Dharma

Around 1990 I went to a talk by Ram Dass and he retold a story about the nature of dharma. I suspect that I do not have all the facts right, but I know that this story is true. It was told to him by a doctor who worked on smallpox vaccinations for the World Health Organization in the 1970s. (I do not recall him saying so, but I believe it must have been Dr. Larry Brilliant.)

The WHO sought to completely eliminate smallpox from the biosphere. (They eventually succeeded.) This was one of those things where reaching 80% of people was 20% of the work and reaching the remaining 20% of people was 80% of the work. Eventually there were just a few pockets of unvaccinated people whom the WHO had mapped.

One of these was a small, remote village in India where the people refused to accept the vaccinations. The doctors had come to the village and explained about smallpox vaccination and the people were horrified by the prospect: they regarded contracting smallpox as a blessing from the goddess शीतला माता.

Being the kind of people who join a WHO project to vaccinate people around the world against smallpox, the doctors feel deeply torn about what to do. On the one hand, they know all the horrors of history which they would be evoking by violating the deep cultural and religious commitments of an isolated, pre-industrial village “for their own good”. On the other hand, eliminating 99.9999% of smallpox and eliminating 100% of smallpox are categorically different things, and enormous human suffering was at stake.

The WHO team spent a long time trying to find a way to get this community to accept the vaccinations, but nothing worked. They were at a true impasse.

The WHO team eventually landed on the side of The Needs Of The Many and went to the village to vaccinate everyone by force. They brought soldiers with them because the plan was to literally grab people and hold them down. They brought a lot of soldiers because they were determined to do this without anyone getting hurt. The process was every bit as wrenching as one would imagine. There were people running and screaming and thrashing as they were held, desperately trying to avoid the vaccination.

In time the deed was done and everything went quiet. What now? The story goes that there was a long moment in which a village elder whom the doctor had talked with at length looked him in the eye, with an emotion he could not place. Not anger. Not sadness. Something else. The old man retreated to his hut and returned with an edible gourd and a large knife. He used the knife to split the gourd. He offered the bigger half to the doctor, and said:

“It is our dharma to know that smallpox is a blessing to be sought. It is your dharma to know that smallpox is a curse to be prevented. Today all of us lived our dharma well. And there are many more of you than there are of us.

“This is what we all knew must happen.

“So now we celebrate.”

And the village held a feast at which the doctors were honored guests.

I am blessed that it was my dharma to go to the talk where Ram Dass told me that story.