Ben Ralston

THE LIMIT OF MY COMPASSION

“My body was telling me not to leave. I didn’t listen…”


As I sat in meditation this morning a memory passed like a freight train through my mind:

the memory of what was by far the longest and hardest day of my life.

I’ve learnt to know the difference between low-key, ‘random’ thoughts, and deeply subconscious ‘stuff’ that comes up in meditation for good reason; so I paid attention.

In May 2008, a couple of weeks after Petra and I got married here in Slovenia, I had a phone call from my Mother. She told me if I wanted to see my (very sick) Father again, I’d better come soon. I  came off the phone and immediately booked a flight for the following day. I would fly back to England on the Friday, stay the weekend, and come home to Slovenia on Monday morning. (Petra was leaving on the Tuesday morning to go to India for a month to study Ayurvedic massage, and I wanted to see her off).

I flew home with the realization that this was probably the last time I’d see my Father – a realization that filled my whole physical and emotional being with a deep sadness. He’d been ill for a long time, and we’d all known this moment would be coming, but even so… there is no way to prepare for loss. It happens, and then you deal with it.




When I saw him that day, the horror left me feeling numb. He was very, very ill. As I look back now, I realize that if I’d taken time to think about it, I would have known that he had only days left. Subconsciously, I did know; but consciously, I avoided thinking at all. It was too painful.

I spent some time with him, but he was so weak that no communication was possible. He had long since lost the use of his voice, and now he could barely move. His neck muscles were too weak to support his head, so eye contact was difficult. I spent most of the time with my Mother, talking with her and trying as best I could to support her.

The weekend passed, and suddenly it was Monday morning. I learnt that morning what it means to have a ‘heavy heart’. However, when I said goodbye to my Father for the last time, there were no tears and no drama. I gave him a hug, stroked his head, and whispered, “I love you Pops”. He summoned up the strength to lift his head and give me a look of love that I’ll never forget.
Then I went downstairs and left for the airport. My bags weighed nothing compared to the physical feeling of heaviness. My body was telling me not to leave. I didn’t listen.

At the airport I was the first person in the departure lounge. I was set on getting home to Slovenia and putting behind me the pain of seeing my Father in that condition. All I could think of was finding some temporary solace in my wife’s arms.

Slowly, the lounge filled. The plane was outside on the tarmac, and through the window I could see the luggage being stowed on the plane.
Then, I had a sudden and peculiar urge: I wanted to buy a newspaper. (The reason this was peculiar was that I rarely used to read the papers).
The plane wasn’t boarding yet; I had plenty of time. Besides, they always announce the boarding, right?


I walked down the hallway to the shop, and bought a paper and a bottle of water. It must have taken me 3 – 5 minutes, but when I returned, the lounge was empty! The strangest feeling came over me – the heaviness in my body was now accompanied by a feeling of complete emotional emptiness, as if every cell in my body was hollow – as I realized what was about to happen.

I ran the few steps to the flight departure gate, where a woman in uniform was counting ticket stubs. She didn’t even look up as she told me that I had missed my flight.

The world went into slow motion. I could see my plane still sitting outside – two lines of people slowly climbing the stairways into the front and back – the ground crew scurrying around like ants, still finishing their flight preparations.

I pleaded with the woman in front of me.
Would she let me run down and join the back of the line…
would she radio the plane and ask the cabin crew if I could go down…
my wife was going away, my father was dying, please, I needed to get on that plane.

If she would just look at me, maybe I could communicate how important this was. As I raised my voice, she did look up: to inform me that if I continued to behave in a threatening manner she would call the police. She was a stony-faced, cold-eyed woman, and nothing I could say or do would change that fact. I wasn’t getting on that plane.

As I walked away, my world crumbled. I couldn’t stay in England; I couldn’t bear to see my Father like that again. I needed to be with my wife; to be home.

I had to wait 2 hours in the departure lounge for a ground crew to come and ‘escort’ me disdainfully back to the check-in desks. I booked another flight from another airport on the other side of London, and then traveled two hours by train to get there. That flight was delayed, so I finally arrived back in Slovenia at 2am. Petra’s parents were there to meet me, and drove me back to our home, where we arrived at 4am. On arriving home, I saw that my car had a flat tire, so I then had to drive my parents in law home, and return with their car in order to be able to drive Petra to the airport 30 minutes later (she had an early morning flight). I successfully saw her off to India at the airport!

