Learning to Live in Harmony, Part 5 of 6, May 11, 2002, Florida, USA

You just love the dog(-person), and you concentrate and you worry about the dog(-person), and you just want to get him out of danger. You would not think to make the owner feel bad or anything. And I’m generous with anybody; I mean, not just them. But because they don’t know that, they think I want something. I don’t even want a thank you from him. I thank them for letting me take care of the dog(-person). I did. I said, “Thank you. That’s very gracious of you, to trust me even, to let me take care of the dog(-person).” Because I felt already that they think I’m interfering. But I was just happy to take care, because if I didn’t take care, that dog(-person) would die. And it would feel like my dog(-person) as well. I loved that dog(-person), too. So because of many “bad” things I did, like take care of the dog(-person), pay for his wife, and give gifts to his wife, give presents to his friends, and treat his father well, and treat his other friends well and all that, so he hated me. So that day, he really pounded from nowhere, from nothing he just kept pouring out everything. […]

And then we moved to another place, there’s other neighbors. Because we came and it was a new place, so we have to renovate and sometimes make noise and all that. So we came and gave them some presents, saying, “Sorry if we inconvenienced you in some way.” And because of that, they thought we want something from them, and began to [do] all kinds of things, or want some more presents, I don’t know. Every time we make a little noise, they call the police and call this, call that, call the owner of the house. […] But they both apologized later, can you imagine? For what? 

All this “Love thy neighbor” and old tradition stuff, this is so estranged now. Nobody does that anymore. We are so concentrated on material gain and profit, and we forget to live as a human, as a big family. It’s really funny. It is really funny. Even my bird(-people) and dog(-people), they learn to share. In the beginning, they didn’t know each other, they might grumble a little. But now they share. They don’t care. […]