I heard a dream of Dalai Lama on YouTube the other day where he said he had been dreaming that in THIS CENTURY, the world would become one big happy family.
I thought, “Oh… Sounds like wishful thinking. Based on how this century began, I really doubt that the continuation will be any different. Humanity is too sick – just like most people it consists of, including me.”
But then he added something interesting. He said we would only need one thing for it to happen – a realization of the oneness of all humanity.
I scratched my head: “He’s on to something here.”
And then he said that this one realization would be enough to uproot the very cause of all war and conflict.
I found myself thinking: “Yes, of course.”
The problem is that I don’t see myself in anything except me. Then I thought, “Hm… often, I don’t even see myself in me either.”
Then, I thought, “How interesting – when I don’t see myself in others, I don’t see myself in me. And when I see myself in others, I see myself in me.” Serendipitously, a phrase by Jesus popped up in my mind that I had read recently,
“Most certainly I tell you, because you didn’t do it to one of the least of these, you didn’t do it to me.”
When I look at the other person, what do I see? How I treat them is secondary; how I see them is primary. Do I see God in them? If so, God is in me. If not, God is not in me.
In other words, if I didn’t recognize Jesus in another person, I don’t know him, and he doesn’t know me. I miss out on Heaven, and I am in hell. Conversely, if I do recognize Jesus in the other person, I know him, and he knows me. I am in Heaven.
Recognizing God in the other is the ultimate litmus test for whether God is in me. The hell we are seeing around us is a sure sign that God is not in us. If he is not in the other one, he is not in me.
When there’s no sense of connection between me and the other person, I have lost God… and myself. But how do I recognize myself in the other? It happens when I start looking beyond appearances. If I start with an assumption that there’s more to a person than meets the eye, I will start getting glimpses of the Divine in them.
C.S. Lewis said in The Weight of Glory,
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”
There is divinity behind every appearance. Sometimes, it is distorted, but it’s there. If I see it, I have redeemed the appearance. I have glimpsed through. I have seen the divine spark.
Meister Eckhart says there’s only one way to attain this divine soul spark in yourself and in the other:
“Therefore, I say, if a man turns away from self and from created things, then – to the extent that you do this – you will attain oneness and blessedness in your soul’s spark, which time and place never touched.”
There’s no ethics before seeing this divine spark. All ethics flow out of it – ethics spring from esthetics. The moment we let go of self and all created things, we sink into the stillness and darkness that is brighter than light.
According to Meister Eckhart, we attain the divine spark not through any effort or “addition” on our part but rather through the process of gradual subtraction.
“Everything is meant to be lost so that the soul may stand in unhampered nothingness.”
To attain true knowledge and commune with the One, we need to recover our inner silence – the language of the primordial Void in which the worlds were made. Then, in this unhampered nothingness, we will start hearing the Music of the One incarnated in the many.
The fragmented world will disappear, and all things will become one, just as it says, “God will be all in all.”
“All that a man has here externally in multiplicity is intrinsically One. Here all blades of grass, wood, and stone, all things are One. This is the deepest depth.” Meister Eckhart
Until I let go of self, I can’t see the divine spark in the other. Holding on to self blocks my spiritual vision. But if I let it go, I exclaim like Bilbo Baggins after he had dropped the One Ring,
“I have thought of a nice ending for it [my book]: and he lived happily ever after to the end of his days.”
The meaning of this movie is just as hidden as the life of Walter Mitty. When Sean, the photographer, takes his eyes off his heavy-duty camera somewhere in the Himalayas and stares at the snow leopard in the distance, Walter asks him quietly,
“When are you going to take it?”
Sean, still awe-struck, answers,
“Sometimes I don’t. If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don’t like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it.”
The famous photographer, whose passion drives him to chase after the most stunning natural phenomena around the world, does not take the opportunity to take a picture of one of the most furtive animals in the world – the “ghost cat.”
Something is more important for him. Everything else is a distraction. Art itself is a distraction. He doesn’t want to miss it. He knows how such moments feel. There’s a definite “suchness” to such moments.
Sean knows he’s in it for the suchness – everything else seems secondary. It’s in this undefinable suchness that has given his art meaning. But what is this “suchness”? It defies definitions. It’s a bridge between this time-space reality and the Spirit.
When you get a glimpse of this other realm, you forget the earth. As Silouan the Athonite (Russian: Силуан Афонский) said,
“Because of the sweetness of God’s love, we forget the earth and sing…”
The past is gone, the future is not real. Nothing else matters. So, Sean gets up with a smile and joins the rest of the group playing soccer near the camp at a distance. But before leaving he turns to Walter and calls him the “ghost-cat.”
