This Feeling Of Acceptance

This piece by Aysegul was written after her visit to Timbaktu, near Bangalore, early this year. Aysegul is a medical doctor working in the area of parasitology, in Izmir, Turkey.

 

My deepest feeling in India was – acceptance. This is exactly what the people there have, it is what we have lost and something which is not easy to find. I found it again in their eyes, this softness and transparency. In India and in nature, I felt at home. I remembered my childhood and the simple life at home, being at home in nature, (it is great luck when, far from the city, you find accommodation in the mountains.) In summer we went into the house only to sleep at night. I always fell into sleep exhausted, with my brothers and sisters we were often lost in the mountains. … the dogs came with us right up to school … the snakes which we were afraid of and the picnic on the slopes of the hills.

All my mother’s friends came from the city, it was always houseful at our place. In India I felt the simplicity and warmth of my childhood once again. At home there was no TV, the relationships between people were much stronger, warmer, we children were free and without cares … we were able to share, there was this acceptance, this being able to take things the way they are. Then it was lost. I don’t know how, we got lost in our individualism. I found it again in India, with the bananas, with the monkeys, the cows on the streets, the natural life. Bathing with water which one had pumped up oneself, from out of the spring.

I already yearn for it again. Acceptance means taking life as it is and this acceptance is the feeling of security. This security gives one energy and openness. Openness to let others into oneself and the energy to accept all feelings. I heard this voice again and again in myself. Take it, take all the feelings which come and as soon as I could do it, I found new doors opening in me, leading right up to what was most painful. To take this pain was the most difficult thing but the voice rang time and again in my ears: take it! I also felt myself accepted in this environment and trusted the group, the surroundings, nature, the cosmos … thanks to all who ensured this environment.