Cosmic Kindergarten: Lesson 5: WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND

Last few Sundays, we have been talking about the earthly lessons for a heavenly life on earth. We are sustained by the earth. The plants that grow on earth's soil provide us with the air we need to survive. The food that the earth produces gives us sustenance. That is why earth is called mother earth. Just like a mother teaches her children lessons, earth has a few lessons to teach us. I have identified 10 such lessons. We have covered 4. Today I am going to talk about the 5^th lesson which is what goes around comes around.

Can anyone tell me at what time was sunrise today? the right answer is: The sun does not rise. Neither does the sun set.

We have heard the phrase sunrise and sunset all through our lives. The weather forecasters talk about it all the time. The words, sunrise and sunset are printed in the weather section of the newspaper. The bible talks about sunrise and sunset in Ps. 11.31 “From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the LORD is to be praised.”

I don't blame you for believing all that, because it is based on apparently solid evidence and experience. We get up in the morning, and look east, and we see with our eyes the sun rising up...and in the evening, especially if we go Hollywood beach, we can see the red sun slowly setting into the ocean.

Despite all that visual evidence and experience, sunrise and sunset are not scientific realities. There is nothing wrong about talking about it poetically and prayerfully, but, at the end of the day, we have to admit that sunrise and sunset are optical illusions.

We feel it is rising and setting, not because the sun moves, but because the earth moves. But since the earth is so huge, we don't feel that movement; but just because we don't feel something, doesn't mean it is not happening. It takes 24 hours for the earth to turn around on its axis once, which we call a day and night.

It has been happening for millions of years...every day..the earth keeps turning..what goes round comes around. It never fails...if it fails to come around, we won't be here to talk about it.

So, what goes around, comes around. You can count on it. In science, it is called the law of cause and effect. “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” It is called Newton's 3^rd law of motion. There are several scripture passages that confirm this earthly lesson:

Gal 6:7: Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.

Job 4:8: As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.

Jer 17:10: I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.

2Cor.9:10: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

Mk. 4:24: And he said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

So the message from the bible and from science, and the earth is that we should take responsibility for our actions, because actions have consequences. If you do A, B and C, D,E and F are going to happen.

The notion that I reap what you sow, helps me to be careful about the choices I make and the behaviors I engage in. It helps me to live more as a creator of my life rather than a victim of circumstances.

It helps me redefine my relationship to God and my role in this world. There was a time in my life when I thought of God as a distant figure—Almighty God who sits in a far away heaven. He watches over me like a big brother, keeps a record of everything I do. He blesses me for my good deeds and punishes me for my bad deeds. After I die, if I had been a good boy, this God, allows me into heaven, and if I had been a bad boy, He sends me to hell.

I have moved far away from the notion that God is the creator and we are mere creatures.

When we see ourselves as mere creatures, we feel so helpless and powerless.

I don't think God wants us to be mere creatures. If you read the bible carefully and look at the creation story, you will find that we are created to be co-creators with God.

There is big difference between being a creature and co-creator.

When it came to creating humans, God said: “Let us make man in our image and likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock and all the earth and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” (Gen 1: 27)

Someone that “rule over all the creatures” doesn't look like another creature to me.

Look at the next verse: “God blessed them and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.”

Again, somebody who is given the job of ruling over the earth and subduing it cannot be a mere creature. So our relationship to God is not a master-servant relationship.

In fact when talking to his disciples, Jesus said: “I don't call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn't know what his master is doing. But I've called you friends, because I've made known to you everything that I've heard from my Father.” (John 15:15)

So I see equality and partnership here.

Jesus told his disciples: “You are the light of the world.” He didn't say, I am the big light, the sun, you are just small candles. You are the light...he was calling on them to take responsibility for lighting up the world. To be like Jesus, creators and and bearers of light.

So our relationship to God and Jesus is not a master-servant relationship.

We are not mere, helpless, victims in this world, we are co-creators with God. If we don't partner with God in creating heaven on earth, it is not going to happen. It is where the earthly lesson, you reap what you sow comes into play.

Think about this. How do new human beings arrive on earth? God doesn't say, “let there be more Americans, or let there be more Europeans,” and suddenly thousands of Americans and Europeans show up on the face of the earth.

You know how the creation of new humans happens these days. Unless a man and a woman come together and do what they have to do, no new life is going to be created. I am not saying God has nothing to do with it. I am not being arrogant about it. All I am saying is that we are not helpless victims but active participants in the creative process. All I am saying is that God usually doesn't do for us what God cannot do through us. God wants us to be co-creators with God, not mere on lookers. 

