THE ULTIMATE EXPERIENCE
By Terry Reis Kennedy
At last I’ve seen a koala bear—face to face! But, better yet, I’ve held one. Let me tell you, it may be the ultimate experience.
It was 1989 when I wrote these words, shortly after I had been I living and working in Australia for a year, on assignment as a poet and journalist for a literary magazine in the United States. More than 20 years later, I still consider my kola bear experience in the Top Ten of my life. In fact, it was the beginning of my stepping out a worn-out western mindset and embracing theVedantic oneness of all beings, whatever the race, religion, class or education.
I wrote: Cuddling a koala produces a most ecstatic state—akin, I’d venture, to the feeling that the great gurus of the globe have said mystics experience when they attain mergence with God. I realize that my activities along these lines are in the nursery school stage. So please don’t think I’m being sacrilegious when I tell you that when I got inside the koala bear park and one of the rangers placed a 6-month-old in my arms something very spiritual happened. It did.
This adorable baby looked up at me out of the shiniest black eyes that I’ve ever seen. They were so intensely deep, a wellspring of every color, really. Paradoxically, they seemed the containers of all light—sparks of red, gold, green, blue, silver, violet—especially violet.
As night portends the birth of day, the eyes of the baby koala heralded the dawn of a brand new way of life for me.
And up out of the soft, thick fur that felt like the underbelly of a kitten, floated the most pleasing scent. Clean. Spicy. A sharp, mint-like sting to it—eucalyptus. But, of course, why wouldn’t my cuddly koala smell like eucalyptus leaves washed by the rains, crushed in the palms? That is precisely what he nibbles on from sunrise to sunset—pure and palest green, fresh off the tenderest branches of the trees.
O! How the dark eyes held to mine. As I studied him, he studied me. What did he think, I wonder, about my sudden devotion? Or was he already used to people going limp with love when they held him this close, nuzzling his face against their own? Had he learned to squeeze the visitor’s arm in imitation of the gentle hugs he got? Or was his affection genuine? Animal instinct—as authentic as a happy puppy’s wagging tail?
I don’t know. I only know that in that moment when I held him I felt released from all my earthly troubles. Call it corny. But I was, if you’ll excuse my rapture, in heaven. Astonishingly, the microscopic ember of my faith roared up into a blazing fire when that koala licked my cheek, planting his wet and scratchy kiss there. Ah, yes, whose idea but God Almighty’s could such a fuzzy wonder be?
All the while I pondered this and other revelations, the alert little eyes watched. What can you do under such a spell but feel your heart melt, anger melt, and ill-will dissolve?
If I could, I’d put koalas everywhere. In the great city council chambers. In the small town meeting rooms. At toll booths, voting booths, safety deposit boxes, confession boxes, and in all places where chiefs meet, wherever tribes gather. You’d see koalas where those who think thy rule the world sit on their thrones in their expensive clothes, their clay feet encased in the best shoes assembly lines can manufacture—modern shoes that still must go to old-fashioned funerals.
If it were up to me, I’d have koala bears at every summit meeting. One 6-month-old for each world leader; and one apiece for the retinue of those in charge of the affairs of the leaders of the world. How could you lie or cheat or even think about blowing up your neighbor with a baby koala looking into the windows of your soul?
And, yes, there is the possibility that all the cuddly koalas gathered there might begin to feel like fragile newborn humans in the arms of those who held them. Consequently, the parental instinct might be kindled; might flare up like a shining star; might awaken something close to responsibility for all those still so vulnerable, so obviously dependent.
And, yes! Yes, again. What if it happened that the world leaders and the retinue of those in charge of the affairs of the leaders of the world began to change, to be transfigured, as it were, because of the koalas? What if all that was ignoble sank forever out of sight? What if, as a result, each leader of the world became exactly that—a world leader?
With my koala still clinging tightly to me, his dark eyes burning bright, I can easily perceive such a future. I can see that time when great human leaders are able to inspire great human beings; a time when great human beings are able to make extraordinary personal sacrifices for ordinary impersonal causes such as providing food, clothing and shelter for every man, woman and child who lives. I can see humanity beholding its divinity.
I say let the religious of the cosmos have their winged spirits. Cherubim. Seraphim. Muses by the feather-flapping hordes. The four corners of the globe encircled by every variety of sacred floating entity: Buddhist, Christian, Moslem, Jew… As for me, I have found the penultimate archangel—one readily adored by saint as well as sinner, comrade as well as citizen; condoned by pope and Dali Lama too—my koala bear.
And when I cuddle him, I am full of hope. I think perhaps the gathering of the tribes of the nations of the planet has already begun. I think that soon, soon we shall hear such a jubilation as human ears have never heard before—a sweet, singing celebration—the bomb-like thunder of The Whole Earth’s voices exploding with the news, shouting as if with one heart: Praise God, for we have saved our world, our precious blue pearl hanging in space.
Go ahead, say I’m irrational. I am. Can you blame me? I have seen a koala bear face to face.
I wrote this article in New Zealand on the Coromandel Peninsula in a tiny, unheated room inhabited by ghosts! While in New Zealand dead Maori Elders appeared to me in a vision warning me of the collapse of the materialistic world and many other mystical events took place. For instance, an 8-year-old Maori Spirit Guide who been a human sacrifice had attached herself to me when I entered a sink hole area near an outside stone altar on the Coromandel Peninsula. I became increasingly intuitive after she became my guide and only a few months after my return to the US in 1989, I was selling off my possessions and packing up for India. A spiritualist from Great Britain told me about my Spirit Guide, who I eventually named, Barbara, and he said he “saw” her in my aura when I finally made my way to Sai Baba’s Ashram, Prasanthi Nilayam, in Puttaparthi—a small, fairly isolated village in the state of Andhra Pradesh in South India. It was here that I met God face to face in the form of Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba—the number one experience in my life. And it is here, 23 years later, at Prasanthi Nilayam that I am witnessing the dawning of the Golden Age that I had envisioned so clearly on the day I held the tiny koala in my arms.
Terry Reis Kennedy is a poet and journalist. She travels extensively and writes for a variety of publications. She is the author of several books and supports the Tibetan repatriation cause.
