(for Riley and Ellen)
Life is not simple. I don't want to mislead you about that. Some people will try to break it down for you in terms of good and evil, right and wrong, black and white. I have found that things are usually on much more of a slope than that, especially as you are trying to find your way in the world.When you were little, your mother and I urged you both to "be good." A good little boy, a good little girl. My advice for you now--as teenagers--is a little different. A little more complicated, but not much. I already know that you are good. Nothing you can do will change that. Goodness is in you, and everyone, because you are part of creation. God is in you. However, that doesn't mean you can't make mistakes. You are free to make mistakes. And the biggest mistake you can make is not to do something "bad," or to do something "wrong." The biggest mistake you can make, in my opinion, is to not see reality.
What is reality? First, let me tell you what I think it is not. The world is not reality. Neither is the universe. How can that be? How can what you see all around you not be reality? There is a complicated scientific explanation that can be found in quantum physics, but I think it just reinforces a simpler equation that you can feel in your heart, an explanation of the truth.
I believe that everything you will do in your life, every decision you make, will be guided by either love or by fear. Think about the things you have done, the thoughts you have, the reasons behind any action you have taken. What has driven each action is either self-interest (fear) or the interest of all (love). Think about it. Think about your thoughts. Analyze fear and love for yourselves.
Fear: fear that you will feel pain, that you will miss out on something, that you will suffer, that you will die, that you will be misunderstood, that you will not be loved.
Love: God.
If you allow yourselves to be guided by love, you will be guided by God. And you will then see reality. Because, I believe, only love is real. The love of God. If you live in God's love, you live in reality, and you are not deceived.
It's not an easy thing to accept this concept, this truth, because almost all that you see in the world seems to run counter to it. Not evil, necessarily. Just a lot of mistakes launched by an illusion. Mistakes fired by fear.
Unlike what your mom and I used to tell you, Jesus did not say, "Be good." He did not say, "Do what's right." What Jesus said, his 'great commandment,' is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. If you do that, you can't 'go wrong.'
An ancient Islamic poet put it this way:
Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find
all of the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.
See the love of God in you,
and you will see it everywhere
because it is everywhere.
Love, Which created me, is what I am. *
That is the truth.
*Jalal ad-Din Rumi (Persian Poet 1207 - 1273)
