06 Jan Each of Us a Lovely Stream – January 7 2020
Each one of us is a lovely stream flowing into the great ocean of love and compassion, of goodness and energy, the Supreme Reality, which is God. Different we may be, but we emanate from the same source and to the same source we return.
Sri M
At any given moment there are two distinct ways we identify.
The first is as individuality, or ego. As ego we emphasize all those things that make us a member of our tribe – I am this religion, this political party, this race, this level of education – and all those things that make us different from other tribes – they are all liars, they’re out for themselves and don’t care about people like me, they are evil, etc.
This is the our animal nature, keeping us united with those who are of our herd and safe from all others who might be predators. The fight or flight system working overtime, covering all its bases.
Glance through your Facebook feed, or Breitbart or HuffPost. Watch (if you can) an hour of MSNBC and then an hour of Fox News. Or watch them together, switching back and forth between the two. You will find an out-picturing of this system, the images and ideas and tones of voice guaranteed to trigger and re-trigger the survival mechanism so that the machine keeps feeding on itself. For in this system, there is no answer, ever. There is just Ouroborous – the snake devouring its own tail through all of time.
The other way we can identify is as a child of God; at one with the oneness, the Supreme Reality, flowing out into this playground of life for a moment and then returning home again.
As a child of God it’s absurd to demonize each other, punish each other, try to kill each other, physically, verbally, metaphorically. With this as our identity, for me to hurt you is for me to hurt myself. Like tripping over a rock, then stomping on my toes for being clumsy. ‘Stupid foot! What’s the matter with you? What an idiot!’ For if I am an expression of the oneness, then you are too, and all of us are this one thing.
And as the one thing, our differences can be honored as simply one more color in this infinite prism through which we see life.
There is only one thing. I am this one thing. You are this one thing. They are this one thing. God is this one thing. Today, let me remember this, even when my ego is shouting at me otherwise. Let me ask of my Higher Nature that I be granted even a moment of compassion for someone who seems to be entirely ‘other,’ even though he or she may seem hell-bent on making this impossible for me.
