There are many Jesuses in the Bible. There is the Jesus who, in the midst of suffering, pleads with God to “forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” That’s a Jesus worth following. Too few do. But when they do, the fruits of these Jesus followers are truly wondrous. The change they bring to the world is immense and irreversible. I’m thinking of Dr. King encouraging people to view white racists as people who are suffering from ignorance and fear, which create hatred and violence. I’m thinking of the Dalai Lama when he says, “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”
Then there’s “Schwarzenegger Jesus,” the one who leads God’s army in the eternal battle of good and evil. He’s the one who, according to tradition, after death and before resurrection, goes to hell, peels off his forgiveness costume that he used for the humans, and opens up a cosmic can of Seal Team 6 whoop ass on Satan. Something I’ve noticed: the louder the Christian talks, the more likely they are the follower of Schwarzenegger Jesus.
All of my teachers - shamanic, Buddhist, Sufi and Christian – over the last 30 years seem to have been teaching the same basic thing: each of us are called by a higher spiritual vibration, where love predominates, and where all things are obviously and beautifully connected. And we are also wooed by lower vibrations of fear and shame, where the universe appears to us to be based on separateness and conflict. The vibration of Love expands and connects us and the vibration of fear contracts and separates us. Our fruits – our relationships and our achievements – are determined by the vibrations we allow ourselves to be called into, and then to enact in the world.
We come into this world with two questions: “What am here to learn?” And “What am I here to give?” Answering these two questions is your soul’s purpose. We answer both questions by entering fully into the power of love.
Here is a secret if you want to know it: love is not a human thing. It’s not created by or limited to humans. Humans are not at the center of creation, creation is at the center of the human - and of every other thing, and this why you are related to everything. At the center of each of us – you, me, tree, stone, wind, bird, stag, tide, flickering flame – is the creator’s ecstatic love of creation: vibrating, made physical and palpable. Every single thing is a note in the Creator’s praise song of pure love. If you hear it for fifteen seconds, the mystics say, it makes you a servant for life.
So, to enter into the power of love, I recommend diving into the ecstatic weave at the heart of nature. I offer you this simple one-minute meditation drawn from an old Scots Gaelic blessing. Sing it to yourself. Add 1,000 more lines to it. As you let this song work on you, you may find that your two questions begin to get answered.