Celebrate  What's  Right

John Gray  March 18, 2018

Who I am in my actual personal experience of myself determines how I see everything. Or, to put it another way, how I see and understand what's going on in the world declares the identity my consciousness lives in. So, I’m constantly revealing myself, constantly exhibiting the self I experience. Sometimes others see me; often not. We might each ask ourselves—and then wait quietly for the answer—who fills my consciousness?  Not what fills it. Who?

True spiritual identity is absolute. Human nature identity is relative. If our wonderful facilities of consciousness are occupied by a big fat ego, this makes the entire world an object experienced by an illusory, separate “self.”  The false self is conditioned to see everything in dualistic terms. If I maintain attention in this unreal self—and if I do this, I am doing it by choice—then I experience the world only through this phony self, and it’s all make-believe! Nothing is as it seems, and I can strain to make sense of it all and never succeed, except in imagination. I think of that when I watch the news on television.

This small state of mind strips things down to two choices and then usually identifies with only one of them. The process of doing this creates the illusory world of opposites in human experience. It arbitrarily divides what is into endless dualities: good/bad, like/dislike, agree/disagree, want/don’t want, me/not me, even divine/profane. Seeing through this either/or lens, the ego takes a position on one or the other side of a duality in reaction to whatever is going on. Of course, taking a position on one side is rejecting the other side. Assuming a position against reinforces a phony self, defined by what "I" oppose, avoid, resist, condemn, resent, etc. The false self is always defined relative to the other and experiences itself as being what it is because of what the other is. In this identity, the cause of my experience/feeling/behavior is attributed to the other so immediately and automatically it feels normal to do it—not because it is normal, but because nothing else is known. It’s really hard—impossible, actually—to be generous or compassionate or thankful if everything is the other’s fault!

A business acquaintance of mine confided recently that he’s been “going through a lot.” He described what the “lot” was, and it was all about his positions for and against things and other people—his judgements, in other words. He asked me if I had any advice, expecting, I think, that I’d commiserate with his plight. Instead, I suggested that seeing himself as “going through a lot” makes him small and the “lot” big, so there’s little wonder he was feeling overwhelmed. Instead of going through a lot, how about a lot is going through me? If “a lot is going through me,” then I’m big and the “lot” isn’t overwhelming.

How does the world look to you?

Dewitt Jones, a well-known National Geographic Magazine photographer and international lecturer, often speaks on the theme, “celebrate what’s right with the world!”  His critics call him a “polyanna” for his incessantly positive outlook on life, but I’ve heard and seen him speak and I discern that his view of the world is a function of the place he looks at it from. “There’s far more right with the world than wrong,” Dewitt insists.  “Change your lens! Put on a lens of celebration.”

I agree.

Probably just about everybody has seen photographs of our planet taken over the past half-century or so by astronauts or from unmanned satellites in space. It’s a vista few have experienced in person—I read online that since 1961 when Yuri Gargarin became the first to see the Earth from this perspective, only 536 people have been shot into space. Twelve of those walked on the moon. American astronaut Mike Massimino said he was entranced by Earth’s verdant South American rain forests, rugged African deserts, and sparkling city lights spread out below him. Day or night, the planet looked like a paradise. Massimino is quoted, “I thought at one point, if you could be up in heaven, this is how you would see the planet. And then I dwelled on that and said, no, it’s more beautiful than that. This is what heaven must look like. I think of our planet as a paradise. We are very lucky to be here.”

Photographs of what astronauts see show the three-dimensional, physical planet. From the moon, Earth appears a beautiful blue-and-white orb, a jewel suspended in the vast blackness of space. But what would we see if we could view it through a different lens, a cosmic lens? The Earth’s magnetosphere extends at least as far as the moon or the moon wouldn’t stay in orbit, but that energy isn’t directly visible to earth-eyes. And what about the golden, enfolding heliosphere that includes us and vastly more? And that’s just our solar system. Massimino and other astronauts sense more than what they see from space, and vocabularies are inadequate to describe the experience. “Heaven.” “Paradise.” Yes, those words convey something, but just a hint of that something.

“There’s far more right with the world than wrong,” Dewitt Jones says, smiling.

“Change your lens! Put on a lens of celebration.”

He senses more than what he sees, too. Heaven. Indeed, as the astronaut said, “We are very lucky to be here.” We understand the feeling, but, of course, it isn’t luck. It’s our purpose, the planet’s purpose, God’s purpose, and we’re on earth to help fulfill it. A hundred years ago, American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote what became one of her best-known poems, Renascence. She titled it with an anglicized spelling of the French word for rebirth. These are my favorite lines from it:

“The world stands out on either side

No wider than the heart is wide.”

Think of an astronaut’s view of the world. Let’s extend our arms out wide on either side, open wide our hearts, and let love’s blessing stream forth to bathe it all.

In two weeks the Christian world celebrates Easter. Though lots of earnest people may sense more than they see, the occasion is almost always interpreted through a religious lens, which is formed of beliefs. Only a dim view is possible through that dark glass. The real significance of the Lord of Lords’ presence on earth can be only scarcely seen that way, despite the sincerity of untold millions of people. The story that’s been told for twenty centuries about His crucifixion and resurrection serves the purposes of the churches that preach it much more than it serves divine purpose. But, seen or not, what the Lord accomplished then remains today as available as it was all those years ago. Or was it just a couple days ago?

How may we see what’s called Easter through the lens of spiritual expression? Words do not do justice to the transcendent magnificence of archangelic presence re-established in human consciousness then and with us and in us, now. Seen large, it is a spiritual heliosphere, enveloping, nurturing, and sustaining the earth, humanity, and all life forms. Heaven and earth are one, here and now.

There is a lot going on these days—in individual people everywhere, in our societies, in the Earth itself, in plants and animals and all the systems of the natural world. But we’re not going through a lot; a lot is going through us! Let’s not play small. Let’s view the world through the macro-lens of our own spiritual expression. Our personal presence is large, and we are one in a yet far vaster presence. The identity we actually know determines how the world looks to us. It determines what we see in it and in one another; it determines what matters to us, and all we say and do.

Let’s see and celebrate what’s right with the world. Let’s be what’s right in the world!

johncgray@aol.com

Dewitt Jones

https://dewittjones.com/pages/tedx-dewitt-jones