I then drove home, having been traveling non-stop for about 36 hours, having had no sleep and only 30 brief minutes with my wife at 5 o’clock in the morning.

When I arrived back home from Ljubljana airport (again), I sat down and felt more alone than I had ever felt in my life: heavy and empty and utterly alone.

I made a cup of tea, and the phone rang: my brother. My Father had been rushed to hospital that morning, where he had just died.
I couldn’t believe it.
Deep down, I had known.

I realized at the time that I should have stayed in England that day: missing my flight was a good thing! Everything happens for a reason. I should have stayed and been with my Father when he passed on. I knew he was dying, and missing my flight was no ‘accident’.
I should have been there for my Father and Mother and my Brothers.

But it was only this morning, as the memory of that weekend came flooding back to me during meditation, that I was able to see clearly why I didn’t listen to all the signs.

I was selfish, and I lacked compassion.

Truth be told, I couldn’t stand being with my Father when he was ill. It was too painful. It made me feel helpless and useless and so, so sad. And although it pains and embarrasses me to admit it, I couldn’t bear the smell of stale body fluids and atrophying muscles.
I didn’t know how to handle the situation of someone I love slowly dying.

I realize now how selfish I was: I put my feelings before my Fathers’. What was he going through? His body was in excruciating pain and he knew he was dying.
I put my feelings before his. How utterly selfish.

As I sat meditating this morning, my mind went back to that other morning two years ago. I apologized to my Father, and visualized myself doing now what I was unable to do then: staying in England, being with my Father and my family at a time when they needed me. Putting others first.

I learnt a little about compassion: to be able to sit with someone who is sick just because they need you. Just to sit, putting up with a smell, and with my own discomfort, and perhaps finding joy in giving solace to another.

To offer solace rather than seek it.

I learnt, most importantly, about the limits of MY compassion. I am a spiritual teacher. I have always known myself to be compassionate – I have many times saved animal’s lives, helped people in difficulty, and made tough decisions based purely on compassion. But each of us, unless we are truly en-lightened, has a limit. How strange that the limit of my compassion was found in a situation with someone that I loved the most! But then that is what relationships are for: sometimes only through relationship can we learn the hardest lessons. As Buddha said:
“The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground.”


And again I learnt that my Father was a great teacher.


(If you enjoyed this article, you might like: Tribute to my Father.)

WHAT IS GROUNDED SPIRITUALITY?

Grounded spirituality is an approach to life founded on an experience of reality. It’s for people who have a ‘healthy skepticism’, but are nevertheless faithful.

It is a way of life that simultaneously embraces rooted-ness (being ‘down to earth’), and star-gazing. This wonderful quote from Oscar Wilde comes to mind…
“we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars…”

We are not really American, or English, or Slovene, or any other nationality.
First and foremost, we are Earthlings.
Whether you were born here or there; whether your skin is black or white; whether you speak this language or that language, or many languages, or none at all, I don’t care.
You are the same as I am. We are separate only by appearance, and through perception.
Another wonderful quote comes to mind, from Shakespeare:

King Richard II:
“Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence:
throw away respect, tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief, need friends:
subjected thus, how can you say to me, I am a king?”
Whether you are a king or a beggar;
CEO of a multinational business, or the cleaner who sweeps the floor;
a teacher or a student:
you live with bread, feel want, taste grief, and need friends. 
Just like me.
We are all, basically, the same. We all want to be happy. And for all of us, the ultimate happiness is the true experience of love.
Grounded Spirituality is for you if  you recognize that heaven is a place on earth. Sometimes, for us to accept that, we have to first know hell – and it’s also a place on earth. 

