SACRIFICE

 
For a while, when I was living at Meherazad, Dr. Anne Moreigne was also staying there as Shelley was away for some reason. The two of us would accompany Eruch on his early morning walk down the Meherazad approach road. This particular time, Dr. Anne was a bit late and Eruch was getting restless.

He asked me a couple of times, "Why is Dr. Anne late today?" This was a habit of Eruch's. Although he had incredible patience, and although he seldom reprimanded the person who was tardy to any great extent, he would often go on and on to those around him, repeatedly asking why this person was late and what they were doing and so on.

Eventually Anne arrived and Eruch looked at me and said, "Viccho has come."

"What does that mean?" Anne asked and I told her that Viccho was a Gujarati word meaning "scorpion."

"Am I such a horrible person?" Anne asked.

"It was a compliment," Eruch replied.

"How could it be a compliment? A scorpion is supposed to be a vicious creature."

"Don't you know what a great sacrifice a female scorpion makes for the sake of her babies?" Eruch asked. He then proceeded to explain: "After giving birth, the female allows her babies to feed upon her own body. The babies eat the mother until they are strong enough to fend for themselves. The mother perishes in order that the babies can survive. What a great sacrifice the scorpion makes."

To this day, I do not know if this is a fact, but it was Eruch's illustration of true sacrifice.

On another day, however, Eruch added another nuance to the notion of sacrifice. Somebody had made a comment about how much a certain person had sacrificed for the sake of his girl friend. Eruch commented, "Sacrifice is always for false love. In true love there is only oneness — the question of sacrifice does not arise in true love."