Love Self, Love Other - Loving Leprosy Community Progress Report

For the past month, I have been living and working at a small leprosy community in a remote section of Ahmedabad in India.

If you are new to the story, read this for background information.

To quickly recap, I’m here to bring my experience in traditional eastern medicine and trauma counseling to those in need, do some basic community development, as well as lead a 6-month leadership training course with several gifted children of the community.

This report is mainly focused on the what, as in what’s been happening but I also want to mention that the why and the personal journey of self discovery (with its fair share of lows and difficulties) and learning that’s occurring is equally important.

For me, that has and continues to be an exploration and practice of ‘serving with love,’ or aligning action with the command of the heart—a deeply fundamental area of being human I think know we are all afraid of and stifle to one degree or another. An area that once mastered, to me, yields the truest form of wealth and fosters an effortless, abundant reality.

It has been an overwhelmingly positive and amazing journey thus far and since I’m here until at least the end of the year, it’s exciting to think about what lies ahead.

Living life at the loving community

I generally arrive at the loving community (pet name given to leprosy community) early in the afternoon on Monday and leave Friday morning, so it is very much an immersive experience.

I live in the office of a community center that Manav Sadhna (local NGO I’m in collaboration with) had built—a beautiful facility meant to be used for social activity and educational workshops. I’ve got some mattresses on the floor and it does the job; a couple perks include mosquitoes not being an issue and the room staying fairly cool at night.

Living with less over the past couple of years has no doubt been helpful preparation for this.

For meals, I am very well fed by a family nearby who takes care of breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner for me daily.

Another family allows me use of their shower (bucket showers are awesome) and bathroom (Indian latrines engender a healthier squat position) area.

A couple of things. One, being a lone ranger is out. Not possible here. I live at a focal point of the community, everybody knows when I’m in my room and people, especially the kids, have no problem barging in and saying hello—you can either fight against this and suffer from your (repeated) invasions of privacy or surrender to the moment (something that India asks you to do daily). Then, core areas of my material life are at the mercy of others—I’m required to constantly engage and connect as best I can within the language barrier.

Thankfully both these families know enough English and I enough Gujarati that we can get our points across. Since I now have mobile broadband, sometimes I will bring up Google Translate on the laptop and let my computer act as translator.

This community is a close-knit tribe with a high degree of unity where everybody knows everybody and everybody takes care of everybody, something I believe that has arisen out of its shared story of pain related to the leprosy disease and severe social stigma that goes with it (as an example: I met one lady who fled her village, leaving behind all of her family, because of the real possibility of being burned alive for developing the disease)—not to mention such tribal living is the way we are hardwired to live.

The generosity and humanity that I’ve experienced, not only from the families that are taking care of me, but also from the community at large who has genuinely welcomed a stranger who looks and talks different can be a lesson to us about the state of our own generosity and humanity.

(When was the last time you helped a house guest wash their hands before a meal or invited a stranger over for tea to make them not a stranger anymore?)

It’s also worth mentioning again that this community is highly marginalized and very poor, filled with beggars earning less than $1/day and nobody earning more than a few thousand USD per year.

It’s no wonder to me now why they call it the loving community.

Not exactly a doctor...

I was recently approached by a woman who told me that her son’s front teeth haven’t grown in yet. On more than one occasion, I’ve been stopped to be explained to about various aches and pains. People seem to think I’m a doctor.

As heart-warming (and funny) as this is, it’s also given me an opportunity to define the type of person I’m meant to be working with. In response, I’ve explained that my work is for big, complicated forms of disease. Emotional trauma, leprosy, Cancer, and so on.

I’ve learned through the encounters that these are the difficult areas where I like to focus my treatment work because of the challenge, the relative need of the person, as well as the amazing results that can be seen in “impossible” situations.

I spend several hours of each day giving Jin Shin Jyutsu, a powerful form of traditional medicine native to Japan, to various people in the community. I typically work in homes (as opposed to people coming to see me somewhere), almost always on the floor—I enjoy the basic (uncomfortable at times) no frills setup.

Often, several children will follow me around and sit in on the sessions. This was really helpful in the beginning because they helped to make me less of a stranger with new people and could also explain in the native language what I would be doing. They also help lighten the atmosphere through their constant laughing and playing, and a few times they’ve assisted me with actual treatment work.

I always feel as if something greater is happening with each session and that not just one person is benefitting.

All the major problems facing the world are internal problems residing on the level of human consciousness, precisely the level that traditional medicine works on. Creating harmony on this level in one individual, to me, is a step in the direction of global harmony, albeit a small one. That and there is no question greater harmony in the community members, is greater harmony created in the community.

It has been a privilege to render this kind of care to those that I’ve worked with so far, here are some highlights.

Guru.

I have a separate thread dedicated to Guru, you can read the latest post here.