“… if you know what life is worth, you will look for yours on earth…” (Bob Marley)

Grounded Spirituality is for people who want to change the world, one step at a time, by embodying that change themselves.
It’s for people who know that the world is in them, and not the other way around.
It’s for those who know that in order to realize our divine self, we first have to realize our humanity.
Ancient Zen saying:
“Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”

Grounded Spirituality is not an escape. It is not a fantasy. It is not a new-age airy-fairy get-away.
It’s the opposite. It’s about ‘keeping it real’ and upholding your responsibilities; being able to stand up in any situation with your head held high, knowing that you are doing the right thing, even though sometimes that can be painful.
It’s about being a ‘peaceful warrior’, having the courage to stay open to every possibility; closed to none.
It’s about knowing that truth is beyond perception; 
but going ahead and trying to perceive truth anyway.
Grounded Spirituality, to me, is a challenge and an invitation and a call to arms.
What is it to you?

WHAT IS LOVE?

Love is not an emotion, although it sometimes manifests in that way.
Love is not a human trait, although sometimes we like to think so.
Love has nothing to do with relationship, except when two people are completely open to each other – and then those two don’t have to be ‘in a relationship’.


There are many words for love. My favorite is consciousness. But love has been called by many other names: God; Jesus; Spirit; Great Spirit; Yahweh; Nature; Universe; Reality; Tao…
The great Taoist Lao Tzu, in the opening of the Tao Te Ching says:

“The Tao that can be spoken of is not the real Tao.”


Because Tao, or God, or Love, is absolute – and words are relative. How can you describe with relative words something that is absolute? It’s impossible… but we try, because words are one way in which Love expresses itself through us…
All that is, is love. Love is the creative power behind all of our experience – it is our essence, our nature, our being.


When we let go of all our ideas, beliefs, and attachments… all that we think we are… then what remains is our true self: love.
Love is consciousness. It exists in every part of your body, and your body is not contained by your skin. That is only your physical body. The physical body is very gross manifestation of love. With training, when you learn to feel more subtly – beyond the dense, gross material world, beyond the physical – you find that an energetic body surrounds and inter-penetrates the physical. And that energetic body is just another layer of consciousness…In the bible it is written that God created man in his own image. It means that we are divine. Jesus said:

“I and my Father are one.” He also said: “All these things and greater you shall do too.”

Jesus was a man who realized the divinity within himself – that is the meaning of ‘Self Realization’. He came to the experience of oneness, and realized that there is nothing outside of the Self.

“I am the way, the truth, and the light”.

I’m not religious – although some could be forgiven for thinking so. I am simply a man who has found that within, surrounding, and beyond all my human experience, there is a light shining which can never be extinguished. It illuminates every aspect of my life, my awareness, and I cannot separate myself from it. I AM THAT.

AN OPPORTUNITY

I have no idea why, but a friend of mine here in Slovenia asked me to write an article about Autism. So I will! I like a good challenge…


The reason it’s a challenge is because I don’t feel myself to be any kind of authority on the subject. My experience is limited:
I spent a year of my life working with young people for a charity in England called the Prince’s Trust. My job was to recruit 15 young people (aged 15 – 25), and then lead them through a 12 week course, which included many different things, for example a two week community project, a week of team building exercises in Wales (canoeing, rock climbing, bridge-building), and a week with the fire brigade. I ran three such courses, and on one of them I recruited Rosie, a 16 year old girl with Asperger’s syndrome – a form of autism…




I have seen two clients with autism. Both of them came to me because their parents wanted me to see them. On both occasions, I warned the parents that I was not prepared to see their children with a view to ‘healing’ them, but they insisted on coming, so I agreed. Both times, I felt strongly that there was nothing ‘wrong’ with the kids: I wanted to work on the parents instead!


That’s my experience of autism. But I suppose that I do have a strong opinion about it, so here goes…


There is nothing wrong with someone who has autism. Yes, they are different from what most people call ‘normal’, but since when was that a bad thing?
Somehow, our society treats people who are different with the view that we must ‘fix’ them. It is so, so sad.
There was a time when people who were different were treated with respect. Now all too often they are treated like ‘freaks’.
Let me tell you something: no-one is normal. You are not normal, I am not normal. There is no such thing as normal. Variety is something to celebrate, not something to be afraid of! Variety is reality: not two things in this universe are the same. Diversity is universal.