God is seeking partners, not panhandlers!

Remember these words of Rumi: We are not a mere drop in the ocean, we are the ocean in a drop!

God wants us to live by using the power that God has already given us by creating us in His/Her image. As theologian, Diarmuid Omurhu, says: “The God who related authentically is not some type of divine parent wishing to rescue wayward children. The divine human relationship is not a co-dependent one; the relationship of the covenant is adult to adult, a model that is largely unknown to the formal religions.”

The psychological phrase, co-dependence is very different from dependence which is a good thing. A codependent person is fixated on another person for approval, and sustenance. It is an unhealthy clinginess. It is used to describe abusive relationships

DSM-V, gives nine criteria for a co-dependent personality with an essential feature of a pervasive or lifetime pattern of dependent and submissive behavior. That definition emphasizes the excessive need to be taken care of, leading to submissive and clinging behavior and fear of separation and consequent punishment.

For many people their relationship to God contains most of those elements.

A codependent person is someone who cannot function from his innate self and whose thinking and behavior is instead organized around another person, in this case God as separate from him.

If we accept the idea of us being co-creators with god, then we have to re-think the idea of punishment. Again, the traditional understanding is that God is separate from us and god is either going to reward us or punish us after we die. If we agree that we are co-creators with god in creating heaven on earth, then we have to take responsibility for creating hell on earth too.

I don’t believe in punishments. I believe in consequences. Punishment comes from outside.. Consequences means I am reaping what I have sowed.

It is called Karma. It is a Sanskrit word. Karma is about all that a person has done, is doing and will do. Karma is not about punishment or reward. It makes a person responsible for his own life, and how he treats other people.

The notion of Karma removes God as the external punisher and puts the responsibility on us. As I said, it makes us co-creators of our life for both good and bad.



So, the fifth earthly lesson is actually the golden rule given by Jesus in the sermon on the mount: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. There is a cause and effect quality to it. You want good things to happen to you? Make good things happen for others.



Everyday, Planet earth teaches us that what goes around comes around...we see it with our eyes every morning..whatever is happening to the planet is also happening to us, because we live on it.

Our thoughts, feelings and actions have a moving quality to them. A cyclical quality. If our thoughts about people and life are good and positive, they will generate positive feelings which in turn will lead to positive actions. If they are negative, they will have a negative impact.



What goes around comes around...Let us make sure that what goes out of us is good so that it will return to us as good.

Try your best to be a blessing to others, so that you will be blessed in return.

As Eckhart Tolle says: If you want the best the wold has to offer, offer the world your best!

Cosmic Kindergarten: Lesson 4: THINK GLOBAL, NOT TRIBAL

We have been talking about lessons that mother earth teaches us his children who live at the mercy of earth. I say that because, if earth doesn't provide us air, water and food, we are toast.

We live on a round shaped fast moving planet that is attached to nothing. But that is not part of our every day consciousness. Our senses tell us that we live in a specific location, on the ground that is flat and stationary. Let us say I am in Jacksonville and somebody asks “where do you live? I will say: “I live in Coral Springs.” If I get that question when I am in NY, I will say: “I live in Florida.” When that question is asked when I am in India, I say: “I live in America.”

Imagine answering that question this way: “I live on earth.” People are going to look at you funny. So, I need a specific zip code to occupy my physical body. But my mind does not have to be and should not be restricted to the boundaries of that zip code. A man made GPS will locate me in a city called Coral Springs. But the divine GPS does not confine me to one location, because I m traveling in space 1.5 million miles a day. By the way, do you know what the human GPS stands for? (Global Positioning System). Divine GPS stands for God's Panoramic Space.

So the fourth lesson from planet earth is, Think global not Tribal. Let me tell you a story.

Joe smith woke up in the morning using an alarm clock made in Japan. While his coffee pot made in Korea was perking, he shaved with his electric razor made in France. He put on a dress shirt made in Sri Lanka and designer jeans made in (Singapore) and tennis shoes made in Malaysia. After cooking breakfast in his new electric skillet made in India, he sat down with this calculator made in China to see how much he could spend that day.

After setting his watch made in Switzerland to the radio made in Japan, he got in his car made in Germany filled it with gas from Saudi Arabia and continued his search for a good paying American job. At the end of another discouraging day of checking his computer made in Korea, Joe decided to relax for a while. He put on his sandals made in Brazil, poured himself a glance of French wine and turned on his TV made in Taiwan and then wondered why he can't find a good paying job in the USA.

