“If I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the morning, I’d hammer in the evening, All over this land.
I’d hammer out danger, I’d hammer out a warning, I’d hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters, All over this land…
Well I got a hammer, And I got a bell, And I got a song to sing, all over this land.
It’s the hammer of Justice, It’s the bell of Freedom, It’s the song about Love between my brothers and my sisters, All over this land.” — Peter, Paul and Mary (Song Lyrics)
Looking out into the world we see many individuals. We see nations, races and religious beliefs. We see OUR differences. Yet what we do not see often is ourselves in each person we come in contact with. A truly spiritual, Christ consciousness being can see and feel themselves in everyone that they interact with. They recognize the beauty and connection we all hold at a deep level. Intellectually we may all know that we are all children of God but when it counts we often forget.
Standing in line at a local Starbucks today I was witness to this very detrimental closure of the human disconnect in our world. A man who was obviously in a rush, irritated and numerous about the events happening “to him” went from testy to overly angered by the cashier who was new at her job and learning the register.
His reaction to her student-ship was far from human, and if the tides had been turned his harsh judgments and condescending statements would have been reviewed differently. However for my fellow brother in need of a time-out and an attitude check, I am sure his day went on to be one lacking in bliss and light.
If he had only paused and come from his heart in this moment he could have manifested a day of beauty and blessing not only for himself but also bestowed “light” unconditionally to an outside reflection of himself: The young cashier.
For any of the people in line with this man and for anyone reading this blog post here on Tantric Transformation, it is easy to see the negative impact his choice most likely bared to his day and perhaps to hers as well. But as Alcoholics Anonymous teaches, “ the only person you can change is yourself.” This is the awakening that needs to happen. It is the first step to positive world change and unity. The realization that we cannot ever be responsible for another’s consciousness or personal change. We can be guides, we can help create a positive environment for change and we can be supportive of others change by being the witness to ourselves and interacting through responsible unconditional loving of each as though they were ourselves. Because they are.
Our personal disconnection from each other is scary. Right down to the communities we live in we can see a dramatic change in connection just over the last 50-60 years. Go into an older neighborhood in your city and look at the homes that line the street. What do you see? Fully grown trees, beautiful architecture, driveways on the front side of the houses? Look past that. What you see are two things that represent community and neighborly connection. Large front yards and front porches. Years back families would gather on the porch, enjoy ice tea or lemonade, a few beers maybe. They would socially interact with the family next door. Kids would be climbing those trees, playing in the sprinkler, chasing the dog from one front yard to the next. The front yards were deliberately designed larger to embrace comm-UNITY. Now look at your neighborhood? Unless you are one of the lucky few who bought one of these properties, you most likely live in a neighborhood similar to my own or in a townhouse/apartment.
Driving down the street in my neighborhood of 1500 houses or so, you find narrow streets, hard to pass on coming cars if there are any parked vehicles on the street in front of a home. You also find garages in the back of the homes and some up front. Shoe-box size front yards and 6 foot tall fences that shut out the world from the back yards which are normally far larger than the front yards. Around the 6 o’clock hour you will be plummeted by people speeding down the narrow street and quickly escaping from the world as they press the garage door button 3 houses away so that they don’t have to pause to wait for it to open. No
sooner does the car pull to a stop in the garage when the door comes down again. This is a representation of our inability to get along and open ourselves to not only our neighbors, our supposed friends but also to our families, our loved ones and most importantly to OURSELVES.
We live our lives based on fear. You may say no to this statement, or you may agree but I can share with you that the one thing I have been blessed to witness to in myself and with many people that I walk this path with is that we are all
fearful of something. And you may be thinking right now, “yeah I am scared that
a hurricane is going to come this fall and wipe out the area that I live,” “I
am fearful that my spouse is going to leave me for another,” “I am fearful of
getting cancer,” “I am fearful of losing my job,” or “I am fearful of losing my
soul to the fiery depths of hell if I do not live according to the doctrine of the
one true church, (and that of course is the one I go to.)” None of these fears ultimately matter. These fears are all ego based as ALL fears are anyway. They are controlling our free will, our spiritual nature. The only fear that we all
share is one much deeper and far more de-abilitating then any above. It is the
fear of vulnerability. Transparency. It is the fear of being seen and of seeing
ourselves, not only in the mirror as we brush our teeth but in each person we
come in contact with.