Rosie, the girl with Asperger’s syndrome, was to me quite beautiful. She was confused, angry, paranoid… many different variations of insecurity. But underneath all of those things, she was so amazing. She had the courage to speak the truth in every situation. That’s actually not normal at all – it’s completely extraordinary!
One of the ‘symptoms’ of asperger’s is that they don’t know how to lie. They don’t understand deceit. If you ask someone with Asperger’s if they are lying, they just get very very confused. They cannot comprehend the meaning of it.
I found that quite admirable, and I think that it’s something our society could learn a lot from…


And you know what – did her insecurity come from her condition, or did it come from the way she had been treated all her life – as someone that needed to be changed? Can you imagine, if all your life people had been trying to ‘fix’ you, constantly, day in and day out. Never being accepted for who you are?


A wise man once said:

“what we need, is for someone to come to our ear and say: ‘you are you, and I love you’. To be accepted as we are – that is the beginning and the end of life”



Imagine if our society welcomed and encouraged people to be different. Imagine if you could do whatever you felt like doing, just because you felt like doing it! Imagine being able to wear whatever clothes you wanted… or to dance naked through the streets. Imagine being able to express whatever you wanted, however you wanted, whenever and wherever you wanted. Imagine being able to live in whatever way you wanted… and to be accepted for it.


But we are conditioned all our lives to ‘fit in’, to stay within certain limits, not to upset the ‘order’ of society.


Rosie didn’t make it past the second week of my course. It’s actually a fairly amusing story so I’ll tell you: the second week of the course we all went to Wales for the ‘outward bound’ team-building week…

It’s a 6 hour drive, and by the time we get there, I am exhausted already. (The other kids on the course are not an easy bunch, to say the least – drug problems, ex convicts, a pregnant 16 year old, and so on, so the 6 hour bus drive seems like a lifetime – I have to constantly ‘remind’ them that it’s not ok to: smoke on the bus / fight / throw each others belongings out the window). And when we arrive, Rosie refuses to get off the bus. She announces that she is

“ready to go home now”.

So I sit with her and explain that we’ve just arrived, and that driving back to London for 6 hours is really out of the question. But – and know this about autists: it’s very hard to get them to change their minds! In the end, she tries to walk back to London! I walk with her for an hour, through fields and woods, until she gets too tired to go on, and then we walk back together to the bus. In the morning, I take her to the train station, and she goes home.
That course was simply too much for Rosie. I was actually surprised that she made it as far as she did. But I do wonder…


What would Rosie and other autists be like if our society really accepted them as they are? And it’s not just society at large: it starts at home. I’m sorry if you are a parent of an autistic child reading this, because what I’m about to say may not be easy for you to hear, but I’ll say it anyway:
In my (admittedly very limited) experience, parents are often extremely afraid, stressed, and un-accepting of their children. Look, it must be the hardest thing – every moment of every day is an almost unbearable challenge – to be the parent of an autistic child is INCREDIBLY difficult. I’m not making a judgement, because I have no idea how I would handle it, day in and day out…
But I do really wonder how it would be if the parents, and society at large, would be totally accepting of their autistic children.


There is a truly wonderful book called “And there was Light”, written by Jacques Lusseyran. It’s biographical: he was blinded at the age of 6; became a leader of the French Resistance in world war II, was captured and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, which he survived.
He describes at the start of the book how his parents not only accepted his blindness, but encouraged him to live a completely normal life – and as a result, he was able to ‘see’. He did not see in the same way that a sighted person sees, but he ‘saw’ light. This was how he was able to survive 15 months in a Nazi camp. He explains that as a child, he was able to climb trees, run through fields, and do all the other things that his friends were doing, because he wasn’t afraid: his parents encouraged him to be fearless. They didn’t treat him any differently after he became blind.
He also writes about how sorry he felt for other blind children who were always being told to ‘be careful’, and being overprotected by their parents. They became imprisoned by their blindness; victims of other people’s fear.


So I do wonder whether it’s similar with autism. Perhaps if we were able to really accept autism; but not only to accept it; to actively support and encourage autistic children to express their own unique abilities and gifts. To truly LOVE them as they are. More: if we were to treat autistic children the way we should treat ALL children: as our teachers. I am sure that if we were able to do that, our society would benefit even more than those children would.


