The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali say, in sutra 1.33: “In relationships, the mind becomes purified by cultivating feelings of friendliness towards those who are happy, compassion for those who are suffering, goodwill towards those who are virtuous, and indifference or neutrality towards those we perceive as wicked or evil.”
Yes, that's me in the plaid!
I learned this at an early age from someone who lived this by example and, to this day, she is still the highest example of this teaching in my life. Her name is not Sri Swami Somethingorother. Her name is Paulina Seekoei (Seekoei is Afrikaans for “hippo”, which was surely an unfortunate Western name that her ancestors must have gotten from one of their white masters). South Africa in the ‘80s in the depths of apartheid – is certainly a surprising setting for my first yoga teacher to find me.
Paulina was my family’s live in maid. Most white families with at least lower middle class means had maids. Paulina was our maid for about thirty years, from when I was born until well after I had left the home she kept for us. When she started working for us, my mom asked her when her birthday was; she said February 25, but she did not know how old she was. Later, my mom saw her birth certificate, which said August 25, 1949, a year after the government formally started enforcing apartheid.
Paulina is very heavy set, and I remember her visibly struggling to walk and move around, especially as she got older. Yet, she kept the house clean and prepared delicious meals. I am not sure when she slept, because she was always there, working. She brought me coffee in bed each morning as I woke up to the smell of bacon and sautéed chicken livers with onions and chutney. How ironic that I have not had coffee since then. And though she fed me meat three times a day, I have been vegetarian for many years now.
Paulina was raising someone else's kids, while she was never able to see her own
My mom was always around and is an amazing mother; I feel so blessed that I have two great mothers. My parents treated Paulina relatively well, given the apartheid environment and the tremendous peer pressure on them that continuously reinforced the message that whites are superior, and to maintain certain norms. She worked for us for more than two decades before she could sit at our dinner table or use the bathroom in the house. My mom loves her like a sister and I am convinced she was and is my mom’s best friend. Years after my grandma (on my mom’s side) left her body, Paulina was the main support to help mom deal with the pain of this loss.
Paulina’s words of wisdom included nuggets like:
- “Dis maar hoe dit is,” meaning, “that is how it is.” Whether I was faced with something I perceived as bad or something I perceived as good, it helped me accept it for what it was.
- “Onthou hulle het ‘n ander paadtjie geloop,” meaning, “remember, they have been on a different path,” which was her version of Plato’s “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
- “Dit sal ook verbygaan,” meaning, “this too shall pass,” mostly in response to something negative in my life, but sometimes in response to something positive. It helped me appreciate the impermanence of everything.
Paulina knew the dynamics I had with my friends and girlfriends and gave me a lot of insightful life advice. As I got older and had parties with friends at home, I fondly remember sneaking some beers to her through the back door. She vetted my girlfriends and friends as I really trusted her opinion. She was my first guru and helped me daily to get through my teenage years, not only with her words of wisdom, but especially through her example of how to find joy in the little things and how, without any knowledge of Patanjali’s teachings, she embodied so many of the qualities Patanjali holds up as exemplary.
Ishvarapranidhana
Paulina is completely illiterate, having never gone to any school. However, she does speak several languages. I still regret that I never taught her to read and write. It saddens me to think about how many times she must have been ripped off paying for something, not knowing the difference between the various denomination notes. She says she knows it by the different colors, but if she cannot read prices, or do basic math, she is totally dependent on the honesty of others.
One of Patanjali’s five Niyamas is Ishvarapranidhana— the basic meaning of which is to surrender yourself and lay all your actions at the feet of God. Yoga teaches us to accept the fact that we will not always get what we want. We should only be concerned with putting all our efforts into the current task, without being attached to the end result. Paulina’s embodiment of self surrender was probably more of a last-resort, emergency response due to her situation, living in apartheid South Africa, than an intentional practice. Yet I am still able to use it as the primary example to my own essential, ongoing practice of yoga.
She was well acquainted with the maids from next door, but I cannot help think that she went through life never truly having ever had real friends, as she lived with us 24/7 and only had vacation when we went on vacation. Even when we went on vacation, she sometimes accompanied us. My dad took us to the beach once or twice a year and I remember how she had to stay in the maid’s quarters of the Marine Sands Hotel in Durban. The hotel was certainly not posh by any standards, but I guess it must have been standard in those days to have a big dorm style room where maids would stay.
It was on one of these trips that I first remember seeing separate bathrooms for “blankes” (whites) and “nie-blankes” (non-whites). I must have been around 10 and remember that day vividly – big black letters on the white walls indicated which door to take depending on the pigmentation of your skin. When you got to the beach, there was a really crowded “coloured” beach and the much nicer white beach.
Durban Beach, South Africa
I remember asking my parents how “coloured” someone has to be before they cannot use the white facilities. If one of your grandparents were black, does that disqualify you from using the white facilities? On a side note, interracial marriages were illegal in those days.
Paulina has a son and daughter. We do not have contact with the son or his father. When my dad retired, my parents could no longer afford Paulina’s services. She currently lives in a shanty town with her daughter, Letia, and shares a bed with her ten year old grand-daughter, Lydia. Letia found a job at the school where Lydia goes. It does not sound like a good job, but at least Letia is close to Lydia, which is critical in an area where rape and violent crime are rampant. South Africa consistently tops the list of countries with the worst rape (including child rape), murder and assault rates. It is estimated that a woman born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped than learning how to read. I often wonder whether Lydia was the result of a rape, especially given Letia’s reaction when I ask about the father. Whenever I visit South Africa, Paulina always tells me it is too dangerous for me to go visit her, so she takes the bus and walks to come to us.
I literally cannot even imagine how her life must have been growing up in those circumstances. Not only was Paulina able to survive, she was able to find beauty in seemingly insignificant things all around her and lovingly share that beauty.
Metta
A Buddhist principle often used in yoga is metta (loving kindness) – one of the ten paramitas (perfections of the heart). I always sensed true loving kindness from Paulina, even towards people who treated her worse than they treated their dogs. That Paulina always maintained this loving kindness, despite not even having basic human rights, is truly inspiring.
I once remember her slaughtering a chicken out back and teaching me how best to do this so as not to let the chicken suffer too much. Yes, you can twist a chicken’s head off with your bear hands, and still do it with loving-kindness! In fact, I can remember only one instance of some less than loving-kindness behavior on Paulina’s part: the father of her two kids once showed up at the house drunk, and I remember seeing her beat him with a shovel over the head. Years later, as a 13 year old, I was telling the story to friends and demonstrated how he dropped to the ground. I hit my head on a windowsill, resulting in a gash to my skull. The ensuing scar will forever remind me of Paulina’s lesson’s to me: that life is not always hummingbirds, flowers and butterflies, and it is how we perceive and handle life’s ups and downs that matters, how we understand the moments and situations in which to surrender and which to take up a shovel, and how to always treat others with loving kindness.
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