This story is used to illustrate the negative aspect of globalization. I use it to show how inter-connected and interdependent we are to the whole world for our existence and survival.

We live on a globe. Not in a cave. As inhabitants of a globe, our thinking should be global too. Very often tribalism and nationalism inhabit our minds, resulting in fear of the other which leads to prejudice and hate. After the September 11 terrorist attack, I heard someone declare on television: “I only care about America, as far as I am concerned, the rest of the world can go to hell.” Such tribal thinking while living on a globe contradicts the very ethos of the earth. And that is why we have so many problems on earth.

When we hear the word “tribe” we think of the uneducated, unsophisticated, scantly clad people who live in the Amazon jungles and remote African villages. We think of our neighbors in Hollywood, the American Indians from the Navajo tribe. But we will never consider ourselves as members of a tribe. We are not tribal. We think we are a modern, civilized, smart people living in a first world country.

Hello, news flash: All of us are more tribal than we think.

Tribal Mentality, is hard wired into us which is fostered in our earlier years by our family tribe, our religious tribe, our social-class tribe, our race and ethnicity tribes, our country-tribe, our language tribe, our gender tribe. Each of those tribes is interested in its own survival and creates a series of ideas and concepts in our minds. These ideas occupy our unconscious mind.

Tribalism is pervasive, and it controls a lot of our behavior. Tribalism is more emotional than rational. Think of the inhuman things we do in the name of tribal unity. Wars are essentially tribalism. Genocides are tribalism. Remember the genocide in Rwanda in 1994? The Hutu tribe eliminating the Tutsi tribe, killing a million people. Racism is based on tribal thinking. Religious superiority is based on tribal thinking. Xenophobia and homophobia are the result to tribal thinking.

Our political system is a great example of tribal thinking; We have the Democratic tribe and the Republican tribe. Each tribe holds on to their views and opinions without budging or compromising. We see that being played out in Washington, every day.
The “us” Vs. “them” mentality is an “inherent” and “inherited” trait from our origins as tribal people in prehistoric times.

When our ancestors lived among wild animals, as nomads and hunter gatherers, the “us versus them” thinking was necessary for survival. They had to fight against wild animals and rival tribes for their very survival.

So tribal mentality is primordial, primitive and prehistoric. But now we live in the 21^st century. We shouldn't think and act like our ancestors who lived in the jungles thousands of years ago.

Don't wear the most modern designer suits, drive the fastest luxury cars and talk on the latest smart phones and live in the most developed nation and think and act like chimpanzees in the Amazon jungles.

Look around. Look at our politicians. They put partisanship which by the way is tribalism, above the welfare of the country. Think about the uncompromising attitudes towards any type of gun control. It is coming from tribal thinking based on fear and greed.

Our ancestors had an excuse, they didn't know any better. They couldn't see a world beyond the trees in their forests. They didn't know anybody other than the next tribe that threatened their existence. They didn't have newspapers or radio or television. They didn't know that the earth was round. They didn't have internet that connects the entire world. For them, the world was their village. But today we live in a global village. But there is very little evidence we act on that awareness.

As theologian Diarmuid O’Murchu reminds us,

We need to begin by highlighting our universal and planetary identity as human beings—our primary home is planet earth, not the actual house we inhabit in a particular town or village in a geographical area of a specific country. Our national, ethnic and religious identities then become relative values in terms of the greater whole to which we owe our primary allegiance.

Think of a space shuttle blasting off from Cape Canaveral. Before lift-off , the astronauts see the fields around them. As the space-craft goes up, they begin to see Florida and a little higher, they see the entire United States and a little higher, they see the continents and once in orbit, they see the whole earth as one blue dot.

So the higher we rise, the more we see. When we are in higher consciousness, we see the bigger picture. When our consciousness is low, we see only what is just around us. We are only concerned with our self-interests.

Lower consciousness makes us tribal thinkers.

As tenants on the globe, we are called to have a global consciousness and when global consciousness becomes part of our everyday awareness, amazing things begin to happen in our lives. None of our problems will miraculously disappear, but they will magically transform.

When we see the whole globe from a higher perspective, we can clearly see the connectedness of all of us who live upon this planet. We have created imaginary boundaries, sectioning ourselves into countries and states, forgetting that in reality we are all living together, breathing the same air, drinking from the same water, eating food grown from the same earth. We share everything on this planet, whether we are conscious of it or not, with other people, and those people are our brothers and sisters.

We are literally sharing living space with all of them.

