Welcome Home! by Anna von Reitz

A few days ago I wrote an article complaining about people who are already obviously “special” enough wasting their time (and mine) striving to prove how special they are, and how unnecessary this is.  In direct response, some people immediately began trying to wear me out with “proof” of how special and enlightened their Eastern religious perspective is versus the traditional religious beliefs of the West.

We just got done discussing the fact that people are special because they are utterly unique.  Do we now have to discuss the fact that all the religions are special because they are unique, too?   Do I really have to endure this over and over again, topic after topic?  My school is special and better because….. My brand of shaving lotion is better and special because….. My religion is special and better because….. ?

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If I grant that you are special because you are unique, I also grant that your religion is special because it is unique, your car is unique, your school is unique…. ad infinitum.  No comparisons necessary.   No arguments invited.    This argumentative “comparison shopper” mentality is precisely how we all waste time and vast amounts of energy comparing the relative differences between and making value judgments about ourselves and everyone else, between one brand of car and another, between one religion and another, one ball team and another—– and so on and on. 

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Just stop and look at what you are doing and all the trouble you are causing yourself and others by doing it.  

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Imagine a whole room full of carpenters and each one of them has a tool— a hand saw, a screw driver, a hammer, a level—-but all these carpenters are crippled so that they can only look straight down at their own feet and see their one tool. Imagine what happens when they try to build a house?  

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I don’t care if your hammer is better at driving nails than my screw driver.  I am trying to build a house.  I already know what each tool does and what it is good for.  Standing around comparing and arguing over the merits of table saws versus cross-cut saws is not the kind of thinking that will get us moving forward and save our planet.  We need all the different tools working together.  And we need all the carpenters with their heads up, looking outward.       

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So can we finally get there from here?   Will everyone make the effort to check their “value comparison” mode of thinking at the door?  

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We are not here to comparison shop for new religions or discuss the merits of hammers over screw drivers.  What we are trying to get to is a realistic appreciation for our own uniqueness and empowerment, our own history, our own being—–and from that standpoint, begin to grasp the uniqueness and empowerment of everyone else on this planet and all the tools in our toolbox, all the flowers in our garden, all the religious perspectives, all the means we have to progress.  

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Once we change our mode of thinking we can change our mode of being.  

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We can suddenly see that each one of us is more powerful and more valuable than any “government”— which is, after all, just a fictitious construct which we empower by abdicating our own responsibility to govern ourselves. We can see that all the morally defensible religions worldwide agree on the same basic principles and that they are not actually in conflict with each other.  

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Show me the sane Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, or Christian who does not look at the natural world and however the words and stories differ, know that there is glory and mystery and power at the heart of it all, unfolding each leaf, holding each star in its course?  Show me the Native American Shaman who does not sense the Great Spirit in his soul and throughout the Earth?  Is it really such a stretch to embrace this universal knowledge and love of “God” called by whatever inadequate name or description we may use—–and bypass all the seeming differences to accept the First Law of Heaven?   

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Show me any man with natural self-love in his heart who does not have the ability to connect with the Second Law of Heaven, and know how to treat others according to the same yardstick of love and benefit he would give himself?  

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Show me anyone who has ever suffered violence who does not value peace and know the limits of justice that must bind free will?  Will the experience of these things be any different for a Hindu than for a Puritan?  So there is the Third Law of Heaven. 

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We call these the Law of Yeshuah in the West, but in reality, these are not His Laws.  These laws existed long, long before Yeshuah and they exist worldwide and they will endure to the end of the Earth. It is only our awareness of them and our acceptance of them that is wanting. 

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So when I speak of the Law of Yeshuah, all true Christians know whereof I speak and why, but so also do all men of goodwill know these truths in their own hearts and minds and according to their own traditions.  These Laws are universal and do not belong to just one religion or just one tradition.  They are the guiding principles of peace and moral righteousness and higher justice on this planet and how and by what pathway we come to know them and embrace them is not even an issue—-the important thing is that we do so.

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I have told the story of being lost in a blizzard, many, many miles from nowhere in Alaska, car stalled, snow over my hub caps, temperature dropping like a rock in a bottomless well—- nothing but the falling of the night and the snow and one faint distant light. It was a tiny shack and Quonset hut 150 miles from anywhere above the Arctic Circle. This was not a fancy dwelling.  It was not new.  On other days I am sure I would have driven by and barely noticed its existence, but on that night, the goodwill of the householder was the difference between my life and death.  

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If you think about it, we have all been there at the end of the proverbial road, dependent on others to make it another day.  

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There was the doctor who saved you and the Mother who made you, and in my case, the elderly Eskimo who opened the door.  We’ve all been in positions where not only the quality of life but our existence has depended on the good sense, generosity, sympathy, and often—-courage—of others, and in these moments of Extremes the Truth—- the actual Truth— appears, and we realize how similar we are, how we all have the same needs, and what life is all about. At the heart of it all is one thing—-the Family of Man that we are all a part of, that we all need, that we all have cause to cherish. 

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Mankind as a whole is at the end of the road now.  While we haven’t been paying attention the real Enemies of Mankind have appeared—- violence, sickness, falsehood, cowardice, immorality, uncaring, deceitfulness, meanness, selfishness, greed, ignorance, hard-heartedness, stubborness (the list goes on)….. all these evils have multiplied like bunnies in the spring along with corruption of our churches and schools and government and the pollution and misery of the whole world until it seems insurmountable. Except for one thing. The actual Truth. 

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The actual Truth is that we are all the same and we are all in need and we are all together.  We are one family and there is no other.  We are one family and together we can do anything.  We can clean up the Earth.  We can forgive each other. We can accept ourselves for all that we are and all that we would like to be.  This is our world.  We made it.  We can unmake it.  Just as we split apart, we can come back together.  If we have stumbled and lost our way, we can turn around and come back home.