Accepting Others
We are not meant to be alone, work alone, live alone. By joining with others, we create greatness. Our society says that the individual is more important, but without others, we are powerless. We cannot build businesses; we cannot build community. My own father used to say that stupidity is the bane of mankind. He didn’t mean intelligence; he meant the ability to enjoy each other by being support mechanisms for each other. I add that in order to do this, we must examine our hearts, examine them to discover the beauty in everyone we meet. By joining our hearts, the greatness we desire can be achieved. By serving one another, by helping one another, we can avoid devastating sorrows.
Living in community means that we touch each other; we influence each other; we live in each other’s minds, allowing us to become brothers and sisters in love, brothers and sisters assisting each other in sorrow and hardship, rejoicing in happiness and good news. By learning to do this, any sorrows are shared, lessening the devastating impacts that these can bring us, if we are alone.
This means we must change the prescribed format of our society, you know, the idea that we are individuals who are the only ones responsible for what we do. This society is not built on community and cooperation. Many of us proclaim this on Sunday mornings, but by Monday morning we are back to accepted views. We return to individuality, and in many cases, our quests are controlled by greed. I got mine; you get yours, if you can.
This is not the way we are taught on Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays, depending on which religion we practice. All of these religions teach the acceptance of the stranger, the sharing of our food and hospitality with the visitor, with the stranger. Not close him out of our lives, just like an unwanted disease. The Jewish people have a longstanding practice of setting the table for the stranger; we never know when it will be God sitting with us.
As we mature in our God-given ability to know one another as ourselves, we are drawn to those we do not know; we are pulled toward our opposites to learn from them, to expand our knowledge and understanding. When we do this our energy, and the energy of that person strengthens to point where nothing is impossible for this new community. Any goal we have is achievable, achievable when we join together, especially with those we disagree with, to find a solution to a situation that neither enjoys or profits from. This dynamic community between us and those we disagree with can build a community of great energy and strength; and then we are all closer to God.
What many people today fail to realize is that acceptance leads to peace and happiness.
Meditating to Heal 