Many of us do not understand, nor can we even imagine, the importance of the impact that we all have upon one another in this lifetime. Nothing happens by chance or by luck in the spiritual design of our blessed life here on earth.

Everything that occurs in our lifetime, from seeming “chance meetings” to that divine rendezvous where our whole life takes a sudden conventional or unconventional turn, all have their origin in Karma. Most of us have aberrant beliefs and fears that keep us from the insight that would allow us to realize that everyone who is before us is important and living within us.

To truly understand and respect this insight of Karma makes every moment and all acts, no matter how minute they appear to be, powerful metaphors in our day-to-day life that shape, mold and define our entire lifetime and those to come.

And so I tell you that everyone has his or her place in our lives.

When we begin to open up to Love, it becomes obvious that people are in our lives to help us recognize the essence of our place in this world and our current state of Karma.

Few of us realize the impact of Karma that we infuse into this world and life, as well as into ourselves, through the treatment we deliver to other people. To come to the place where we clearly realize that whomever is before us lives within us, whether we like them or not, is an insight that offers a rare glance into the maze that has become the nature of our Karma.

Due to the magnitude of our low self-esteem and need for personal gratification, we try to fortify ourselves through our inordinate level of intolerance for those who seem “less important” to our personal philosophies, causes and gratifications, which often includes disrespect and even belittlement of others who are merely showing us the end result of our own self-ordained, meager path of self-aggrandizement.

So when Jesus tells us that it is important to “Love your enemy as yourself,” we merely look at this as a moral precept rather than as it was intended: an insight into the authentic Love that would alter our Karma and bring us to a place of mercy and compassion.

An authentic spiritual path is not about getting “ahead” in this world. It is not about how to be more comfortable on this planet. It is about learning how to care for those things that are truly important, which pertain to the whole of the world and not just our small space on this planet. We are here to become one in the whole of Life itself.

No matter where we are in this lifetime or on this planet Earth, something significant is occurring that is offering us a way to self-realize exactly what our Karma is in this lifetime. For most of us in this world, the consideration of Karma as a way-shower to Love is not mentally and emotionally tolerable. Other people are viewed simply as a means to an end or something that we must sustain due to emotional ties, thus we are unclear as to the importance of anyone in our life.

Our family and friends, along with our enemies, are not who we “think” they are. They are actually portals for Love to come rushing into this world. Anyone who is before us is there to offer us a chance to harmonize with Love. Learning how to put aside frivolous assumptions, fetishes or compulsions for the sake of allowing Love to live through us is the discipline of being merciful.

The ability to deeply understand this comes only when we have worn out the human moral assumptions that have governed our living and come to the place where Love is more vital than rightness. From here, we can recognize the “bigger picture” of it all. This requires selflessness and deep humility.

Here is a sweet story…may it serve you well:

Two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey they had an argument and one friend slapped the other one in the face.

The one who wast slapped was hurt and without saying anything wrote in the sand: TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE.

They kept on walking until they found an oasis where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped became stuck in the mire and started drowning and the friend saved him.

After he recovered from the near drowning he wrote on a stone: TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE.

The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, “After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand…and now, you write on a stone. Why?”

The other friend replied “When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where the winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something kind for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it.”

The metaphor here is of great importance.

We must let go of remembrances that support reasons and methods of hate derived through emotions of selfishness, resentment and pride. When we lose the sense of the bigger picture that is Karma, we live from emotional ties that do nothing but bind us to more pain and sorrow by living within a deep disdain for the behavior of humankind that is unkind, and often ugly, and changes nothing in this world nor within ourselves.

Learning to respect people through the realization of ONENESS that is the spiritual anatomy of humankind in this world is a very important point of spiritual maturing. It must end with me! Remember? What we do to ourselves we will do to others, who themselves accept our treatment of them, incorporate this treatment as “deserved” or “undeserved” and then pass it on to others, both consciously and unconsciously…………and on and on this goes.

What is the old military saying: “Shit rolls downhill.” This insight alone can stop the insanity of living self-righteously in a cavalier manner, which gives birth to loving kindness through generosity and forgiveness.