To write on this elusive word ‘care’, where do I begin? ‘Care’ sometimes sounds like a reproach, at other times an admonition. Better show care next time, take care, don’t you see that I care, and so on. Mostly we are put on the defensive. We are also asked to handle fragile things with care. We are advised to cross roads, drive vehicles ‘with care’.
As soon as we are born, we become part of a religious, cultural and social ambience. Gods, rituals, food habits, kinship, school and the neighbourhood together make up what we are. Our world is primarily made up of parents, siblings and children and extends up to close friends and relatives. We ‘care’ for them in varying degrees. What is the nature of this care? To what extent can we be said to care beyond this small world? If you are a medical nurse, or even a relative or a friend who looks after the sick, you may be called a ‘caregiver’. In all these contexts, personal interest and motive of some kind may exist (vocation, attachment to the person who is in need and so on).
But what of helping someone, say one’s neighbour, without such motive? We do not love our neighbour in the abstract. When we see someone in pain and in need of help, we do what is necessary and leave it at that, like the good Samaritan of the parable. The good Samaritan does not go looking for his neighbour so that he could love him. He comes across someone in need of help and gives it. For some people, this seems to happen naturally; but for most of us it is a question of our energy levels, our commitment to doing the right thing, and at least a temporary holiday from self-absorption. Is this where care ends?
The following excerpt from Krishnamurti, at first glance, seems to meet our normal understanding of care:
…freedom implies responsibility. And therefore freedom, responsibility, means care, diligence, not negligence.
—From Dialogue 4 with Prof. Andersen, San Diego, California, USA.
We do apply ourselves with a sense of responsibility, with diligence in many things we do. However, the freedom that Krishnamurti alludes to has a different level of demand. Does it mean being without any ties that bind, whether to persons, to ideas, or even to any sense of our own identity? For him, freedom to respond is the first step; it is also the last step, as responsibility. Diligence and care follow naturally. There is no personal motive.
Is it possible then to care for people, for the earth, without any ‘reason’ as it were?
To paraphrase Krishnamurti, the mind is a vast energy field and without boundaries, while our brain and its thinking are limited and operate from a centre. Is the challenge then for us to learn to function psychologically outside the brain, function with a wholeness of heart and mind? If that is so, deeply exploring this thing called the centre and, in the process, dissolving its hold, is what we in fact need to do. Only then will the energy of care, affection and love be released and take charge of everything we do!
The ‘moral’ of the story: steer clear of the frying pan and its contents (brain and thought) and be the ‘fire’ (of care and love) that cooks.