than turning away in judgment due to fear or pain, is the key to transforming our world. There is no substitute or short cut for the emotional work this entails.
Books such as Parenting from the Inside Out, Connection Parenting by Pam Leo, and Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves by Naomi Aldort, provide blue prints for doing this emotional work, and are worth reading even if we are not raising children. As Aldort’s title says, and as brain research shows, in each moment, we have the opportunity to newly raise ourselves.
Music is also a wonderful vehicle through which we can feel our emotions and learn to accept the truths of our lives, and ourselves. The songs on my first CD, Too Close On Purpose, are an example of my use of music in this way. I hope my music can have value for others engaged in this process. And some musical works are specifically designed to create harmony in our bodies, such as Steven Halpern’s Chakra Suite. Check it out!
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