WHO in Heaven's name do you think you are?...
One may think that she is an Italian-American women, funny, edgy, and smart....
While another may think that she is an African-American women, sexy, talented and cool....
Yet another may think of himself as an Australian man, light skinned and with a childhood full of holes and painful memories....
All of this may be true in a very narrow sense of the truth, but if you habitually lapse into perceiving yourself in this way, you will not be able to escape the limitations that seeing who you are in such a narrow way impose upon you.
The way we think of ourselves and who we think we are, habitually program into our minds a set of ideas and behaviors that all ultimately ends up limiting us and blocking our views of our True Self.
Allow me to illustrate what I mean...
Recently while driving in my car, I heard a program on National Public Radio, about how DNA research has become a tool, used in murder and crime cases, and about conclusions drawn from DNA researchers about the science of DNA.
In the program, they interviewed many people with interesting stories.
One story among others, captured my attention more fully and ignited much thinking in me.
An African- American man said that years ago, when DNA became popularly known, he heard that no person living in the world today, had DNA that is only held by any ONE particular race.
Each person living in the world today, carries inside him/her, a mixture, a cocktail if you like, of DNA which is comprised of a percentage of Asian, African, Indian, Latino, American Indian, and White.
It is the largest percentage of a certain DNA in the blood, that is used to determine a suspect's race through DNA tests.
In DNA tests, the "White" race shows exactly the same for all European Whites (like Blond Scandinavians,) as it does for dark skinned Arabs, and so the "White" race category, includes ALL Europeans AND all Mid-Eastern people.
Anyway.... This African-American man became curious to find out what was the mixture in his own blood, and he sent a blood sample to a DNA lab.
The results that he got left him absolutely shocked....
After repeated tests and verifying that there was no clerical error or lab mixup, he was left with the stunning revelation, that his blood indeed carried a mixture of races....
Here, I am taking liberties, because I cannot remember exactly what were the percentages of the results that he got, but it went something like this:
He was 30% White
30% Asian
15% Indian
25% Latino
And.... Here comes the surprise....
African American- 0%
Now, this presented him with both a scientific conundrum AND a crisis of identity.
All of his life he believed himself to be a dark skinned African-American Man....
Why did his blood not carry ANY DNA strands of an African American man?
The program did not last long, and he only spoke briefly about how he went to his mother and asked her if he was adopted, and how she assured him that he was not adopted, and how fifty years later, she still remembered each one of her labor pains as she gave birth to him.
He spoke about reflecting afterwards about how his life choices might have been very different, had he not believed himself to be an African American Man....
Would he have gone to a "Blacks Only" high school, or would he have applied to any other school if he was not afraid of being the only black kid in school?...
He spoke about questioning himself whether or not he would have married a black woman as he did his first wife, if he had not believed himself to be a black man, or would he have married ANY person, of any skin color or race who fitted his ideas and beliefs, regardless of cultural familiarity and a belief in being loyal to his heritage...
He even jokingly added that his second wife, who was Jewish, got upset when he told her that he was not TECHNICALLY a black man....
She exploded with anger saying:
"What do you MEAN you are NOT a black man?
I defied my own mother to marry you... To marry a black man... And NOW you are telling me you are not even black?
I haven't spoken to my mother in YEARS because she did not want me to marry a black man...."
The program ended, but I spent a long time after it, wondering to myself about the subject...
If his blood did not carry any African American DNA, why did his skin still APPEAR to be dark?
And why did his other physical features look similar to those of an African man?...
Is the whole science of DNA mapping, nothing but another limited science with wrong conclusions about bodies and physical reality?.....
But the biggest question that occupied my mind afterwards, was how WHO WE THINK WE ARE, ends up dictating our choices in life and mostly how it holds us back, within our perceived and limiting ideas.
If you did NOT think of yourself as having a race, as being part of ANY nationality, as having a role in your family or your community... as your gender or as your profession... Then WHO are you?...
