Amidst the hunt for eggs, chocolate bunnies and family hoopla, I felt more than compelled to take pause and write about one of my most influential sources of inspiration.
I know; I can already feel the squirminess that often goes hand in hand with any opinion, discussion or prophetic rant that grounds itself in religion. I give you my word, this isn’t about religion. This is just going to be about a guy.
A lot of people liked this guy; a lot didn’t. Many thought he was special and many thought he was an “extremist”. He was lauded to be a saviour and he was persecuted as a fraud.
The one constant; the message he spoke, taught and lived.
In form, I believe him to be no different from me. It’s a belief that gives me more hope, faith and reassurance rather than if he were some supernatural being dropped off on Earth by a flying saucer or magical stork. He possessed the same physical and mental faculties as I do; he needed air to breathe, water to drink and food to eat. He wasn’t without flaw and he wasn’t infallible; he was a human. What was “superhuman” was his consciousness and spirituality in his Love, forgiveness and compassion that he lived.
There wasn’t any “magic” about him. He was just a guy that lived as unconditional Love. A Love that he was often ill-treated for. It wasn’t easy for many to understand why he treated the poor, the homeless, the corrupt and the diseased the same as he treated his mother, father, brothers and friends. It was a society, not so different from ours today, where those who were deemed to be “lesser” citizens were turned away from and avoided. Yet, it was these people he drew himself closest to. It was these people that he showed the most Love.
When I think about what this weekend is meant to signify, I think I swim against the current of popular opinion. I don’t believe he did what he did to “save” us. I believe that he did what he did to teach us. To teach us that who we really are is our soul, not a body. To teach us that living as unconditional Love is what fulfills our reason to be here. To teach us that the way to save ourselves is to save ourselves rather than wait for someone or something to do it for us. The truth is, well my truth at least, is that we’re already saved; we never really needed it to begin with. It’s just a matter of deciding how long we want to live with hate in our Hearts before trading it all in to be that unconditional Love he was teaching by example.
I like to think that on their day off, he and Siddhartha Gautama aka Buddha, go golfing or go-kart racing with Mother Theresa and Gandhi. What I’m getting at is that, they were all just people. Only, they knew they had enormous souls and Hearts of an unrelenting conviction to Love, forgiveness and compassion.
The one thing that separates any of us from any of them is what we believe we’re capable of.
be Love.
The feeling of hate is a torture of ourselves; it is a hole that we digged to ourselves. Once we jump to that hole, it is hard to get it out. However, the only way to heal that feeling is to get out of the hole; i.e. save ourselves. Sometimes I feel like asking help from others (like psychiatrist) is not really going to solve any of the issue, it is a process that we deal with it until we can live with it and then move on with our lives.
Help can find us in many forms; ourselves, others, prayer, books and of course, Love. What I think we don’t do often enough, is ask ourselves how we can help our self. Deep down, the answer is inside of us. If we don’t ask, we will never hear an answer. This can apply to the hate we feel, addictions, loneliness, resentment, anything. Openness is what will dissolve the hole.
be Love.