Imagine you want to fly to New York. You board the plane but you refuse to sit down, you refuse to fasten seat belt; or you insist that passengers on the seats next to you be removed and you want the entire row for yourself. You insist that the flight attendant serve you a full course meal instead of the dry peanuts. If you make all those demands, you know what is going to happen to you. Most likely, you are not going to fly. But for argument sake, let us say, they calm you down and allow you to fly. It is going to be a miserable journey.

Living on planet earth is a miserable experience for many because, they refuse to follow the rules and ethos of the globe and no wonder it is a miserable existence for them.

In Ephesians 2:15, apostle Paul says: “We are all children of the same God and Christ came to make us “one new humanity” from a divided humankind.” Notice the phrase “one humanity” it doesn't say “one nation.” Every time, narrow minded nationalism creeps into our minds, we should think of Paul's phrase: “one new humanity.”

This is where today's scripture about one body and many parts come into play. Meditate on your body and think about its various parts. All those parts have to co-operate, communicate and compromise for the well being of the body.

Imagine the small intestine saying to the large intestine, I am going to build a wall between us and the Kidney is going to pay for it.

You know what will happen. You will get constipation which is going to be very uncomfortable. If the right ventricles says to the left ventricles about putting up a wall between them, you will die of a heart attack.

You get the point. The body and its thousands of parts have an ethos and a method to their proper functioning. Any variation from that will cause trouble. Same with the earth. It has its own ethos and rhythms. When we refuse to go along with them, we end up not getting along on the planet.

Exercise for the week. Find a quiet space in your house, sit comfortably, breath, look at a globe. If you don't have one, buy one..it is worth the investment...Touch it...feel all the sides..Look at all those countries in different colors..there are 7 billion people living in them.

Start with a prayer for your family. Say a prayer for the people of Florida. Think of the 320 million fellow citizens of this great nation. Think of the simple people of a poor country like Sierra Leon in Africa, say a prayer for the destitute in the barren deserts of South Africa. Think of the millions of people in India who survive on one dollar a day..

You can do this exercise in many ways. For example, each day, choose a country on the globe. Touch it with your hand. Bless it. Say a prayer. Look up Google and learn basic facts about that country and its people. If you can do that for 5 minutes a day, your life will change.

When you turn on that tap and enjoy easy access to cold and hot water, think of the millions of women in third world countries who have to to walk miles to fetch water to their huts every day.

When you enjoy light in your house with the flip of a switch, think of half of humanity who live in darkness, with no access to electricity.

Before you fall asleep on a soft bed in the comfort of an air conditioned house, say a prayer for millions of our brothers an sisters who sleep on bare floors in thatched huts or under a tree or a bridge.

Every day engage a few minutes in global thinking and you will see your mind opening, your heart widening, your soul expanding and merging with the mind of God...that is how we become a godly people.

Cosmic Kindergarten: Lesson 3: STOP COMPARING; YOU ARE UNIQUE

In my series titled Cosmic Kindergarten: Earthly Lessons for a Heavenly Life on Earth, we have come to lesson 3. The earth has certain characteristics, rules, and patterns to it. If we can learn from them we will be much better of. Why should we pay attention to that? Because we are part of the earth. We are guests on this planet.

Imagine living as a guest in somebody's house. And let's say, there are 3 main house rules. 1) Don't smoke inside the house, 2) make sure the doors are closed so that the dog won't escape and 3) don't mess with the temperature controls. If you follow those rules, your stay will be happy and harmonious. On the other hand, if you start smoking inside and carelessly leave the door opened and the dog runs away, or you are constantly playing with the AC controls, there is going to be conflict and unease and your stay is going to be very unpleasant.

Similarly, the earth is our home. It has some rules, or lessons as I call them. The first lesson is that the earth embraces and celebrates diversity. We need to embrace it too. We can't fight against diversity around us and expect us to be happy residents of the planet. The second lesson is that everything and everyone on earth is interconnected and interdependent. If you think you can do all by yourself and engage in hyper individualism, without no regard for the community aspect of life, you are going to be miserable.

Today I like to reflect on the third lesson which is stop comparing yourself to anyone else.

It is a hard lesson to learn, because when we look around, all we see is inequality. Unequal on so many levels: size, shape, color, health, looks, education, fortunes,etc.

But the truth is that all these differences are external. There is always somebody ahead of you and somebody behind you in all those measures. There is always somebody in the world who is better looking than you, but there is also somebody who is less attractive than you. There is somebody who is richer, but also somebody who is poorer. There is somebody with more money, but also somebody with less. The list is endless. But there is no one like you in the whole world. So stop comparing you to others. It is an exercise in futility that will end up in frustration.