Kahlil Gibran said:

“Keep me away from the wisdom that does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.”

We must bow before ALL children. When we look at a child and see something ‘wrong’, we create a tragedy. How can any child be wrong?


Jacques Lusseyran said:

“Light is in us even if we have no eyes.”

Well, light (and intelligence, and beauty) is in the autist too. WE must have the eyes to see it, and to learn from it, because autism, like everything else in this world, IS THERE FOR A REASON.


*Another great book is “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time”, by Mark Haddock. It’s an award winning novel written from the perspective of a 15 year old boy who has Aspergers Syndrome.

EGO 2 – don’t fight it!

Ok, so in the first article on ego (EGO 1) I said that the ego is not real. I said that ego is really an illusion. I also said that “much of the spiritual ‘work’ that many people do and have done for many years, is almost a waste of time.”

I have to qualify my statement that the ego is not real. So first, I need to speak about reality:


Reality is subjective. But it’s also absolute!
What do I mean?
I mean that there is a subjective reality, and an absolute reality.
Two people experience one event and remember differently what happened – memory is subjective. But it doesn’t mean that two different things happened does it? It means that in reality, experience is subjective.
The reason for this subjectivity is that we don’t experience reality as it is – we filter it. We have a filter between the world and our brain called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). It literally filters the information that comes to us from the outside world.


If you have never heard of a car called a Saab before, then you don’t see Saabs. As soon as you hear of it – as soon as it enters your awareness, you begin to see them!
How is this possible? One minute (in your experience) the car doesn’t exist – the next minute they’re everywhere!!…




It’s because there are literally billions of pieces of information EVERY SECOND coming to our attention. We simply cannot process all of them. So we filter out the ones that don’t serve us. This is the job of the RAS – basically it simplifies things for us.


So it begs the question: can we ever experience reality non-subjectively? Can we ever know the world AS IT IS, rather than as we THINK it is.


I said that the ego is not real.
Well, it IS real – it is real in a subjective, relative way, that depends on our previous experience. It shapes and conditions our present experience of life, so it has a real influence. But that influence prevents us from knowing the world as it REALLY is.


The RAS and ego are highly interconnected. They both simplify our experience of the world – something that has been necessary for our evolution, probably even our survival as a species. However, if we want to know reality – I mean, if we want to know the absolute truth; the absolute reality that underlies all of existence, we have to go beyond subjective, relative truth. We have to have a strong desire to let go of all that we think we know, all that we think we are, all that we think we see, and surrender to the vast emptiness of naive innocence and humble ignorance.
Is there anything more terrifying? I don’t think so…
Is there anything more worthwile?…


ENLIGHTENMENT. Over the ages there have always been people who have told us that there is another possibility in life: that there is something called enlightenment or self-realisation; that it the true experience of absolute reality.
When Buddha was asked the difference between himself and an ordinary person, he stated:
“I am awake”.


The difference is in where we put our attention. You can choose to put your attention on what you already know, think, and believe, thereby reinforcing and strengthening those thoughts and beliefs (and strengthening the illusion that is the ego). Or you can practice being completely open. Letting go of all that you think you know, and surrendering.
After all, whatever it is that we think we know, we are probably wrong!


As long as we struggle to destroy, crush, defeat, or ‘kill’ our egos we miss the point. It’s like fighting with your own shadow. The ego is there. It has an impact on us. But the more attention we give it, the more power it has.
I have known people who have suppressed many aspects of themselves in order to combat the ego. For example, renouncing sensory pleasure like sex, chocolate, and other kinds of ‘goodies’. In my opinion, they cause themselves a lot of unnecessary suffering. If you want to be happy, joyful, and at peace, why fight?! That’s what I meant when I said that a lot of people waste a lot of time fighting with the ego in the name of ‘spiritual practice’. Why fight with yourself?


Buddha said:
“There is no way to happiness. Happiness IS the way”.
Be happy. Don’t fight with yourself. Especially with your shadow – the ego. If you feel something, whether it’s anger, joy, or conviction, use that feeling to get to know yourself more deeply. Knowing yourself more deeply is the only way.
Buddha’s last words to his students were:
“Be a light unto thyself”.


That’s where it’s at.