Yet it is what we need to embrace to heal. Truly heal not only ourselves but the whole world. To quote M. Scott Peck in his book The Different Drum, “There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace and ultimately no life, without community.” But what does REAL community mean? It is what we all want. The unity and total acceptance from our fellow brothers and sisters. It is learning how to appreciate and even celebrate in another’s individual cultural, religious and spiritual differences. It is the knowing that in the end we are ALL going to the same place and that if we are truly all children of God then it does not matter the name we choose to call Him or the house we choose to visit him in. Would you love your child any less for saying daddy then father or papa? Would you condemn your child for confiding in you with their fears, worries and hopes in their bedroom or the backyard because you only talk with your mother in the kitchen? No. Of course not. That is just plain silly, right? Well, this is what we are doing when we stand firmly in saying that OUR church is the ONE true church. It is the only way to the Promised Land; it is the only path to the arms of our creator. Every ancient spiritual text that has been converted into a religious path says the same thing, “Love thy neighbor as thy self.” This does not mean that we should only love those that are easy to love, that share our views and faith, that are the same race, same financial standing, or are just sweet people. This
means love thy enemy, because he too is thy self.
Recently I watched a film called The Grace Card. This point was made very clear in this movie. An African American pastor of a small congregation was preaching at the pulpit about loving thy neighbor. During his sermon he shared the above and said “What do you do?” The congregation replied loudly, “Love them anyway.” He paused, looked out at his followers and said, “But what if I don’t want to? What if I don’t know how or even if I can?” Ladies and gentleman, now that is the truth. What if you don’t want to? Or know if you can? What if they are truly that hard to love and you know that in order to open to love with this person you are going to have to push the unconditional envelope hard?
As hard as it may be, the grace we all so want, the unconditional love and acceptance we long for, the fullness and intimacy we crave in our relationships and the world peace we know is mandatory not only for our physical salvation but for our spiritual as well will ONLY come about when we can first be forgiving of ourselves and open to the power of our vulnerability and we gain control over
our own personal Satans, our egos and harvest inner peace and unconditional
love for ourselves. If each of us were to respect ourselves at this level then
the natural repercussion of this internal awakening would be the unconditional
gift of acceptance, adoration, honor, love and comm-UNITY for all. Where would be the need for war and hatred if we had peace and love inside?
Only those who are closed to the reality that our external world is an illusion and only a dream that is playing out based on our internal consciousness will have
difficulties in this personal level of respect and honor. Even Freud, an
atheist, said that the purpose of psychotherapy (healing the psyche) was to
make the unconscious conscious. Carl Jung ascribed human evil to the refusal to meet the Shadow – the Shadow being those aspects of ourselves that we do not want to recognize and that we constantly try to hide in the closet of our consciousness. Once we awaken to the fact that we are “made in the image of God” and what this passage is really sharing then we can change our external world.
Made in the image of God…
Think about that for a moment.
You’re still reading. You have not paused to seriously, stop and think about it.
Made in the image of the creator, my god, your god, our god.
The creator can do anything and enjoys creating, manifesting and sharing unconditionally because only through the gift of true unconditional sharing is Satan(The shadow) slain and light revealed. Only making what is hidden revealed from the shadows can we be truly like God. To embrace being like God, means to not only intellectually understand but to proactively be the cause of positive manifestations such as peace, love, community, a healthy planet Etc. We are each made in his image because we are each creators of our universe and our collective existence. We have the ability within us to create, to manifest, and to master the universe.
The ancient knowledge of the mysteries of the universes and of our father in heaven resides within each of us. We each own a blueprint. In order to read it however we may have to seriously consider the impractical thought of changing the rules of the game since the rules are seriously killing us physically and spiritually. It is time to awaken and not only walk down the road less traveled, but also play to the beat of a different drum and realize that we must go against the status quo in order to save the skins and souls of our children’s children.
The matter of changing the rules is no longer an option.
It is time to make a call to action and to truly live up to our God potential and Love thy neighbor the way Jesus, Buddha, The Dali Lama, Osho and Mother Theresa did.
The Messiah is here with us now.
The Messiah is YOU.
The Messiah is Me.
The Messiah is the man who needs a timeout at my local starbucks.
The Messiah is a United Christ-Consciousness.
Go forth today in love and ight and proactively mean it!