“You preserve only what you love, you love only what you understand, you understand what you are taught.” – Baba Pioum

I read this at an aquarium in Kuala Lumpur. Given that most of the creatures are facing extinction in the order of magnificence they exude, I felt aquarium was probably the most appropriate place as the beauty and splendor of the aquatic life is just breath taking.

Recently I saw an advertisement in Doordarshan (National TV channel in India) about preserving national monuments. A kid walks up to a couple who scribble on the monument and reprimands them for doing so. Then the kid recites a small poem about greatness and national pride. It is heartening to see that Indian Government or at least some bureaucrat has understood the essence of preservation which is to teach it first.

Just an extrapolation into our day-to-day lives: When people say simple things like they lost your gift, forgot to call you or forgot your phone number or address it leads to a myriad of questions – Do they want to preserve the relationship/friendship? Do they love/care about you? Do they understand you? Were they taught to understand you? Who should teach them by the way?

I guess the answer lies in “you”.

It’s high time we understand the concept of learning by experience and treating everybody with unconditional love and respect and teach the same to our fellow human beings. Otherwise, we will end up preserving everything for the posterity, be it trees, tigers, climate, friendships, relationships, or for that matter our very own selves. Interestingly even the deadliest and fastest of predators, the cheetah, does not intend to hurt the gazelle for the sake of it but only because, it has to! But we humans hurt and hunt, deprecate and destroy without much reason other than fun! Finally, when someone shows some alarming numbers (of the falling tiger population or climate change) or when relationships/friendships become estranged or when someone whom we “used” to love/care for dies, we suddenly feel the need to preserve anything and everything related to them. I guess the failed children of deserted parents need special mention in this category of preservers.

Take this thought a little further and impersonal. Imagine this story; boss of an organization had the worst day at office with a belligerent customer, he vents it all on his business head, who in turn passes it down the chain and finally a cab driver gets the worst end of the stick from an irate employee who gets dropped at night after a long day’s work trying to solve the issue reported by the very same customer. The driver feels humiliated. Now, he is at the bottom of the food chain. Where can he go? Whom can he shout at? He cannot shout at fellow motorist as it is late in the night and no self-respecting woman will take domestic violence, so he decides to go to a prostitute. This is not something which I made up, but one of the discussion papers on AIDS has highlighted that it is prevalent amongst drivers who are affected by road rage and inept at fighting back for their self-esteem. They take this route to sanguinity from their state of despondency. Today, we have potentially led ourselves to a crisis called AIDS. If, one of them in the chain had been rational and reacted with patience, could we have potentially averted an impending disaster?

This might sound as an immoderate story and a haughty claim of saving the planet and humanity but David A. Shiang, an extra-ordinary thinker of our times, says, “The notion of ascertaining deep truths through the mind may sound far-fetched, but it is the revolutionary nature of the human experience that makes this kind of knowledge possible.” He also says that the human mind has the capacity to understand the fundamental reality and argues that many of our deepest insights are the result of experience and not mathematics, measurement or experiment. Any stretch of imagination is permissible and the learning gained through this kind of thinking, insight and experience is the route to achieving higher-consciousness which a select few like Buddha, Jesus, and Prophet Mohamed have achieved.

I think I have shared some hard learnt experience on unconditional love in my own style or if I were to be a little pedagogic, have taught the importance of unconditional love. Now, think twice when you humble, hurt or hunt for some one. You never know what you would end up preserving!

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Sundararaman Viswanathan is engineer by qualification, manager by profession, aspiring writer and a wannabe entrepreneur at heart. He currently works as a Transition Manager, with vast experience in managing the support of mission critical IT systems.