If you stopped thinking of yourself in terms used to describe your body..... As fat... As tall... As thin... As injured... As sick.... As old.... As pretty.... As young.... As ugly..... Then WHO are YOU?.....
If you stopped thinking of yourself in terms of your emotional body, or your past, and do not think of yourself as being energetic, or insecure... Afraid... Unsure....even helpless, then WHO are you?...
If you stopped thinking of yourself in terms of your possessions and status, or in terms of your past accomplishments, or personality, and stopped seeing yourself through the eyes of others, admiring or criticizing, then WHO are you?....
And how will your NEW perception of yourself influence your choices?....
Beyond the vale of illusions...
Beyond the many masks and roles that you put on and take off as you get tired of playing games and roles that fit you only for a short while.... There is a bright and shining YOU that shines forever.
It is your True Self, which is not tarnished by the shifting world of forms, and does NOT become worn by the seeming passage of time.
Your True Self is Changeless and innocent and pure.
You ARE a Child of The Everlasting Force of Life.
You ARE complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of Pure Love, which is what all of LIFE is composed of....
Yes.... The body may be made of the same matter as the atoms comprising all of this earth,..... Atoms of clay and water, of smoke and ashes ... but you are NOT a body.....YOU are FREE...
All of REAL LIFE is composed of LOVE, because LOVE is all there is.... And what is all encompassing cannot have an opposite.
In YOU, is love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite.
You ARE the holy Home of God Himself.
You ARE the Heaven where His Love resides.
You ARE Sinlessness Itself, for you are NOT a body- you ARE SO MUCH MORE.....
You are NOT your choices, and you are NOT what you imagine yourself to be....
You are NOT limited- but ALL Powerful.....
Yes, all power was given unto you, because YOU ARE a holy child of GOD...created in His Image....
You ARE purity itself....
You ARE eternal life.
Together,
We are the bringers of LIGHT into our OWN consciousness first, and then into the consciousness of people around the world, for light IS already ever present, and it permeates all things...
We accept our part as "saviors" of the world, which through our joint FORGIVENESS is redeemed.
The gift we give the world, the gift of a forgiving mind and eyes, is therefore given back to us.
We look on EVERYONE as brother, and perceive ALL THINGS as kindly and as good.
We do not seek a function in this world, that is past the gate of Heaven.
Knowledge will return when we have done OUR part.
We are concerned ONLY with welcoming the Truth....
Truth will rush into our minds and correct our wrong perception.
There is SO MUCH BEAUTY in the world and ALL around us to observe and to behold.... Should we turn our eyes away from all this beauty, and focus on the ugly that we project outwards from our own misperception and believe that we see it "out there" in the "world"?...
No.....
Ours are the eyes through which a Light-filled-Vision sees a world redeemed from every thought of ugliness and sin.
Ours are the ears that hear the Voice for God proclaim the world as sinless.
Ours are the minds that join together as we BLESS the world....
Peace is written in our hearts.
We cannot be content until we find the peace written in our hearts, and we cannot find this peace, as long as we believe the "world" to be a prison, filled with some good and much evil, in which we move in isolation and alone, trying to carve a small heaven for ourselves, in which the "evil world" will not intrude.
And thus our minds are changed about the aim for which we came here to earth, and about which goal we seek to serve.
We bring our willingness and our open hearts...
And as we open up the gates of Heaven in our hearts, all illusions will fall away, like pieces of old bark from a tree, like clouds dispersing before the mighty summer sun... And we will enter in, and all our misperceptions of the world will disappear into the Heart of God.
Anyway... If you have read thus far, thank you for reading.
Myself, I count the days before our departure to Bhutan and Sikkim.
But meantime, I enjoy the mountains of Colorado.
The scents of delicious Chetse-Detse (a Sikkim specialty of noodles cooked in yak butter), and Momos filled with yak cheese and veggies, have filled my mind all of a sudden, so I must sign off for now...
