Are you at least as compassionate as a rat?

Teri Degler • August 31, 2021

I was thinking about something I heard quite a while back on a CBC Radio (our Canadian public radio) science show called “Quirks and Quarks”. The host was interviewing a biologist whose recent extensive study on rat behavior had showed quite conclusively that rats were virtually hard-wired to help out other rats in distress.


To test their hypothesis, the scientist and her team designed a fairly simply experiment. They took two rats that had previously spent time together and put one in a cage that was impossible to open from inside. The other rat was allowed to run in a free space around the cage. But rather than running around or deserting his (or her) “friend”, the free rat would run to the cage and try to open the door. This was very difficult to do. The mechanism was too complex for the rat to be able to figure it out. He had to just keep trying and trying. Poking and swatting at it with his nose and paws incessantly until he would open the door simply by luck. As soon as the trapped rat was freed from the cage, the free rat would run to it and display caring behavior by licking it and nuzzling it. The two would then run and jump about in what they scientists could only describe as a “celebration”.


The biologists repeated the experiment with a number of rats and did so each time for three days. On the second day the free rat would go immediately to the spot on the cage that he’d been poking right before he had success the day before. By the third day, he would immediately repeat the exact behavior that had opened the door, freeing his friend as quickly as possible. The caring behavior and celebration would then ensue.


The scientists, being good cynics just like they should be, wondered if the free rat was just letting his friend out so that he wouldn’t be alone and would have someone to play with. So they then took all the rats they were going to use as free rats in the repeated experiments and let them have several chocolate chips every day with their food. Not surprisingly, the rats really, really liked the chocolate.


The scientists then repeated the experiment putting a dish of chocolate chips in the free area. Did the free rat run to the chocolate and pig it all up before he let his friend out? No!! Repeatedly, the rats in used in experiment would run to the cage and free their friends and then SHARE the chocolate!!

Okay humans, let’s take stock here. How are we doing on the rat to human compassion comparison scale?

New book on Gopi Krishna launched

By Teri Degler • June 21, 2023
Gopi Krishna—A Biography: Kundalini, Consciousness and Our Evolution to Enlightenment

Blast the Rubble

By Teri Degler • July 27, 2022
Blast the Rubble from the Pathway to Joy Yesterday a young woman was talking to me about her boyfriend breaking up with her. She was hurt and sad about the break-up but it seemed to me she was even sadder about how this was going to affect her in the future. “I’m afraid,” she said, “that I am going to start putting up walls.” Up to this point in her life she said, “I have gone into every relationship with a completely open heart – no holds barred; just absolutely open to exploring all the possibilities….” She was not, she thought, going to be able to do that anymore. “That’s what happens, you know,” she said as only a 20-something can say to a seemingly clueless 60-something, “people reach a point where they put up walls. They do it to protect themselves.” This probably doesn’t seem to be a particularly startling insight to most of us. But what I think was truly insightful about this young woman’s observation was that she was truly and deeply lamenting it. These carefully constructed, impenetrable rock and mortar constructions were going to limit her: close off her openness; curtail her spontaneous joy. As long as these walls existed she would not be able to feel love, to experience it, to be awash in it the way she once had. And even if a time might come when she’d feel safe enough to tear them down, she would find rubble strewn over pathways that once would have been free and easy traveling… We all know that erecting walls doesn’t just keep us from feeling hurt; it does to our emotions exactly what chopping off the red from one end of a rainbow and violet from the other would do to our vision. But we might not think about the fact that it also restricts our creative ability. It’s like one of those laws you had to memorize in high school chemistry class: The degree to which you suppress your emotions is inversely proportional to the degree to which you are able to express yourself. In my workshops I sometimes say, “There’s no art without heart”. Corny as this saying may be, it remains true. So let us examine ourselves. Ask a hard question: “Do I truly feel with the intensity that I once did?” If the answer is no, be brave, seek out old hidden walls, tear them down, and clear the rubble from the pathways to your heart. Then take up paintbrush, pen, drum, or dancing shoes and express your Self.

Body Love

By Teri Degler • July 27, 2022
Body Love, Oh Body Love I’ve been going to the same gym for many, many years. In the women’s section there is a large, wide-rimmed whirlpool. Women loll about, stretch out, submerge themselves, or just dangle their feet in the hot, bubbling water. Almost everyone is naked. Some are towel-less; some are towel-wrapped. This distinction does not blur over time. The women who are happy naked, remain happily naked. The women who are not, are not. I am among the latter. For many women there is not any great significance to being in this group. Some are just naturally modest; for others it’s cultural or just a way of being raised. There is, however, a great significance to being in the other group. All of these women are, to one degree or another, comfortable with their bodies. Some are trim, fit, and slim. There are even a few who preen a bit – not in any sexual way – but as if to say, “Hey, I’ve busted my butt to get this butt, and I’m proud of it!” Others are frankly, honestly, openly, unashamedly obese – and, as I slip up my towel and slide my body down in a move so carefully orchestrated that it leaves not an inch of naked flesh exposed – how I envy them. Once submerged, the tune of that old Supreme’s song “Baby Love” often comes to me. Only the words aren’t baby love; they are body love, oh body love, I need you, oh how I need you. The irony of the fact that I still don’t completely accept my physical self is that I have spent the last three decades of my life working at being in my body. The idea that the body is a temple is fundamental to my spiritual practice. It is based on the ancient yoga philosophy that says the human body is a microcosm of the cosmos and, as such, is being propelled along its spiritual path by the Divine – known, in this tradition, as Shakti. The human body is, in this sense, a container for creative force of the cosmos. A spiritual path like this shouts out the need for being able to be in and thus experience the body. I have come to believe that this is true, not just for my path, but for all spiritual paths. Elements of Christianity, Judaism, and many other traditions teach the idea that the Holy Spirit – call it prāna, chi, ruach ha-kodesh – is the power of the divine that is with us, the power that calls us, moves us…. Clearly the more comfortable we are with our bodies, the more easily we can be in them – feeling and responding to this holy force.
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