Power of Canine Compassion

Ayushman Jamwal
The pessimist and the optimist can agree on one fact – love is a peculiar thing. The world changes, we change, and so does our understanding of this great and terrible emotion. Humans may dominate the planet, but the rat race of the modern world, the constant struggle for name, fortune, happiness, power and control, its constraints and conventions leave little room for plain old humanity, to just ‘be’ for ourselves and others. Our fragility and insecurity in the age of over-exposed personalities regularly sideline acts of everyday kindness that nurture all humans, even limiting our capacity for compassion. We all need avatars of real love to reconnect with ourselves, but can we say we find that endlessly in each other?
Such avatars do exist in our increasingly artificial world, but they may not necessarily be human. That love rests in the heart of man’s best friend – a canine heart.
Just like the waxing and waning of the eternal moon, so does the love in our lives rise and fall, even if it may endure. The love of a canine always shines bright and never wavers. The emotional conviction of humans is always fragile, for we are abject captives of our own rules of happiness, sorrow and failure. The love of a canine is pure and untempered by the world it resides in. It only listens to its heart, a devotion guided by small acts of kindness. Give a dog your heart and it will give you its heart. How many people can you say that about?
The Gods we know too are vengeful, petty and self-righteous. They may be wise, a collective of human conscience, but they too are held back by the weakness of the human heart. The love of a canine transcends what we consider divine. The species is elevated above its origins by their love and loyalty.
It’s maybe for this reason dogs have such short lives. They fill our lives with light, show us endless love and then leave us experiencing sadness and yearning for anything remotely close to what they offered. It is a bittersweet lesson to cherish the love we humans share.
Learn to love like a canine. They may not be revered by religion in earthly temples and holy books, for their existence is beyond that. They are divine grace resonating everywhere, in grand mansions to crumbling slums, from loyal service in security forces to comfort for the differently-abled and the underprivileged. Their hearts never falter, beating beyond time in our increasingly lonely society. Experience their love and aspire to reflect just a sliver of its conviction.
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