In Sean’s experience, Walter is someone who had always given him the same experience of “suchness” before. By looking at his work in Life Magazine, Sean felt the same communion between heaven and earth. Walter didn’t know that. He lived in his own dreamworld where he wanted to become someone.
He was someone. For Sean, he was more than someone. Walter didn’t know his true name yet – the ghost-cat. Until you know your true name, you don’t know who you are. You live in a dreamworld. You dream of becoming. Yet, your true secret name lives in you, ready to be revealed at an opportune time.
This is the name written by God on a white stone, and no one knows it except the one who receives it.
I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it. Revelation 2:17.
When Frodo first set out of the Shire, he didn’t know who he was. All he knew was that he was a hobbit, and hobbits don’t meddle in the affairs of the Big Folk and Wizards.
Well, he did meddle in them. He was chosen to be the one who would destroy the Ring. No one else in the entire Middle-Earth could do it.
“Elrond raised his eyes and looked at him, and Frodo felt his heart pierced by the sudden keenness of the glance. ‘If I understand aright all that I have heard,’ he said, ‘I think that this task is appointed for you, Frodo; and that if you do not find a way, no one will.”
Frodo’s journey was the gradual unfolding of his secret name – as the only one in the entire Middle-Earth who could carry the Ring all the way to Mordor. No one else was up to the task.
He was the only one, and he did it by sacrificing his own flesh. His new name, Frodo of the Nine Fingers, was put in a song by a minstrel of Gondor,
A minstrel of Gondor stood forth… and behold! he said: ‘Lo! lords and knights and men of valour… now listen to my lay. For I will sing to you of Frodo of the Nine Fingers and the Ring of Doom.’
Receiving your true name is the ultimate initiation into the mystery of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” It is a transcendental wake-up call when you realize that the Divine, who was somewhere out there, has moved inside.
How do you heal your inner child? What is it in the first place?
Your inner child is your inner guidance system that tells you what you need to be happy.
Your inner child is that part of you that always knows what you would have been if you had been loved perfectly.
It’s an inner sensor of love or its absence.
Your inner child is a flower inside you that blooms or fades depending on how much love you feel.
The inner child is that part of me that always tells me the absolute truth about how I feel right now.
If I feel bad inside but keep smiling on the outside, my inner child will be kicking and screaming – and I will feel inner conflict.
If I neglect him for too long and he feels desperate, he will hide – making me feel sad and lost.
If I really hate doing something but try to convince myself otherwise, my inner child will not be fooled. He will break the truth quite bluntly:
“I want to get out of here!”
You may ignore this still small voice for a long time – or even try to silence it entirely – but it will ALWAYS manifest itself in your subconscious through feelings, dreams, and those serendipitous moments when life catches you unawares.
Your inner child is your inner GPS system to always guide you towards perfect love.
The inner child knows what it feels like to be loved perfectly and always protests when you acquiesce to something less.
The more we neglect that voice, the further away we are from perfect love.
The more we want to control, the more inner conflict we feel.
Inner conflict indicates a struggle between what your inner child feels and what your controlling mind craves.
The difference between my inner child and me is that I can lie to myself, and he cannot.
He is my innermost treasure to point me to what I need to be truly happy.
But if I want to connect to this inner GPS system and allow it to lead me to real joy and fulfillment, I need to first recognize my inner child and start listening to him.
It’s not easy at first – the inner child has been hurt. He doesn’t trust me. I have been mistreating him for so many years.
Why would he go out of hiding? Why would he crawl from under the bed?
He will, eventually, if I keep showing up for him with RELENTLESS EMPATHY.
That’s what a loving parent does! They give the child RELENTLESS EMPATHY and UNCONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE.
Since ancient times, people intuitively knew that if you reject your feelings, you will be consumed by them, and if you embrace all your feelings, you will be transformed.
Blessed is the lion which becomes a man when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, for the lion becomes a man.
The Gospel of Thomas
One thing my alcoholic father passed on to me is a feeling of emptiness and a desire to fill myself from outside in.
He chose to medicate the feeling with alcohol. I have tried to do the same with food, people, and workaholism.
If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. Richard Rohr
The more I numb out my feelings on food, people, or work, the emptier I feel. The feeling is strong, and often comes without warning – regardless of what I do on the outside to alleviate it.
In fact, using external means to get rid of it doesn’t work.
