My Story: I Can’t Use My Gift To The World For I Am Supposed To Have Difficulties Even Meeting Another Person

Gifts of this earth, sometimes are hard to accept. My friends and I believe each human being was endowed with a gift for this earth. We believe that each one, unique as they may be among us clan of humans, have something of a “human nature” – which by contradiction, is both individual and collective, like our gifts. I believe I also have something to offer to the world. We are here to share our gifts with the world.

Here lies the twist in the tale.

Let me take a moment to introduce myself. I am a boy of seventeen going on eighteen- tall, bright, interested in the stock market and finance, but I may not talk, I hear too much, I see too much. I am labelled pretty high in the Autism Spectrum. I’m given a body I can’t feel. I move my hands in a funny sort of way. I might take a stroll mid conversation or ask someone to touch my ears out of the blue. Lots of music makes me behave like an artist watching its muse- filled with wonder and inspiration. I can’t use or bring my gift to the world for I am supposed to have difficulties even meeting another person, let alone give them something. Otherwise, I’m just a boy you meet on a train.

So how do I meet another person? It takes two to tango and one to bore. The only way I meet one more human is by hearing behind their words- their intentions. If my intention is pure interest in another, the words are unnecessary, my feeling deepens into my own intention and the gifts of the other inspire me. The gifts of the other shine like gold discovered in a dark mine after years of hard work.

But this is a dance…

There also lies a space where my own gift becomes apparent to me. My gift is like a pearl under the ocean, latent and forming, in the shelter of a sacred space. But here, in this dance with another human being, the shell cracks open, the pearl I have been carrying inside is radiant and splendid and an offering to the world. In meeting another person, I discover myself.

It brings me to a point of choice: Who do I see in the other? Is it myself and my own interest or is it my bold lack of it? Do I meet any part of them other than myself?

Deepening a search into yourself you discover a part of you that did not exist before. Therein lies a wonder. When you meet another, you acquire a new faculty. A faculty that existed not till this meeting occurred. That makes you wonder; is meeting another just part of meeting yourself? How does love start? Where does it exist? Who is the other?

Such thoughts must be entertained when we “know” another or claim to “love” them and meet them. Did you ever wonder why Autism came into this world? A friend once asked, what do you expect of this world?

When I was asked this question by a fellow traveller one day, I was incredibly flattered. Who wouldn’t love that question for themselves- what do you expect or want of the world. We have many wishes as humans and we also have many lofty ideals we strive towards. But I wonder, if that is a good thing- to be asked this question. Bit of me is tempted to share my dream for the world, bit of me holds back as I might be putting out a wish in this cosmos, unaware of the power it may bring.

If I can meet another human being and in that find a new faculty arising in me, arising in them, then I feel purpose is His will and our interest. If in every meeting and encounter I experience a golden thread, between us, wherein I discover me and they discover themselves and I see them and me and our gifts, I think that is something I strive towards.

If I can meet another human being and in that, find this new faculty arising in me – a treasure, a new thought, a new impulse, my destiny path, I am and forever will be grateful to that human being. If I am so compassionate to them and grateful for even a so called “painful encounter”, a new faculty arises in the space between us.

This I call love. I call it true love. It belongs not to me, not to the other, it’s a sacred space between us. We see each other, we recognize each other’s gifts and we stand in the space between us.

I am not giving a big lecture on what an “Autism” boy is looking for in the world. I’m not intending to ask at this moment, anything of this world. I feel that makes me have an expectation. I work hard at human encounters, I work hard to create love.

I don’t wish today…I don’t share a dream… I plant a seed in my words….

Let my words be true of thinking
Let my thought be pure as light
Let the light fill my being
Let my being be free of spite.

Let my spite dissolve into inner reflection
Let me reflect my feeling life
Let my life breathe in joy and wonder
Let my wonder grow like a child.

Let my child within hold my heart
Let my heart hold golden love
Let love break every judgment
Let judgment stand without a lie.

Let a lie not fill my deeds
Let deeds bring me a giving chance
Let chance be my falter and fall
Let me fall and let me rise

Let me rise with inner knowing
Let my limbs serve truth and love
Let love and goals be the same encounter
Let encounters lead me to my own

Let my own words not be mindless poems
Let my poems stem from true love
Let love, a sacred space take root
On this earth, I stand upon.

By – Sabari and Pranav