Within all human beings, no matter what part of the world they’re from, what their environment has been, what culture they come from, what their religious tradition is, there lives a certain kind of greatness. Everyone knows that this greatness lives within them. We call it different things, but the bottom line is that we all have a central wish to be as good, true, kind, and as profitable a human being that we can be. It’s in our very DNA. And that divine code if you will, is the same in every human being. We just dress it differently.
We all have common needs: the need to love; to grow as human beings; to continually perfect ourselves; and to integrate our lives with the universe around us. These needs are common to all of us, regardless of the place in the world we live in or the discipline we grew up with. The commonality of these needs means they were placed in us by something that came before our culture – that came before our religious backgrounds and traditions.
It is honoring the true needs we have as human beings that places us in relationship with that which put those needs within us – that places us in relationship with that which transcends all boundaries, that transcends all of the moralities and the mores, and all the other things that currently govern and divide human beings. If you know the truth of yourself, you will find freedom, because to know the truth of yourself is to come back into relationship with these essential needs that were put in us so that we could discover our connection with something that is timeless.
We share an uncommon possibility as human beings, which arises from the fact that we all share common heartaches. No matter where you go in the world, you’ll find men and women in one way or another whose dreams have been broken, who have lost something that they love or someone they love, who have a regret or a disappointment that they’re unable to shake free from.
As a rule, when we meet people with problems, the first thing we tend to do is distance ourselves from them because “I already have enough pain.” But we can start to understand that in the truest sense of the word, this man or this woman is in fact a celestial brother or sister because we have the same needs. And if I am going to be able to help another human being – to hear, to understand, to bring any light whatsoever into the heart or mind of another individual – I do so because I have found that understanding first in myself. And the extent to which I am capable of adding some light to the life of another human being, is the extent to which I have first found that light in myself, and know that we all hold that light in common. In that common sharing of a new understanding lies the uncommon possibility for a transcendent life that we all have as human beings.
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