Light in every person

[Guest guest]

My dearest friends and Siblings,

Tomorrow is the national holiday here in the

USA honoring Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. There is of

course much talk about him this weekend, inspiring me

to think about such matters myself.

I was born in Calcutta, India, very far away

from the United States. Calcutta is a very large and

beautiful city. It has many parks and palaces and

temples, some of them hundreds of years old. My

mother, however, could not visit many of these places

in her own city. She was a very poor woman, shunned by

many of the other people in the city. I never knew my

father. My mother had to feed me and herself, and at

times this was all that she was able to do. Her faith

in Kali was what kept her going. I thought nothing

about this situation when I was a child. This was the

way that things were, and no more.

Then a tall man with yellow hair visited our

section of Calcutta. I laughed at such an odd person

when I first saw him, but I came to realize that he

was a kind, wise, and generous man. Eventually, we

married and left to live in his homeland.

I remember when I first arrived. I had assumed

that everyone in his land must be tall and have yellow

hair like my husband. But no. There were tall people

and short, those with black, brown, and red hair as

well as yellow. Some had curly hair and dark brown

skin. I was amazed that such a wide variety of people

could live together, all speaking the same language,

all working at similar jobs, all eating the same types

of food. My husband's family accepted me as one of

their own despite my black hair and brown skin. Nobody

in his family with yellow hair ever mentioned the

color of my skin or the color of my hair. These were

irrelevant.

Then I began to study the history of my new home.

It was created by people who fled from England seeking

freedom. England had a king who could tell people what

to do and how to think, and even how to worship. They

wanted a new country with no king, where nobody could

tell anybody else how to think or how to worship. The

very declaration announcing the birth of the new

country proclaimed proudly "We hold these truths to be

self-evident, that all men are created equal, that

they are endowed by their Creator with certain

inalienable rights, and that among these are the right

to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

This is wonderful, I thought. This is a place

where everyone is equal regardless of color or

religion. Everyone has the right to be free and do

whatever they decide is right. And everybody smiles at

everybody else and ignores the physical differences

between them.

But then I studied more. The very same man who

wrote the words that I just quoted was a rich man who

owned black slaves. These people from England wanted

freedom for themselves but would deny it to others.

And to make things even worse, they pretended to be

Christians. I am certainly not an expert on the

Bible, but I do know that Jesus preached "Love you

neighbor as yourself" and "Do to others what you would

like do to you." So these people would go to church

every Sunday morning, sing songs about how wonderful

Jesus was, then go home and ignore his teachings.

Then I thought about the lesson that I learned

from this. I thought about my own beliefs. My mother

taught me that every person has a piece of the Divine

within, a shining light that burns within the soul of

every person. We should all respect and honor the

Light within ourselves, and recognize that every other

person has the same Light within. Each of us is no

better and no worse than the next person. We are no

wiser, no smarter, no more beautiful, no more worthy

of the love of the Divine than anyone else. If we love

ourselves and think ourselves worthy of respect, it is

absolutely essential that we regard every other person

with the same dinity and honor.

Emphasis in this is on the word "every." There are

no exceptions. This means black or white or yellow or

brown or green with purple stripes. It means Hindu or

Christian or Jew or Moslem or Buddhist or Pagan or

Atheist or one who worships Mickey Mouse. It means

both Queen and prostitute, president and beggar,

educated or ignorant. Every person carries that same

flame within, and to disrespect any one carrier of the

flame is to insult them all.

So let us set forth with renewed determination to

love ourselves and to love all those around us. Hatred

of any group of people because of differences in

faith, skin color, age, or other reasons, is hatred of

ourselves and of the Divine Light that shines within

our very own souls.

 

Sister Usha

 

=====

Sister Usha Devi

Founder, Divinely Female and worshipper of the Sacred Flame that shines inside

every woman

 

 

 

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