Free Yourself of Everything. Wolfgang Kopp
reads the Gospel with the eye of the heart will recognize that Jesus was anything but a wishy-washy, sanctimonious holy man.
Jesus is Christos, meaning he who is filled with the divine spirit. The divine spirit is the fullness of life and the joy that, through Jesus, is reflected as the hope for salvation in people with whom he comes in contact. They are finally able to breathe freely. Oppression falls away from them and joy shines forth.
Such an effect is explicable only in that Jesus not only spoke of joy, but radiated joy himself. The joy he radiated uplifted people in an atmosphere of trust and enthusiasm for God.
This enthusiasm is able to draw us out of our petty fears and worries about everyday matters and the futility of human life. We hear the words of Jesus:
Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you drink; nor about you body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his span of life?
But first seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be yours as well.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble [Matthew 6:25-34].
Worrying is a disease of fallen people who out of a lack of trust in God attempt to construct their own destiny. They look to the future full of fear and look to the past wistfully or with feelings of guilt. The human heart is troubled and spiritual awareness is scattered; thus individuals lose their ability to perceive the presence of divine being that is always there. Since they no longer hear the harmonious sound of the music of life, they are solely aware of "disharmony" in the world. Just like a mirror that reflects only the face that peers into it, the world we perceive reflects only our own state of mind.
An old Tibetan parable illustrates this well. A dog once got lost in a cave with many passages. He suddenly found himself in a big hall, surrounded by a thousand mirrors. He saw nothing but dogs wherever he looked. Frightened and distrustful, he bristled and backed away; since the dogs in the thousand mirrors did the same, he began to growl, snarl, and bare his teeth ferociously. Growing terrified at the huge number of ferocious dogs he saw all around him, he fell into a state of utter confusion. He angrily began to run in circles, which, of course, the dogs in the mirrors did as well. This caused him to run faster and faster until all at once he fell down dead. The only question remaining here is: What would have happened had the poor dog just once wagged his tail?
An Indian proverb says, "The smile that you send out will return to you." We must begin with ourselves, if we want to live to see a joyful and peaceful world; this is spiritual law. We cannot change the picture of the world. The world is only a reflection of our self, and there is little sense in finding fault with a reflection.
People who walk around as victims of anxiety, fearful and tense, need not wonder when their negative attitude, which is seen by others as dismissive, is reflected in their environment. This anxious mentality sets up all sorts of barriers and inhibitions between people, making it impossible for them to recognize the sameness of their original nature. It is fear that keeps someone from being filled with love and sympathy for others, all because the small, limited "I" is afraid of opening itself up to the boundless expanse of the one mind. This fear is the cause of distrust, jealousy, and envy; it turns the "I" into a fortress, opposing all that surrounds it.
TURNING TO THE DIVINE
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