On Saturday I continued reading Marianne Williamson’s A Return To Love. As I sat on the BART train on my way to meet a friend it occurred to me everyone and everything is love. I really felt it. As I looked around I saw how every person, all the seats, metal poles, etc. were love incarnate. I saw how every being is a manifestation of love and the only thing that keeps us from recognizing that all the time is the ego. I saw a woman biting her nails on the train and as I looked at her I realized she and the passengers around her saw themselves as separate. Separate from each other. Separate from an all-pervasive love. They didn’t understand just how big they truly are. How they are love incarnate. Created out of love, steeped in love. How they are God. They are beauty. How a magnificent power runs through them and everyone else and the ego keeps us from feeling that way. (Or conversely we do think we are powerful but attribute the power to ourselves and not to God.) The ego keeps us thinking about well, just ourselves and our lives. That’s what the ego is. The “I” feeling.
I was in such an altered state on Saturday it was hard for me to get out of the BART station. My body had to go on autopilot because as I looked around all I could see was love. I could barely function. I walked into Walgreens to kill time and bought a Luna bar and as I approached the clerk I had a broad smile on my face because I didn’t see him for him, I saw him for the lovely divine being he is. I was so open and uninhibited the clerk smiled back at me and started asking me about my day. My seeing him as love brought out that feeling for him as well. It was contagious.
At the same time I couldn’t stay in that state (or at least I chose not to) because it was hard to stay grounded. I felt like a total space cadet. But I kept the truth and the knowledge every person is love and comes from love with me throughout the week. On Tuesday the earthquake hit Port-Au-Prince and I wanted to weep. How can I reconcile all is love when natural disasters like this happen? When people die and lose their homes? I’m still working on it. I don’t have all the answers and what resonates for me may not for everyone else. But these are the conclusions I’ve come to thus far.
My ego is what places value judgments. My ego decides what is “good” and what is “bad.” What’s helpful and what’s harmful. On the spiritual plane? There is no good or bad. There just is. Things just happen. Period. When it comes to natural disasters the Earth is just doing its thing. Responding to laws that I only mildly understand but laws nonetheless. The real issue I think is my perception. A part of me thinks love can only be “good” things like rainbows and butterflies and kittens. In truth though love is the “bad” things too.
Perhaps it’s time to take out my value judgments, my ideas of what love looks and see that things I don’t like can also be love. Perhaps it’s time to start seeing things more neutrally as just things that happen. To understand I may not like all the turn of events in the world but to understand they are still God, they are still love. Sometimes things like earthquakes just happen.
I also feel it’s important to point out here war, poverty, hunger, etc are due to a lack of love on our part. I understand God is not Santa Claus, doesn’t punish and reward people. Doesn’t create war. That’s what we do. We are the righteous ones deciding who is good and who is bad. We are the ones who create non-natural disasters. God is much more neutral, a potentiality that can go either way. I vote we use the potential to create something that benefits as many beings as possible.
I dream of a world where our ego blinders fall off and we each see the other as the creatures of love we are. I dream of a world where our perceptions change and we start seeing things more neutrally. I dream of a world where because we feel so much love for ourselves and everyone around us we help each other out. We live in a society where there is plenty of food to eat, safe places to live, good medical care for all, and everyone receives an excellent education. I dream of a world so filled with love it’s like living in a utopia.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
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