When we discuss Gilden-Fire in that area of the Watch, this is where I'm coming from.And now, children, gather 'round. For I will tell you the tale of a most glorious race. A race that is true. A race that is honest. A race that is noble. Come close to the fire, children, and hear the tale of the Haruchai.
The Haruchai live in the Westron Mountains. This is a very inhospitable place to live. Life does not come easy, but only through extreme effort. Of course, the lives of many people, individuals and groups, requires extreme effort. Farmers are a good example. What makes it different for the Haruchai is the danger. The mind of the farmer can wander as he breaks his back. He may not have the freedom to ponder thoughts far and wide, but he need not pay strict attention to the job every moment.
But the Haruchai must. Absolute concentration is required just to stay alive. The growing season is short - Miss an hour's work, and you might miss the entire crop. Snow and ice are perilous - misplace one foot, and you fall off a cliff, if not bring an avalanche down upon your family. And enemies are everywhere - NEVER forget to look over your shoulder.
And what is the character of the people who live under these conditions?
-Are they lazy? I won't even bother answering.
-Are they pessimistic? Where there is NO room for error, any doubt will automatically become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
-Are they dishonest? In these mountains, how long do you think a liar and his family will live if he doesn't bother tending the crops, guarding the goats, or gathering fuel for the fire, but said he did?
-Do they have short attention spans? The absolute lack of room for error kills anyone with this flaw also.
Indeed, these traits do not exist in the race! Can anyone even imagine an Haruchai struggling with such questions? Having an internal debate over whether to get the job done or try to sneak an extra hour of sleep? I can't. The ability to act like that is absent. (If the first groups of Haruchai to live in the Westron Mountains included people who lied, stole, etc., they couldn't have lived very long. It is impossible under these conditions. There may have been others who leaned toward being this way, who saw what would happen, and, begrudgingly, did what needed doing despite themselves. If this was the case, these qualities have been bred out of the race over the generations.) It's a very simple situation: For reasons of practical necessity, the Haruchai, as a race, have this mindset and character. Without any intent to do so, nor even the conception that they would be doing so, they come out of their mountain fastness as paragons of human virtue.
In our world, we call this the Zen Mind. Once again, I quote Dan Millman:
This is the Haruchai - every moment satori. It's the only way their minds work. Every action is given every bit of attention, performed to the utmost of their ability, without doubt or hesitation, with a concentration and intensity that most of us only feel for brief moments, a few times in our lives.One time I finished my best-ever pommel horse routine and walked over happily to take the tape off my wrists. Soc beckoned me and said, “The routine looked satisfactory, but you did a very sloppy job taking the tape off. Remember, every-moment satori.”
This is why Cail can stop the the descent of a stomping Courser. (And why Brinn can go toe-to-toe with a Giant, and why Ceer and Hergrom can give even a moment's pause to a Sandgorgon!!) He thinks, simply, "I must hold the Courser off of the Chosen." As mothers have been known to think, "My child is trapped under a burning car. I will lift the car off of her." The focus is absolute, so that he thinks it the same way, with the same mindset, as he would think, "I must hold this 10-pound rock off of the Chosen."
And this is why Brinn was able to ignore Kasreyn and his geas. His task was to guard Covenant, and that's that. The Zen mind doesn't have doubt or distraction, it simply performs its task. For the true Zen Master, even having a powerful voice speaking directly into your mind doesn't change anything.
In our world, people like this, even whole groups/races/cultures, live lives free of the emotional troubles that plague the rest of us. But in the Earth of the Land, this kind of Living Truth, this Fidelity, this Purity, does not go unanswered by other powers. When a group of humans do what humans do not easily do, when they rise to what might be considered the status of an elemental force, and they do it effortlessly, generation after generation, the Earth responds. Mhoram said, "In their way, they know the name of the Earthpower more surely than any Lord." I think it is the other way around. The Earthpower knows the Haruchai. The Haruchai don't give the Earthpower a second thought. As Bannor said, "The Bloodguard have no use for weapons. Any knife may turn and wound the hand which wields it. Yet the Lords desire lore. They do work of value with it. Therefore we do not resist it, though we do not touch it or serve it or save it." No, they aren't concerned with the Earthpower - but the Earthpower is concerned with them.
It may be akin to a law of physics - maybe the Earthpower responds to the Haruchai the way iron responds to a magnet.
But it may also be that the Earthpower understands what this group of humans has done, and is moved by them. Maybe it thinks their Faith deserves reward. Or maybe it craves the honor of being associated with them.
To be specific, when the Haruchai take their Vow, we do not know why the Earthpower did what it did for them. Perhaps it was unable to do otherwise. Or maybe the words of the Vow echoed throughout the Earth, and the Earthpower ached to be a part of it. Either way, the strength of their joined minds, and the purity of that strength's intent, was answered. The bones of the Haruchai were sealed to the promise they had made. They were bound, straitened, sustained, and kept from sleep.
)
, that talks about the high infant and child-bearing mortality rates among the Haruchai. We are given the distinct impression that the Haruchai feel love - and loss - for their families as extremely as they do everything else. I have always been astonished at the tenacity of a person who can look at his newborn child, knowing there is a very good chance it will not live to see it's fifth summer - and not have his heart broken. But they survive it, and their love is in no way diminished by it's mortality.
Who has greater certainty than the Haruchai? And they are immune to "spells and abilities" like the sunbane, the Ravers, Kasreyn and his geas, and physical forces that would destroy legions of other people.
And imagine his relief and gratitude. 
amount of WGD. heh heh 
stayed behind.