On the level of our humanity, all of us are equal, special and unique. If you can learn that lesson once and for all, you can get rid of feelings of envy and jealousy which plague so many people. You can get rid of 3 of the 7 deadly sins or capital sins as the Church calls them. You can get rid of pride, envy, anger. The other four being greed, lust, gluttony and sloth.

This is a lesson planet earth can teach us. To understand this lesson, think of the shape of the planet. God created it in round shape rather than square or triangular shape for a reason. There is a lesson in that.

Think of a Ferris wheel at a carnival. There are ten buckets on the wheel and there are two people in each bucket. Jim and Jane, who just started the ride, look up and see Sam and Sue sitting in the top bucket and they feel jealous of their superior position only to realize in the next minute, they are on the top and Sam and Sue are at the bottom.

While enjoying the exhilaration of being on top, they also begin to feel the loss of their peak experience as the wheel continues to turn.

Regarding positions and possessions, you will always be inferior to some and superior to others, but on the level of the soul, words like superior and inferior don’t matter.

True humility and true self-esteem are based on that awareness.

The circular nature of the Ferris wheel reminds us that there is really no one who is above us or beneath us, in front of us or behind us, but we are all in this together.

Concepts like up and down, front and back, high and low, beginning and ending are all meaningless illusions in a circular universe.

As inhabitants of a round shaped planet, we should see through the hollow nature of such illusions and live wholesome lives.

I told you that awareness of living on a circular planet can help you get rid of three major capital sins—pride, envy and anger. You are prideful because you are physically more beautiful than your friends and neighbors, or you have more money than they have, or your house is bigger than theirs, or your car is a better brand than theirs, or your children are more successful than theirs. When those prideful thoughts go through your mind, you should also realize that there are many other people in the world who are more handsome than you, their houses and cars are better than yours; there are people in the world with more money than you have. So when you are proud of what you have, you are also envious because you have less than somebody else.

When you think that others are ahead of you, you feel envious of them. You feel anger and resentment, and as a result you feel depressed. You are lacking in joy, your smile disappears from your face, you feel morbidly happy about the misfortunes of others. You feel envious when your neighbor's kid goes to an out-of-state ivy league college and your's goes to the local community college.

Who do you compare with? The person in front of you or the one behind you? If you compare yourself with the one in front of you, there is always somebody, in front of that person and another after that...so who is a point of reference? It is the same if you go backwards.

As inhabitants of a round planet, we shouldn't be thinking in terms of ahead or behind, up or down. We shouldn't be comparing ourselves with anybody else, because in a circular world, it is an endless loop.

I learned this important life lesson when I had to deal with the disability of my son Johnny. As most of you know, he is autistic. He was diagnosed at the age of 3. He is 26 years old now. He cannot engage in meaningful conversations. He can't drive. He cannot be left alone at home for long periods of time. He needs supervision and guidance. He is under our guardianship because he cannot manage his affairs. He won't be dating, or marrying or having a family of his own. Basically, Johnny is 26 going on 3 emotionally and intellectually.

I used to compare him with our next door neighbor Daniel who is only four months older than Johnny. As a normal kid, he played sports, at age 16 he learned to drive, at 18 he graduated from high school. For the next four years he went to UF in Gainsville, graduated with a degree in engineering. He drives a sports car. Last year, he moved in with his girl friend who is doing a PhD program and on April 2^nd this year they got married. Daniel's parents are empty nesters. They can come and go as they please. They don't have to worry about finding a “babysitter” for their 26 year old as my wife and I have to.

So when I compare Johnny with Daniel, there is much to be desired. They live in two very separate worlds. Feelings of envy and sadness are inevitable. And every now and then, I have them.

But, then I catch myself and do a backward comparison with Brandon who was with my son Johnny in the YMCA program. Brandon was Johnny's age and he has down syndrome. He is in a wheel chair. At five o clock when the after school program ends, I have watched Brandon's dad, David, coming to take his son home. He parks his car, goes in and wheels his son to the car. Then he opens the passenger side and lifts his son from the wheel chair and helps him into the car. The boy is little heavy-set and it does a number on David's back each time he has to lift him. He is not even capable of fastening his seat belt.

Once Brandon is securely in, David pushes the wheel chair to the back of his SUV, opens the trunk, folds the wheel chair, puts it in, closes the door and drives home. It takes at least 15 minutes to move his son from point A to point B.

