I was not always able to see the beauty in people that were not of my spiritual tribe. I did not physically assault them; I judged them to be broken, and I felt pity for them in my heart. I held to a set of beliefs that evaluated people’s behaviors. I believed that humankind had fallen and that everyone was separated from God, having no light or beauty on the inside.
Now I live differently, and I see beauty in all people. What changed is that I had an awakening from those old beliefs. I changed because love opened my understanding at a heart level and created a new way of relating to people. I now experience life on a deeper level, the fear has gone, and I enjoy being with the new people I meet. I see beauty where once all I saw was a world of others that needed fixing.
So how did this happen on the inside of me? I give credit to silence. I was a typical person with a wife and two kids, working to keep up with bills and the family schedule. At first, it was the silence of early mornings and late nights that started drawing me in. Then I started taking long walks in the woods, getting up early at the beach, escaping to places of quiet. Most important was separating myself from the groupthink of my religious community. Do not get me wrong. My religious community was a safety buffer in an indifferent world, racially divided and full of greed and jealously. And with my tendencies for sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, Sunday morning was a two-hour sanctuary grounding me, keeping my family safe from the world’s insanity.
The silence allowed me to recognize how loved I am by God/Universe. My old spiritual community organizes around religious hierarchy, and my interpretation was the higher ranked you were, the more God loved you.
In that silence, I finally discovered I had it all wrong. My new awareness of the love emanating from Divine source has made all the difference. And now I see the beauty radiating within every person and myself. The idea that our connection is dependent on our social status in life is an illusion. What dawned for me is that beauty resides in all 7.5 billion of my sisters and brothers. Every person has within them the same love and light. Seeing this is my greatest joy.
The beauty I experience today in the world is overwhelming. Even those who have differing political views, world views, moral views, or ethical views have this same divine beauty. Seeing other humans living, moving, and being is magical. The cultural diversity among humanity is genuinely remarkable. Human expression is beautiful and does not require fixing. I am glad I got here and can see the beauty with my eyes and heart.
EVidence LOCKER 