Guru is a 9-year old boy with Cerebral Palsy that I’ve been working with intensively and who has really been, thus far, the focus of my treatment work. Guru’s main issue was his dissociated and traumatized state I found him in, a result of a complicated birth that left him with a body he can’t operate properly.

When I first met Guru, he was in something of a vegetable state. Now, after a few weeks of treatment, he is much more present and alert, symptoms of him more fully occupying his body and the fear around doing so departing. His natural, boyish happiness is bubbling up and often he smiles and laughs during our time together, especially when it is encouraged.

There has even been some (unexpected) physical transformation with Guru’s hips slowly rotating towards a center neutral position, as opposed to flopping to the left as they normally do.

The next big step will be to hook him up with Cerebral Palsy specialists who can hopefully further empower him and improve his quality-of-life. In my opinion, this kind of work wouldn’t have been possible before we started due to Guru’s lack of presence in his body.

Massie.

("Massie" or "Auntie" is a respectful way of referring to an older woman. I never did catch her actual name...)

Massie approached me early on complaining of migraine headaches that she’d been experiencing since having a heart attack, migraines that medication and injections had not been able to help with, and migraines that she now reports are gone (to which I said she owes me one of her 7! daughters as a wife).

I treated her outdoors on a few occasions, which attracted a crowd of on lookers. This was helpful for creating understanding about what I do, as what I do can look strange and ineffectual to the logical mind. However, spend time near somebody who is receiving a treatment and you will start to feel the vibration that is emitted, similar to the vibration emitted from somebody in prayer or meditation. The emotional body then remembers.

Biyama.

Biyama is a sweet, 60+ year old lady who introduced me 1st hand to the plight of those in the community with leprosy who also have to beg for their money.

Biyama’s story of how she arrived at the community is one you hear over and over. She was forced to leave her village after she developed leprosy, leaving her entire family (who she hasn’t seen since) behind. She now lives alone, handicapped, in severe poverty and begs to earn about Rs. 20 or 50 cents/day.

I gave Biyama some treatments after back-to-back eye operations she had but really the time was about simply being with her and providing caring company, as opposed to creating some kind of result.

She has also prompted me to figure out a creative way to solve the issue of these older leprosy patients who have to beg—there has to be a better use of their time and a way to cover their monthly expenses, expenses that amount to about Rs. 1,500 or $30.

When you say goodbye to Biyama after a visit, she always gives you a heart felt blessing for your well being. Sounds simple enough. The question is, could you muster the emotional strength to do the same to somebody you don’t know so well?

Hopefully, this small example gives you a glimpse into the characters of these inspiring people I’m getting to know. They are full of love, short on material resources. Precisely the opposite is the case for most of us in the West.

Siv Kumar.

I’ve just started working with Kumar, a young man in his 20s whose been diagnosed with epilepsy. He's been on heavy medication for the past 10 years and is still prone to the occasional seizure.

I have no doubt his condition is going to improve over time. However, it’s been hard to hear just how detrimental the medication is in his pulse (pulse listening is an ancient art used in almost every traditional system of medicine that reveals key information to inform your treatment path) and almost makes me want to recommend for him to stop taking it, as it would greatly improve the quality of our work.

What’s interesting about Kumar is that he was the one where I realized just how similar the underlying psycho-spiritual issues are with everybody that I’ve worked with. It’s as if no matter whose pulse I’m listening to, I’m hearing the same things.

This is helping me to understand the deeper psychology of the community and why it has formed together. Practically speaking, gleaning this kind of information helps me to connect with the people in an even more fundamental fashion and because we act like mirrors to one another, can help some to wake up (example: seeing that a beggar is choosing for their situation out of deep grief and self pity).

When you know that somebody knows your deepest secret, change can be motivated on its own without any words needing to be expressed or action taken.

Creating new

I like to start new things.

With respect to community development, the leprosy community is more or less a blank sheet of paper. The residents are mostly concerned with their survival needs and set in their routines, so it’s difficult for them to pull back and think about initiating community activities.   

Being an outsider and looking at the community with fresh eyes, I’m in a fortunate position to initiate new activities and projects—here’s what we’ve been up to.

Volleyball

One of the first things I did was buy a volleyball net and ball, as I was told that the older kids love volleyball but had no net to use (and no money to buy it with) with the existing volleyball poles.

It was a fun experience driving around Ahmedabad looking for the equipment and haggling for a discounted rate when we found a store that carried the items. After returning, I asked the kids to level out the field and clean up the trash—tasks which they took care of swiftly in about an hour.

Volleyball has been enjoyed daily since.

Yoga and Meditation

I started a yoga and meditation class for the kids the first week I arrived and have since been doing it every evening on the temple grounds right before Aarti (Hindu ceremony). The kids enjoy it and do well with the movements, and it’s amazing to watch them go into meditation where they become instantly still and quiet (well, most of them).

