(17) LIVING HERE: Self – An Inner Light
The Buddha once said: “The cause of all suffering is ignorance”. It is this innocent “not knowing” about our inherent Oneness – this ignoring of our one-self nature – that has, and continues, to create such worldwide suffering. And it is only in the knowing of this source of our suffering that we may find out how love may act to relieve it. This realization and subsequent action can only happen if it’s founded on the simple recognition of who we are and what this is.
In this LIVING HERE series, we”ll be exploring all these facets of our Oneness as we might look at and admire a “perfect” diamond. Unlike 95 percent of diamonds – a perfect diamond has an “inner light” generated by being cut with precisely 58 facets. Each of these act as tiny mirrors to reflect on each other so precisely inside the diamond that it seems to produce its own light from within. With this in mind, let’s turn to our nature and have a little closer look at the beauty of it!
I recently read in the New York Times a piece about humanity that amazed me enough to remember a few relevant details (but not enough to copy it for any future, fuller, reference) The article was about a major, world-wide study done by teams of social scientists at well known universities on the structure and functioning of humans in society. This extensive study took 6 or 7 years to fully conduct, and it involved the in-depth investigation of all humanity – across almost all the languages, nationalities and cultures in the world.
The reseach had many things to say about the human condition, but the most important thing it had to say for me – and one which the sages of all times and places have said for centuries, and which you also intuitively “know” – is that all mankind has one basic and common characteristic which we’ll call our “inner light”: That is a thing called “goodness.” (I use the term “goodness” in quotes, because there were other words in other languages that, according to the study authors, came closer to describing this common human factor, but the term “goodness” was felt to be the best word to express this quality in English.)
“Of course!” I sighed to myself in recognition. Intuitively, we all know our own, and therefore, “others,” innate goodness. We know that is our nature; we – all people, everywhere, at all times – operate from our inbred sense of goodness. (By one calculation, over 105 billion people have come and gone on this planet – that’s a lot of goodness breeding goodness, albeit often painfully!) Call it whatever you like, in whatever language you like, all this goodness is real and happening, here, now and always. It’s essentially who we are and what this is – love.
Natural Well-Being is Love
We don’t need to look far and wide for this love, this goodness – we are it. It’s our nature, and when we recognize and honor this “goodness” in our self, we immediately apprehend that inner light in each other. We see into the brilliant core of our being – into our “mutual reflected existence”- and know not only our human dimension in time and space, but also our divine dimension as timeless and infinite. Our living here is then realized and celebrated in simple, every-day aware sharing!
Living here – loving all humanity as our self – is our nature.