When I see what David has to deal with, I thank God thinking how blessed I am with Johnny. When I go to pick him up, I don't even have to get out of my car. I just honk once, and he comes out and in 15 seconds he is inside my car, buckled up and ready to go. He is independent in many ways. I don't have to do anything for his personal care.

Nobody is better, nobody is worse. Nobody is high, nobody is low. Nobody is ahead, nobody is behind. Nobody is up, nobody is down. It is all an illusion. We are inhabitants on a round shaped planet. In a circular universe those words are meaningless.

The scripture passage that deepens this third earthly lesson is Psalm. 139 14:

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Psalm 139 describes some of God’s attributes. He knows everything (v.1-6), His Spirit is present throughout the universe (v.7-12) and each person is created by Him (v.13-16). The verse before and after Psalm 139:14 describe the development of a baby from conception. This caused David to praise God for His power and skill and exclaim that “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (139:14).

The Hebrew word that is translated “fearfully” is yare. It means “to be in awe.” To be “fearfully” made means to be “awesomely” made.

When God created us, He made us exactly the way He planned. When He designed us, He planned our size, the color of our eyes, the color of our skin, everything about us! The psalmist says: “When I was woven together in the depths of he earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.”

You came out of the womb of mother earth, to be a unique, physical, local, manifestation of the Divine. Disclaiming that and comparing yourself to others is a denial of the divinity within you.

There is story about Zusha, the great Chassidic master, who lay crying on his deathbed. His students asked him, "Rebbe, why are you so sad? After all the mitzvahs and good deeds you have done, you will surely get a great reward in heaven!"

"I'm afraid!" said Zusha. “because when I get to heaven, I know God's not going to ask me 'Why weren't you more like Moses?' or 'Why weren't you more like King David?'
But I'm afraid that God will ask “Zusha, why weren't you more like Zusha?'

And then what will I say?

You don't want to feel like this Rabbi...celebrate the person that God created you to be...don't compare yourself to anybody else on this planet, because among the 7 billion plus people on planet earth, there is no one like you.

Cosmic Kindergarten: Lesson 2: INTER-CONNECTION & INTER-DEPENDENCE

We have been talking about the lessons mother earth teaches us so that we can be happy and joyful tenants on this planet earth. I have identified ten lessons earth teaches us and if we learn from them, we can create heaven on earth. Two weeks ago, we talked in detail about the first lesson, which is Diversity is Divinity distributed.

I said that the diversity we see all around us—the diverse plants, animals and people belonging to 5000 ethnic groups is God's creation. God is present in all of them. Diversity is divinity distributed. When we see God in all of it, accept and appreciate it, our lives will begin to change.

So the second lesson that follows from the notion of diversity is that of inter-dependence. We are part of a universe that is inter-related and inter-dependent. Once I told a friend that the tree was in him and he gave me this funny look?

What do you mean? he asked. Whether you agree with it or not, whether you are aware of it or not, each time you take a breath, you are in communion with plants and trees. The plants receives CO2 from us and give us clean O2. If the trees didn't exist you won't. You are interconnected and interdependent. Once you become aware of this, you will start looking at plants and trees with new eyes.

If the plants don't do photosynthesis and give us O2, we are toast. But without the light from the sun, the plants will be helpless to produce O2. Without the heat from the sun there won't be much evaporation of the oceans. Without evaporation and formation of clouds, there won't be rain. Without rain, the plants wont grow and flourish. See how the whole thing is inter-related.

Let us take the case of the butterfly. The beautiful butterfly that we see freely flying around, was once a caterpillar. It all started when the butterfly laid a small egg on the leaf of a plant. God decided that the butterfly's egg should have a little sticky substance to it so that when it lays the egg on a leaf which tosses in the wind, the egg won't fall off and be destroyed. See how carefully God takes care of the minutest details of the life of a small butterfly. And you think he doesn't care about us humans who are created in the image and likeness of God?

The eggs of birds don't have any sticky substance on them because birds lay their eggs in secure nests. Butterfly don't have that luxury and so God makes special provisions for them. So the egg of the butterfly hatches and grows on the leaf by eating the leaf. So it is dependent on the leaf for its survival. Once it is viable, it moves to the branch of the tree and hangs there for 38 days until the process of metamorphosis is complete and the butterfly is born. Then it needs the nectar from the flowers which grow on plants and turn around and return to the plants to lay an egg on the leaf of that plant. You see the interdependence.

So interconnection and interdependence are inbuilt realities of the universe.

