What You Are

‘As if the sorrows of this world could overwhelm me now that I realize what we are. I wish everyone could realize this. But there is no way of telling people they are all actually walking around shining like the brightest sun.’ Thomas Merton

Calla Lily at dusk – shining like the brightest sun.

[White calla (Zantedeschia aethopica) is the classic variety, with vase-shaped white flowers that rise from a clump of dark green, shiny leaves.]

You are so beautiful, beautiful beyond any beauty you have ever seen, ever will see, or any beauty you can imagine.  And if you are so beautiful, so is every other living creature, every human being, every plant and tree and animal and flower and star and mountain and cloud and drop of rain.  We are all shining like the brightest sun.  We are part of the Great Being.

This is the truth!

For a moment, imagine what the world would be like if we all saw through the dark, shaded barriers of our small egos to the light beyond, the light that is us, the light that is the whole of this creation.  How we would love one another!  How we would reach out to one another with help and hope and compassion!  How different this world, this one world we are given, would be!

We look at one another and at the world, ordinarily, through the lens of our small selves, our ego-selves, the part of us that is harsh and critical and demanding – of ourselves, and then, of others.  What we see “out there” is only a reflection of that wounded, small self we so often identify with.  And so we miss – we actually do not see – the light, the whole person, the little bit of beautiful we each are.

“You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.” – Max Ehrmann, 1927.

And that “little bit of beautiful” is all-beauty, all-whole, all-loving, all-kind, all-compassion, all-connected, all, all, all, all, all – complete.  Whole.  Light.  Love.  Truth.  Peace. Hope.  Joy.

As the world seems to become more and more unkind, it is going to take some of us to turn around, turn toward the Light, to let go of our small selves, to identify with our Whole-ness, our True Selves, to change the world.  This doesn’t mean you have to stop doing what you are doing.  Whatever you do is important.  What it does mean, though, is that you will have to stop identifying with your small self, moment by moment, letting-go by letting-go…

This is the true work.  This is the work the world needs us to do.  If you’re too busy doing other things, other important things, then you’re too busy to do this work, this work of letting-go, of dissolving the barriers in yourself that have clouded the Light.

You are shining, like the brightest star!  Yes – you!  Yes – now!  Yes!  Yes! Yes!