| This Christmas, find the Jesus within | | | Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Today is Christmas! The day Jesus was born. Jesus means love. If you say love, you need not say Jesus and if you say Jesus, it means love. Jesus once said, "If you call God in my name, whatever you ask shall be given. For God is love." You find such a complete expression of love in Jesus. Whatever little glimpses you may get here and there indicates that fullness, that ultimate expression of the inexpressible that life is striving to express all the time.
Love is the most sought-after but least expressed mystery of life. We try to express love in so many ways, it still remains a mystery. And it rarely happens that love is expressed in its fullness, in its totality.
Love makes you weak, but it also brings you the kingdom of heaven. However strong you are, you are the weakest when you are in love. Yet love is the strongest force on this universe. Since love makes you weak, it also is scary. Among thousands, just a few followed Jesus. Many heard, but just a few came. Even after performing many miracles, only a handful of people could recognise him.
Jesus said, "I have come to put man against man, father against son, daughter against mother." Very few people have really understood what it means. Whom you think is your friend is really not a friend because he or she makes your faith on the matter strong, and spirit weak. "I have come to put one against each other, I have come to put fire, not make peace." Jesus said this because he knew the depth of slumber. When you talk something nice, peaceful, everybody will go to sleep and when there is something sensational, people wake up and listen. This is how the human mind operates. And Jesus made all efforts for one to cross the mind and get into the soul, the spirit, the source of life, the Self. You break through the limited identities and recognise the Divinity within you. You are much more than just a human; you are part of the Divine. And you inherit the kingdom. And that kingdom is right here, right within you.
Love has no name, nor form. Love is abstract, yet it is very concrete. It has no name or form but manifests in all names and in all forms. This is the mystery of creation. You can see love everywhere in this creation if only you have an eye to see it. Just see a bird, and a small one in the nest. The bird comes and how it feeds its young one. See how the young one waits for the mother bird to come. There is love in it. There is love among fish. There is love in the sky. There is love underneath the water. There is love on the ground. And there is love in outer space.
Every form is full of love and every name represents love. And that is how Jesus is One with the Father. Father is One with his creation. In India, the creation and creator are compared to the dance and the dancer. You cannot have a dance without a dancer. Dancer is in every move of the dance. The creator is in every spec of the creation. That is what is omnipresent, omnipotent. If God is omnipresent, he is present everywhere, isn't it? The creator, if he is different from the creation, then he is not present in his creation. Then he is not omnipresent. The whole definition of God is gone.
Love is present everywhere, but somewhere it finds total expression. And the knowledge of the Self leads you towards that total expression of love, of the blossoming of love.
Jesus said, "Love each other as much as I love you." What more do you need to see that embodiment of love?
Realize that you are made up of love. You are the Christmas tree that points upwards with branches on all sides. At the time of year when other trees are barren, you are green with many gifts to offer. You bear gifts and lights, not for yourself, but for others. Remember that all the gifts you are carrying in your life are for others. Anyone who comes to you, offer them your gifts. |
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