The plants and animals and and sun and moon and other stars of the universe understand that. Mother earth not only understands that , but functions as a safe abode for her creatures, that includes us. She accommodates the large elephants and and smallest ants, the poisonous snakes and the harmless reptiles, the tallest giraffe and the tiniest tortoise. Since it is tinny and close to the ground, God made sure it had a protective shell so that it won't be easily trampled and killed by bigger creatures.

So the plants and every other creature seem to understand the interconnection and interdependence on each other except us, humans. We are too smart. We create divisions between races, cultures and religions.

The root cause of our unhappiness and misery is the mistaken belief that we are separate from the earth and other humans. It is called separation illusion.

It is the thinking that as nations, religions, and races we are separate from other nations and religions and races and that we are better than others that our interests should be taken care of regardless of what happens to others.

I call this illusion because, if you really think about it you will find that we are not separate. Mother earth teaches us a lesson of interconnection and interdependence. You are never going to be happy and joyful in your earthly life, if you refuse to learn that lesson.

Let me share with you a personal story of how I experience that interconnection and interdependence on a daily basis and how it helps me to have a joyful life. I like you to hear it as a meditation.

In 2010, I had knee surgery for a torn meniscus. About six people were directly involved in my surgery; but about six billion were indirectly involved to make it all happen.

Now what do I mean by that? Early that morning, I took a shower in the water that was supplied by the city of Coral Springs. I was thinking of the thousands of people who were involved in the harnessing, purification and channeling of that water to my house on that particular street.

The people who manufactured the pipes that made that water flow safe. The companies that made the water purification chemicals. The people who made the hot water tank in my house; the technicians who installed it. The people in the company that made the shower head. The people at Home Depot who sold it to me. When I think like that, the number of people involved in giving me a hot shower that morning, multiplies by the thousands.

Remember, the the day has barely started, and millions are still going to be involved.

I was wearing a shirt that morning which was made in Bangladesh. The label said: Made in Bangladesh 100% cotton. Usually people don't pay attention to these things but I do, and I make it an occasion for prayer and it has a lot to do with the peace and joy I feel in my life.

I thought of the thousands of people who were involved in making that shirt, starting with the poor villagers who produced the cotton, a grandmother who might have woven that cotton into threads in a small factory in a remote village. Her emotions of fear, and hope or hopelessness have been woven into the threads that made my shirt which is now covering my body. I think of the people who made the machine that stitched my shirt together; the person who folded it, packed it, sealed and placed it on a truck to the nearest railway station. The fears, cares and energies of of all those people are part of the fabric I am wearing that day.

Then I think of the train that transported it to the nearest airport in Bangladesh and off to a cargo plain bound for Arkansas, the headquarters of Walmart. And from there, it is unloaded, coded and re-routed into a truck that goes a 1000 miles to a Walmart in Coral Springs. Think of the thousands of employees whose joint effort made that shirt appear on a rack, and I pick it up, pay for it with a credit card, issued by a bank that has another ten thousand employees, who make sure that Walmart is paid on my behalf. You see the endless connections with people that make it all possible.

I am only talking about the shirt now. The pants I am wearing that day has a story of its own. And don't start me with the Fruit of the Loom underwear.

The day has barely begun, and I have not gotten to the Surgery Center yet. My wife drives me there in a car that has 2200 different parts. Those 2200 parts of the car have been touched by the energy, imagination, and efforts of another million people, not here, but somewhere in Japan.

Then I walk into the Surgery Center, and there is the girl at the front desk, who registers me on a Dell Computer which has 5000 parts, that was made in China...and now another billion Chinese people are getting involved in my life that day.

Then I am taken into the prep room, and I am surrounded by half a dozen people, nurses, anesthesiologist, my doctor, recovery room personnel. I am thinking of all the people who are connected to them by extension, their families, friends, the communities they belong to etc.

Then they put me under, using this sedation medication that was manufactured in a medical lab in Nebraska, shipped via Fed Ex planes and a Fed Ex driver brings it to the facility. An unknown Fed Ex driver and all the people in his life have now gotten involved in my life.

And then there is this million dollar medical equipment with a zillion parts, lights, camera and laser beams that will make three holes on my knee, will probe the damaged area, and this doctor whom I have seen only twice in my entire life, will scrape it, repair it and and make it all right.

That morning, I was held tenderly and directly in the hands of six human beings, but I was indirectly supported and lovingly sustained by the energy of six billion people.

And the funny thing is that I was completely unconscious, totally at the mercy of a group of strangers.

