Knowing the number of daily tasks and duties of Supreme Master Ching Hai, one would wonder how She could manage to find the kind of time and energy needed to write a book. However, knowing who the Author really is, one does not question but with childlike curiosity explores the latest result of the creative energies emanating from this delicate Person in a book about other delicate beings, called The Birds in My Life. The colorful book features many pictures among the text. Everything in it is a testament of the love between the Author and Her pet birds, and it soon becomes apparent that there is more. The birds are introduced as human-like characters with distinct personalities, each having traveled a journey from a sad and hard life to liberation. Many came to Master from pet shops or animal shelters and flourished in Her loving care. Time and again throughout the book, She praises their outer and inner beauty and thereby softly invites Her readers to realize with their own wisdom more about the real treasure of our feathered friends. Some of the pictures show Master communicating with Her birds. Their answers are conveyed as rather short replies. Maybe this is because so little can be translated into human language. Is this briefness intentional? Is it perhaps a way to make the reader think about what else the birds might have said or exactly how such a dialog takes place? Or, would these very questions cause “Mom,” as the Author is called by Her feathered pets, to burst out laughing in Her well known, animated way, along with the birds? Anyway, one feels motivated not to be satisfied with the little that can be transferred into human language but to search for ways that lead to a deeper understanding of these wonderful beings. One condition is clear: If we don't accept these personalities as equals we won't arrive there. There is no room for prejudice or illusions of superiority. Para-psychological research has confirmed the ability of animals to read the aura of humans and react to their intentions. They return affection with love. Some sensitive animal lovers often describe the feeling that God is looking at them through the eyes of the animals. The Master can see more. Not only can She recognize that God made the animals with inner beings, She is also able to communicate with them in their own language. In the Author's dialogs with the birds, something else is present, something invisible and inaudible, which lies beyond reason. Is there a way for us to reach it? As in a meditation, the Master keeps returning to one theme, which is the theme of love between Her and Her pets. I believe She wants to plant the idea in our hearts that unconditional divine love is the way to reach out to other beings. This noble love to all living things makes the world more peaceful and more beautiful. This, to me, is the most important message of the book The Birds in My Life. And this is why the story of the feathered peaceful warrior Anakhan touches me so deeply. To someone who might say, “Well, all right, but isn't this bird business slightly exaggerated?” I would ask that dear someone to reconsider. Maybe we once were the birds preached to by St. Francis of Assisi!
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