How do you really
become open to new ways of thinking?
How do we become aware of our own “isms”? If we think racism against Black men is bad, how do we as Black
men become aware of our own racism or prejudices? All of this came crashing in
on me during a trip to India. This was
a trip I was reluctant to make. We
traveled the week after Christmas, which was normally an important family time
for me. I was also traveling with my
sweetheart and two White guys I barely knew.
Again, I am not a Buddhist, but a Christian and thus had some real
ambivalence about going to India on a “spiritual learning journey.” Plus, India is not Hawaii in terms of a
vacation spot!
Upon arrival,
after 24 hours of flying time, we checked into a plain, but serviceable hotel
in Bangalore. My first vision proved to
be one of the most riveting. It was of
a woman, fully dressed, carrying roof tiles on her head up six flights of
stairs in noonday heat. She did this by
stooping and loading about 12 roof tiles into a circular pan on her head and
carrying them up concrete stairs. This
went on for several hours. Clearly, in
my mind, this place was crazy!
But this was
nothing compared to my visit to see the spiritual leader, Sai Baba. Again, I am not a Buddhist, Hindu or
follower of Eastern religions. I was
doing this to learn and support my sweetheart who was leading the journey. To get a good seat close to the front of
the ashram, was a task. We had to rise
from bed at 4:15 am, dress in white (just to fit in and be appropriate) and get
to the ashram to sit on the ground for two hours before being allowed to
enter. Once inside, we waited an additional
hour. When Sai Baba arrived in his
orange robe, he turned out to be less than overwhelming (to me). He was frail looking man who walked around
the large space, said not a word, gathered envelopes from the faithful, invited
a few in for a visit to a back room, and then left. Imagine me from the
Pentecostal and Baptist tradition seeing this after traveling thousands of
miles! No choirs, no sermon, and
sitting on the marble floor! Sai Baba’s
entire visit was at most 40 minutes. My
first thought was, to either kill somebody or just get on the next flight back
to San Francisco. What a joke I
thought!
But then a small
voice said to me, “Why are all the rest of these people so happy?” What did I miss here? There are a billion people in India with history
that yawns centuries back. What are
they seeing that I am not? Then the big
mind-opener hit me. Can God only be
worshipped the way I do it? This was
followed by other questions. Who am I to limit how another experiences the
Divine? Who am I to limit God in how
God is made accessible? Why is the way I do it so special? Where did my way come from? My initial reaction was clearly driven by fear. Was God going to
disappear or banish me to hell because I had exposed myself to different forms
of reverence? (It took months after we left to work through these questions and
I am still at it). But for the
remainder of the visit, I decided to be open to learn as much as I could and
not criticize. As I did this I began to
enjoy the trip a lot more. I began to
notice small things that I might have overlooked. I was able to ask better questions that generated thoughtful
responses.
Being a person
who thought of himself as not narrow-minded, I was learning what being open to
and appreciating diversity really meant on a deeper level. Seeing and accepting life from another
group’s perspective is real appreciation.
Seeing life this way has given me a new set of ways to understand and
react to different situations. I can
now feel safe by reacting with inquiry and openness and a deeper trust in the
wonder of God.
Gerald Harris