It’s a healthy and uplifting way to end the day.

Trip to the zoo

We recently took all the kids to a landmark location in Ahmedabad that houses, amongst other things, a zoo, aquarium, science museum, amusement park, and large lake (a spot I discovered in the ride searching for the volleyball equipment).

The night before we were schedule to go, Aruna (a community leader and partner of sorts) and I sat the kids down and let them know the trip was a gift and that it should be treated as such. We explained that none of the adults leading the outing had to go, that going was solely for their benefit. This heart-to-heart really did the trick, as the kids were incredibly well behaved and respectful the whole time.

It was a big day, much chatted about in the community, and one built up with a great deal of anticipation. The kids were so excited when the Manav Sadhna “Koshi” (happiness) bus arrived to pick them up and made merry (singing, screaming, playing, etc.) all the way to the location.

So the kids (many of which for the first time) got to see lions, tigers, snakes, elephants, exotic birds, and other animals and took a relaxing sunset ride around the lake by way of a small train. The happiness beaming from their eyes when we returned made me realize why I decided to organize the event—and this happiness rippled through the community that evening, as the starry eyed kids made their enthusiastic reports.

It’s worth saying that apart from the sensory entertainment aspect of the trip, we were also sending a more important message that we care enough about the kids to do special things for them—that they are important and deserve good things of the sort.

MAM Movies

Being affiliated with Manav Sadhna gives me the opportunity to invite Manav Sadhna leaders over to share their amazing projects and work with us.

Our first such event was with Madhu and Jyotsna from MAM Movies, an organization dedicated to social change through inspiring media, usually related to various humanitarian service projects.

Unfortunately, technical difficulties prevented Madhu and Jyotsna from playing all the short films they planned to show but their visit was not in vain.

Jyotsna introduced her gift-economy project called Akshay Patra. A simple idea, rich in philosophy, where rupees are slowly and intently collected in plastic bottles until the bottles are filled, then given away freely to be used by somebody else to do something good for somebody else—what we call a gift cycle.

Jyotsna distributed some rupees to our kids, explained how they were collected and in what state of mind, and told them that now it was their job to continue the cycle and use the rupees to do something good for somebody else.

There was a palpable change in the energy of the room as the rupees were distributed and the philosophy behind the project explained. It was clear our kids were humbled by the sincerity, care, and compassion behind the project and it was a personal privilege to bear witness to their first introduction to the gift-economy philosophy of generosity, as it is one near to my heart.

Foot washing ceremony and sandal distribution

One of the main Manav Sadhna pre-school teachers approached me and said she had about 50 sandals she wanted to gift to the pre-schoolers at the loving community. I told her to pick a date and that we should also wash all the kids’ feet before distributing them, making it something of a ceremony.

I admit I’ve never had an idea quite like this before but I’m glad I did. All the foot washers that came had such a good time making all those small feet clean and the kids loved their brand new sandals, which must have felt extra good with their clean and happy feet.

It truly is in these simple acts of service where such precious opportunities for love, fulfillment, and heart-to-heart connection can be found.

Introducing the Loving Leadership program

Last, but far from least, is the newly launched loving leadership program that I’ve designed for 11 special kids, ages 9 —15 or so, who have made a strong impression on me (as well as Aruna) over the past few weeks. They’ve impressed me because they all have exceptionally caring characters, take initiative, and are always willing to lend a helping hand—key qualities of a heart-centered or loving leader, the type of leader needed for this world to turn around.

The idea then is to do a special 6-month program with this group that cultivates the qualities of a loving leader with the overall goals of creating future community (possibly world?) leaders and also instilling a sense of optimism that if they wanted to, they could pursue and realize their dreams (a common mindset with those in poverty is a certain sense of resignation and feeling that their circumstances can’t be changed).

We got off to a phenomenal start last week, the details of which I will save for a future post dedicated to this specific thread. For now, all the kids agreed to participate in the program (the option was given for them not to) and we all left our first meeting inspired, enthusiastic, and looking forward to the shared journey that lies ahead. Their first homework assignment? Use the famous smile card, perform a random act of kindness, and journal (in their new journals we gave them handmade by slum kids out of recyclable material) about the experience.

It’s this style of self, as in the selfish self that wants, sacrifice that is at the heart of being a heart-centered leader and a great exercise to illustrate the point.

Personally, I feel as if this leadership program is the start of something that could be successfully replicated with other groups of talented kids in other parts of the world and it excites me to think how the seeds we will be planting over the coming months will grow in the future. It is also a perfect balance to my mostly meditative and silent treatment work during the day.

(A big, big thank you to Aruna who did an amazing job translating, I know it wasn’t easy.)

As I come to the end of this report, I realize how fortunate I am to be here in India to learn and grow right along side those who I am serving. It’s clear that the underlying process of all the activities and projects I’m engaged in boil down to one simple concept—love self, love other.