Blog #78--Would We Recognize Our Creator If We Met On The Street?

The premise for today’s blog is based on three seemingly disparate sources of information. The J. Michael Straczynski science fiction television series “Babylon 5,” the 1980 movie “Resurrection” written by Lewis John Carlino and starring Ellen Burstyn, and the 1955 stage play “Inherit the Wind” by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee all contain aspects in common. They inspire me to speculate on how we might respond if we could meet our creator.

In the Babylon 5 series, Narn planetary system ambassador G’Kar endures repeated imprisonment and torture at the hand of his bitter enemies. Spending long periods of time in solitary confinement forced him to listen to his own inner voice, and he underwent a transformation from hate to forgiveness and acceptance. Instead of wanting to kill his enemies, he learned we are all one in spirit and began writing down his inspired thoughts. I included his “Declaration of Principles” for establishing an alliance of multiple planetary systems in my book “It’s a Secret, So Pass It On: a Toolbox For Life” because it accurately reflected one of my main points.

A friend found G’Kar’s writings and had them published without his approval. They were incomplete, and the writings evolved from confusion to enlightenment as they proceeded. It was not ready for publication, but many thousands of copies were produced. His words resonated with his people, and he became an icon to them. They began to show deference to him, follow his every movement and claim he was a national treasure. G’Kar wanted no part of this since he knew it was his words that had value, not him personally. But most of his followers were too immature and self-centered to understand this distinction.

One person produced large quantities of G’Kar statues and sold them to the faithful. He claimed to love G’Kar and demanded he either return to his home world to be revered as a saint or otherwise make himself available to teach all who desired to hear his words. G’Kar wanted nothing to do with either suggestion and decided to get away from the adulation by exploring the galaxy on his own, not to return until he found a way to help his people transfer their love from the messenger to the message.

Angered that he wasn’t behaving as the statue-seller demanded, the latter tried to kill G’Kar.

Self-interests superseded common sense, so the man claiming to love G’Kar became hateful and tried to kill him for not living up to his expectations. The man chose to glorify G’Kar instead of his words, so he learned nothing from the spiritual teachings available to him. His thoughts spun in an ever-tightening circle, preventing him from connecting with the cornucopia of unlimited love and spiritual truth available for all those who can let go of their self-imposed limits.

Something similar happened to the main character in “Resurrection,” which I understand was based on a true story. Ellen Burstyn’s character nearly died from a tragic accident. When she awoke from the trauma, she discovered she had healing abilities. Little by little, she began to share those energies with the needy. Since most people prefer someone else to heal them rather than learning to heal themselves, she quickly gained a big following. She also met a man who claimed to love her and wanted to help with her work.

Unfortunately, the man was tormented by his fear-based religious upbringing and began to believe his girl friend was somehow doing the work of Satan instead of God. His fear ultimately led him to plan her murder. Again, circular thinking created by too much fear and too little logic was at play. She survived his attempt on her life but realized she had to become anonymous for self-preservation. In the end, she found ways of sharing her abilities without people realizing what she was doing. She couldn’t help all those she wished to help, but it was a necessary compromise under the circumstances.

The play “Inherit the Wind” is a fictionalized representation of the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” Trial where a man named Scopes was arrested for teaching evolution in his science class. It attracted national attention and the efforts of two famous lawyers, one representing the prosecution and the other the defendant. In the play, the defendant Bertrand Cates’s girl friend testified he told her that people tend to drag God down to their level instead of rising up into a more expansive awareness.

In other words, we limit our understanding of God and how the universe works to what we know and accept about ourselves. God is what we want him/her/it to be instead of finding out the truth. In this case, Cates was explaining how new scientific discoveries can add to our overall awareness of who we really are, if only we have an open mind and are not limited by a combination of fear and religious dogma. There was never an indication in the play that Cates and his attorney didn’t believe in a creator, only that we cannot rightly set limits on someone or something we know so little about.

These three examples remind me how our own variable and limited understanding of our creator makes us poor judges. If our egos are in charge of our daily thinking, we respond selfishly to events that frighten us or otherwise appear to threaten our world views. There’s a saying that “the good die young.” This isn’t always the case, but there is some truth to the concept since those who are truly enlightened are perceived as a threat to those at the two opposite ego extremes. The enlightened are in the middle and can find the good on both sides, making them seem like enemies to both for not favoring their side over the other. Liars often seem to live longer than the truthful.

If Christians were to meet Jesus today, there is a strong likelihood they would not recognize him. The same would be true for Mohammed, Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Confucius, Lau Tzu, and all the other enlightened masters whose destinies were to help raise us out of our self-created mud puddles. We have no photos of them, even if they were to look the same now as before. Artist renderings were not created of the masters during their lifetimes in most cases also, so the images we worship may not even be accurate.

If all we have at our disposal to recognize true spiritual masters is their teachings, most of us would reject them out of hand because they will NOT say what we want to hear. If that were the case, we would have no need for their assistance. We must keep an open mind and open heart to have any chance at recognition. There is no doubt we can recognize them once we know our true selves since we and they are one. But we have a long way to go before we are ready for that reality.

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