I am going to start this with a quote from Kabir:
“The drop in the ocean, everybody knows. The ocean in the drop, a rare one does.”
If you look at the human being spiritually, you will find that each and every one of us contains an ocean, even a vast space. This incredible machine, the human body and mind, has been undermined not only by political groups but by individuals themselves. This phenomenon has enabled us to achieve mathematically correct scientific feats, like traveling to space without wings and predicting storms to save lives instead of sacrificing to appease God. We have come a long way, and it is only the beginning.
If you, as an individual, feel insecure, it is not because of who you are but because of who you have been made into. If you wholeheartedly accept your mortality and believe in God, you lose all fears and related insecurities simultaneously, becoming a spiritual being who contains God within.
It does not matter where on Earth you are born or live. If you pass the test of being human, you are a first-class citizen of the planet. The present-day circumstances of humanity inspire me to state the truth according to the best of my knowledge.
Let’s start with India. If you are a Hindu nationalist or protectionist, you may think Kashmir is part of India. Yet India itself is a place where many nationalities and religions coexist, making everyone a first-class citizen. If someone is treated as a second-class citizen, it is against equal human rights, and the conflict is political, not spiritual. The same applies to Israel: if Palestinians are treated as second-class citizens, it is against equal human rights. If you are Shia or Sunni and have been fighting and killing each other for over a thousand years in a political war, you are prejudiced and do not believe in equal human rights; you need to get with the times. These conflicts have nothing to do with the spiritual side of religion. No killing is spiritual, even if called for by religious leaders. It is all about the politics of belonging and lost love.
Lost love is one of the biggest dead dogs of the problem (read: dead dog). It is a perpetual and constant component of our conflicts, fueling the fire of hatred and killings. It is not going to stop by the actions of political or religious leaders, because they are the cause of our passionate religious wars. It has to come from the individual, from the bottom up. If each of us starts to question the politics of our groups and stops fueling conflicts with emotional fire, there is a chance for peace on Earth. But before this happens, the individual must become a computer runner, not a computer or the data.
Each of us is born as a computer runner with the gift of a brand-new computer. Our families, communities, nations, and religions start to install data in us as our education, expecting us to take the identity of this installed data. For instance, if you are born Sikh, the elders want you to grow a beard, not cut your hair, and become a Sikh. If you are born into a Muslim family, you are expected to go to the mosque, pray five times a day, believe in God and Prophet Muhammad, and follow everything said fifteen hundred years ago. If you are born Christian, you are taught to believe in Jesus as the son of God and whatever he said two thousand years ago, and so on. This is all education, and education for an evolving human being is nothing more than data. The real identity is not even the computer itself; it is the person who gets a name after birth, the computer runner. This human being, who lives in a body (a computer), accepts knowledge as data, making them more than the computer and the data. This spiritual entity, taking physical form at birth, can be called a human being. But what is that spiritual entity? Since as individuals with single bodies that have limitations and mortality, we don’t feel strong and able, we tend to gather and feel strength in numbers. Our logic has been twisted with the politics of belonging to a group, yet it is one whole big entity or organism you can call God or the source. Just like our cells die and are produced in our bodies, we as individuals go through the same process as part of the body of God. Now, that is the identity of the entity. But when, why, and how did the individual lose that identity? If you, as an individual, can come out of the sense of belonging to your group and join humanity as a whole, you can easily feel the connection and understand who you are.
All human knowledge has been, is, and will be in an evolutionary process until we reach our God-given potential. Until then, we have been, are, and will be proven wrong over and over, regardless of our love and strong sense of belonging to our groups.
If you have passed a genetic test to be a human being, you are not just a computer but a computer runner, meaning you are a spiritual entity and a physical being simultaneously. You are above all the education and data you have been installed with. If you demote or reduce yourself to just the data, you will choose extremism and be passionate about your existing knowledge. Yet logically, you are an evolving entity. If you don’t believe me, just look around and see all the progress human beings have made.
When you fall victim to the politics of belonging or become enraged because of lost love, you let the data become your identity. This is where you become a drop in the ocean, a common knowledge. Yet you are the computer runner, the one who is spiritually aware and carries an ocean and even space within. I wrote a blog a while back titled “Five Bucks” (read: Five Bucks). That fiver is the ocean and even the space, yet it has been ignored by human populations and even by the individual.
I wholeheartedly believe if that fiver disappears, the number turns out to be zero. So regardless of what God possesses, it becomes insignificant. Thus, the human individual is the ocean in a drop. If you feel insignificant, it is not because of God; it is because of the data you have received. Your feelings of insignificance have everything to do with the out-of-control politics of belonging to your group. Every religion, nation, and “ism” of human population promotes the weakness of the individual so he/she can be controlled. In Christianity, some even preach that you are a born sinner. What does that do to one’s self-esteem? Contrary to that, try, test, and taste belonging to humanity as a whole. Live and let live with equal human rights. Then, and only then, will you feel your importance and know you are deeply connected to the source.
The problem is the data we collect from the beginning. Just look at the education systems of our nations. Every school in the world gives first education in religion and nationalism. Each group promotes that their way of living, whether traditions, customs, ways of governing, or worshiping, is better than everyone else’s in the world. This is the foundational cause of prejudice, an outdated political propaganda. Even religions are connected to the politics of groups, yet they should be the path to spirituality, God, and humanity as a whole.
