OTHER IS ACTUALLY YOU

Have you given much thought to when it is said "someone other than me?" What exactly does it mean when we say the word - other? Is there really an-other? These are some very important questions to ponder and you may be surprised to find that there really is no-other.

Before we go deeper into this statement, let's consider a different example. Imagine in your hand a bottle of water. Now ask yourself "where did this water come from?" Trace it back from your hand, to it's point of origin. It might go something like this. Hand, fridge, pantry, package, grocery store, delivery truck, bottling plant, supply lines, water utilities, reservoir or well, lake, rivers and streams, rain-showers, clouds, etc... all the way back to the beginning of the cycle again. You see, we don't make water. And it is supplied in a constant cycle. There is only "one" water ... and it has one source and one point of origin.

Now keep this in my and consider the source of all human life. Not only are we connected by the air that we breathe, the ground we walk on, and the energy that we are ... but we all originated at the same source. If you take the birth of every human being that was ever born out of this world (yes OUT not IN ... like a leaf comes out of a tree) and trace it back in reverse, you will arrive at ONE point of origin. And if everyone began as one, from one point of origin, then it would be logical to say that we are all one in the same. We are an individualized essence of the entirety of humanity. One people ... one complete puzzle with interlocking pieces completing the total image.

This means that regardless of race, creed, geography, religion, physical traits, language, and everything else that we use to separate ourselves ... it is all an illusion. Many years ago The Beatles gave us a song titled "I Am The Walrus." The lyrics begin this way: "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together." In the New Testament Bible, John 17:21 Jesus is quoted as having said "I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one - as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us ..." This ancient concept was known long before Jesus, and has been handed down not only to him, but to every wise sage ever to understand the spiritual metaphors that place the pearl of great price within us. Just as the pearl is hidden deep within the oyster, the Divine spark of creation is also within each and every one of us.

This spark - or light of the Absolute - is at the core of our being. We are Spirit, having a physical experience. We do not have a spirit, we ARE Spirit. We do not have a life, we ARE life. The universe, God, Allah, Brahman, Absolute, I AM, whatever you choose to label this source of all life ... is experiencing life through us, with us, and AS US. The universal matrix of consciousness ties us all together as ONE Spirit ... one elemental fiber in the same way as billions of rays are emitted from the sun. They are all part of the sun itself. They can have no existence without the source of their light. It is the Sun of God ... the giver of life. Each of us is but a ray of light emitting from within the unseen, and projecting as form into the world of the observable material world of matter. What we do to "other" ... we are doing to our Self.

Just a thought ...

~Justin Taylor, ORDM., OCP., DM.