​Listen to this one​

On the way to yoga one morning, I passed a man walking down the street proudly displaying his political affiliation. It was not mine.

For a split second, I judged him.

And then I judged myself for judging him.

A few blocks later, I stopped judging us both and did what I always do. I thought about perception. Yes, my favorite topic.

Because whether we notice it or not, perception rules.

The question I couldn’t answer

Somewhere between the corner and the studio door, a question stopped me. What had that man looked at in his life that made his choice look like the right one?

I had no idea. How could I?

And how could he possibly know why I make the choices I make?

We don’t share a perception. We haven’t lived the same life. No one has.

You know the old story of the blind men describing an elephant. One feels the ear and says, “fan.” Another wraps his arms around a leg and says, “tree.”

Our habit is to argue with the one who says “fan” when we are so clearly holding a tree. But if we’re honest, we know the truth. They aren’t wrong. They’re just standing somewhere else.

We are all a little blind to each other’s view of the world. We can only describe what we see and what we’ve touched.

One room, a billion doorways

So imagine this with me.

The world is one enormous room. Every person alive is standing in their own private doorway, watching what’s happening inside. From each doorway, only a slice of the room is visible. A different slice for every one of us.

After watching for a while, each of us is asked to make choices about what we see. And we do, based entirely on our slice.

How could we blame someone for choosing what seemed right from where he was standing? Well, we probably would. It’s our habit. But being the kind people we are, we would also try to understand him.

And here is the problem hiding inside even our kindest efforts. None of us will ever fix the room from a doorway. It can’t be done. There isn’t enough of the room in view.

Judgment is just separation wearing a disguise

Here’s what I know about myself when I judge. I’m doing exactly what the person I’m judging is doing. I’m drawing a line. I’m deciding they’re the problem, while they’re almost certainly deciding I am.

And so the separation continues, doorway to doorway, each of us certain, each of us seeing a sliver.

Yes, we could step out of our doorways and go visit each other. Listen. Ask what the room looks like from over there. It’s a good idea. Let’s do it.

Common ground is always better than a wall.

But even that beautiful, perception-stretching exercise has a ceiling of its own. No solution in the human drama works for everyone. As long as we’re comparing slices, we’re still in the room.

We have to look somewhere else.

The view from the ceiling

What if we rose above? Not above each other, but above the whole room. Up to the ceiling, where the entire scene is visible at once, and every doorway is just one more opening into the same light.

That is the realm of Spirit. It’s the only place you can see the whole picture.

If we’re still arguing over your god and my god, my way and your way, we are still standing in doorways. Either an omnipresent, omnipotent power of Love exists, or it doesn't.

In the human picture, it doesn’t. Down there, it’s parts of the elephant all day long.

But in the realm of Spirit, Love is the Truth. Love is the only power, and the only perception. And from that vantage point, we are not a billion people in a billion doorways. We are One.

That, and only that, permanently shifts the worldview away from separation.

Not by fighting the drama. Not by judging it. By dissolving it in Love.

Doorway or ceiling

It’s our choice, every day, sometimes every minute. The realm of human separation, or the realm of Spiritual Oneness.

This is not magical thinking. No one will lift us to the ceiling. It takes work on our part to loosen our grip on the ego’s favorite slice, to get quiet, and to listen for what we can actually do to help each other make this material world better for everyone in it.

And here’s what I love about that work. Whatever we perceive to be reality, we magnify. So let’s magnify the Reality of Spirit on purpose. Let’s let it transform our daily experience, until a stranger on the street is no longer a category but a companion in the same room, doing his best from his doorway, just like me.

We can do this. But only from the ceiling.

I’ll meet you up there.

Magnify good...

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