There’s a legend about the Buddha. One day, he was in the midst of a large group of people of all sorts–including thieves, prostitutes and other ne’er-do-wells.
Buddha slowly looked over the assembly and said, “So many Buddhas!”
He saw these people as they had the potential to be—and as they were in their true essence – in their soul selves.
In my A Search for God group this week, we read the following:
“The crying need among people of all ages has been that individuals must understand themselves, their relationship to their neighbor and to their Maker, and know that they are inseparable. They are one. It is impossible to separate God from His creations, for He manifests through them.
“It is impossible to love God and hate our neighbors, whose souls are made in the image and likeness of God. Love and hate cannot live in the same heart.”
(From A Search for God, Book I, Chapter on Fellowship)
We cannot love God and hate our neighbor because our neighbor is, in essence, a spark from the Divine flame. Our neighbor’s essence IS God—just as our own essence is.
Knowing this as a concept is one thing; Living it is another.
But that is the core of the Cayce work: Seeing the Divine in everyone and loving them—whether or not we like them or agree with them. In my view “liking” someone has to do with personalities. Loving comes from the soul—and, yes, we can love someone who we do not like. This kind of love, I believe, is the only thing that will save our world.
