Max Cat

I cat sit for a friend of mine sometimes when she is out of town for this wonderful cat named Max. I like to call him Max Cat. For some years now, Max Cat has been a reliable date for most holidays. He shows up to Christmas on time, on New Year's Eve he's ready to party (we play squeaky mouse with my hand being the mouse) and on Valentine's Day, there is no better lover. He'll put his little paw on my face and stare into my eyes with his crystal clear blue eyes as if to say, "I love you". And yes, for those of you that are wondering, I do occasionally ask myself the legitimacy of being in Love with someone else's cat. Oh, but how can you resist his face? Clearly, he is a handsome devil......

At one of these times, when we were deeply gazing into each other's eyes, I learned a very important lesson from Max Cat. I've read it before. I've maybe even thought about it in some kind of convoluted way, but Max has made this very clear to me: there are only two real emotions in life--love and fear. All other emotions stem from these. Anger? Usually fear of loss or lack of love. Sadness? Same. Joy? Stems from love. You can name the entire spectrum of human emotion and Max thinks that they all boil down to love and fear, which is not so different from what Patanjali has to say on the matter in the yoga sutras. All human suffering, Patanjali states, boils down to Avidya, which is commonly translated as a lack of knowledge of God (and I use this word loosely). I like to think that "God" is defined as the Energy pervading every entity and non-entity in the Universe. It's the space stuff and the lack of space stuff all at the same time. It's the vibes, the waves, everything. When we forget that this energy is love or we fear a loss of this energy, our downward spiral into egotism (asmita), attachments (raga), aversions (dvesa) and fear of death (abhinivesa) begin.    The good news is that this energy is really with us all the time.   It is us.  We are it.   To quote the Emily Dickinson,  "love is all there is."

May we all learn from Max. He's a pretty mellow cat. His only real fear is being left out in the snow for more than about two minutes and, well, he gets pretty talkative when he's hungry and his cat bowl is empty. Other than that, he sends out love vibes all the time even as he snoozes in the sun on his cat bed.