I believe our group politics is causing chaos for God, humanity, and spirituality. Picture yourself as a cell in the functioning human body, where the brain says, “I am the one keeping the body alive and functioning.” It appears that way, but not quite. The heart jumps in and says, “I supply the life-giving blood, so I am the most important one.” Then the lungs say, “I give you oxygen, so without me, you can’t survive.” The liver and kidneys jump in and say, “We clean you up, so without that, you can’t function.” By then, the colon has had enough and says, “You are all full of it. I am the one supplying you the nutrition.” The arms and legs complain that they don’t like living in this bickering and chaos. This has been, is, and will be the status of humanity for a long time unless we put our act together and learn we need each other to create a functioning body. Whether you believe in God or not, whether male or female, gay or straight, black, white, brown, yellow, or belong to any nation or religion is not as important as being a human being.
Sure, God exists, but how does existence carry on and become useful to humanity? To find the answer to this question is an individual’s personal responsibility, rather than relying on what we have been taught or told.
If an individual is playing a role in God’s work, then why don’t we want to accept and understand that? The answer is not in religion but in spirituality, because as a group, we use our politics to use God. Since the individual is blinded by the political strength of belonging, he/she can’t see clearly. The problem lies in the individual’s personal belief system.
When you stray from spirituality and become a follower of the political arm of religion, you don’t want to question any knowledge because you have been told that these words are God’s words. Yet human beings are evolving entities, and the proof is in the pudding. Just look around—where we were, where we are today, and where we are going. Nothing is the same except religious extremism.
If you believe in God without a doubt, you accept and continue believing in God’s will. God forbid you stop punishing people and stop listening to the Mullahs or the priests. If you believe in evolution equally in all departments of life, the existing knowledge is the stepping stone for our future. Yes, it has been that way from the beginning, yet the politics of religion still leads us to kill each other over it. It is because we start to believe in our religious knowledge egotistically, and we separate ourselves from God and humanity as individuals.
As mortal beings, we can’t afford to sacrifice happiness over something we are going to leave behind. When you make a mole into a mountain for yourself and fall victim to being self-destructive, you have a duty to take charge and become the CEO of your life. You can rule all departments, including the sense of belonging to your nation or religion. Half-knowledge is a dangerous thing for a human being. It not only ruins you mentally and spiritually, but it also has the potential to rob you of happiness and health. Without health and happiness, nothing is successful, not even your religious belief.
Since spirituality is the reality of God, who exists regardless of the political boundaries of religion, I believe human beings are the cause and effect of everything good and bad in nature. But we can’t even move a finger or breathe without the help of nature. For instance, oxygen is not in anyone’s control, and nothing gets done by human beings if they are dead. So, God’s work is done by living human beings. That is why people have different paths—some on the bad to make people realize what good is, and the good to realize what bad is. Does this mean humans choose to be good and bad? Yes, it is ingrained within all of us, with the ability to choose. If you go to the core, you have a divided triangle: spiritual being and physical being. Since we are encased in three kinds of love: passionate love, instinctive love, and universal love, we fall victim when we are robbed of any kind of love. So, whatever dominates within the individual comes out.
Sometimes we want to stay on the same path while changes are coming from God. So, the discussion of how much say we really have begins. It is too simple to say that God does not exist, so some don’t want to strain their brains. Yet, as a mortal individual, it’s our duty to figure out how to live this temporary life with some happiness and contentment. That cannot be done without a belief system. A belief system helps us know the balance and responsibility to reciprocate during our visit. You can disregard the existence of God, but how would you disregard your personal decency related to the spiritual side, which helps you help others while you exist?
This “how much” can be confusing, so don’t make a mole into a mountain. It will suck the life out of you regardless of your belief system. For instance, cultural traditions, trends, customs, and even religious duties have the potential to rob you of happiness and contentment. So, at the end of the day, the responsibilities of mortal life rest on the shoulders of the beholder.
Adding happiness and contentment is fundamentally crucial and a personal responsibility of the individual because of mortality. Value yourself because you are the one who carries God within—or, I should say, the ocean, space, and everything in between. You are not a born sinner, nor are you insignificant, so don’t become a sacrificial lamb for any tradition, custom, or politically charged religious war.
You have a direct connection to the source. That is why you are alive. If you help others in any way, even if you get paid, you are keeping God’s physical world running. If you are a Mullah or a priest, sure, you are helping others, but preaching prejudice can lead someone to commit spiritual crimes. Be the man or woman of God who is for all mankind, or humanity equally, not for the chosen few. This selection has nothing to do with spirituality; it is purely political. So, preach all the spirituality you can and strain out the politics from your belief systems. Yes, even if it says so in the Quran or Bible. We all have to evolve with our changing times. Plain and simple, we just can’t kill each other over a belief system because we are an evolving entity. Our knowledge should evolve with time to keep God’s world working instead of destroying it. Collectively and individually, we all have the duty to wipe off the black marks of spiritual crimes committed by our ancestors. We need to clean the face of humanity from the politics of belonging to particular groups, join hands, and unite with humanity as a whole so we can individually and collectively reach our spiritual potential.