May be not; they are strangers only in a superficial sense. In a deeper sense, they are my spiritual siblings, sharing a home planet. And it doesn't matter one of them was gay, another trans-gendered or another was Black or Hispanic...it doesn't' matter...they are all created in the image and likeness of God, all of them children of God.

This is just one scenario of a single human interaction. This happens in our lives, every day. You don't have to go into surgery to experience it. Where ever there is a human interaction or transaction, this scenario of interconnection and interdependence plays out all the time.

It is called unity consciousness. Unity with the entire humanity, and in that unity, divinity is contained.

Apostle Paul is teaching us the same earthly lesson, in today's reading about one body and many parts. Just as each body part is connected to and depended on the other, we are all connected to each other. And we are connected as members of the one body of Christ.

Any sense of selfishness, seclusion and separation is a wound in the body of Christ. Any sense of division, discord, and disunity is a rupture in the body of Christ. It is antithetical to the ethos of the earth which is a unified whole, inviting us to wholeness and holiness.

So let the unity of the universe help us experience unity within us, between us, and around us and inspire us to live as members of the body of Christ, experiencing heaven on earth.

Cosmic Kindergarten: Lesson 1. DIVERSITY IS DIVINITY DISTRIBUTED

When I was a young boy, I wanted to join the seminary and become a priest. I had no idea about how to get admission to the seminary.

A friend of mine who had already joined, told me that I had to write a letter to the Archbishop expressing my desire to become a priest. He told me the phrase to use; it went like this: Your excellency: For the glory god and salvation of souls, I like to become a priest.

So the two fold purpose of becoming a priest is to glorify God—God as understood as a Supernatural Being who resides in a far away heaven and we have to praise, worship and thank him every day, thereby glorifying him. Secondly, we have to live a holy life so that we can save our souls and go to heaven. As a priest I also have to help save the souls of members of my parish.

There was no attention paid to life on earth. The earth was viewed as a valley of tears, with suffering and pain and tribulations. Earthly things like food and sex were considered to be necessary evils, not nice realities of life. In Christian thinking, there were three things that were considered to be enemies of spiritual life: the world, Satan, and the human body. The world was the source of temptations, the body was the cause of temptations and Satan was the instigator.

Life on earth was thought of as something to be endured rather than celebrated. Life on earth was not an end in itself, but only a preparation for the next world, which is heaven. The role of the Church is to prepare people for an evacuation plan from this evil world, and priests and nuns were the field workers to help with that evacuation into heaven.

As I began to study the life and teachings of Jesus, my consciousness shifted from focusing on things in the heaven after we die, to things on earth before our death. We have to pay attention to life on earth, before we can get to life in heaven.

I developed new understanding and appreciation of earth. If the earth was such a bad place, why would Jesus choose to be born here. Incarnation means, taking flesh...he was born on this planet and took flesh. Some people believe that Jesus came on earth to save us and take us to heaven. I believe that Jesus came on earth to show us how to create heaven on earth.

This glorious planet which God has given us as our home has an ethos and a pattern to it. Nothing on this earth is arbitrary. There are some guiding principles that govern the earth. Everything on earth, has a plan and a pattern that has been designed, delineated and choreograph by the creator. If we can join that plan and go with the flow of the earth, we will be much happier and peaceful people.

For starters, we should erase from our minds the mistaken notion that we are living on the earth and replace it with the notion that we are living with the earth. I know, when we look with our superficial eyes, it looks like and feels like we are living on the earth, because that is how it feels. I don't blame you for thinking like that. But if you look at it with a spiritual vision, we will realize that we are living with the earth, because we are part of the earth. We don't come to or on earth, but we come out of the earth. We usually over look prepositions like to, on, at etc. But in this case, they are important.

Look at the story of creation in the book of genesis. God created the first human from the clay of the earth. We are dust and unto dust we shall return.

Body is an outgrowth of this earth. Your body is a piece of this planet. 80% of your health depends on how much you are in tune with earth.

Remember that all the elements of the earth such as hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen are in us too. We have iron in our blood and calcium in our bones. Just as 70 percent of the earth is water, our bodies are also 70 percent water.

So, this earth of which we are so much part of, this earth that Jesus made his home, this earth which proclaims the glory of god, this earth which god so loved and sent his son onto, has a lot to teach us.

So I have developed ten lessons that the earth teaches us. If we can learn them, we can create heaven on earth. So I call them, earthly lessons for a heavenly life on earth.

I rarely think about going to heaven after death, but always think of ways to make life on earth a heavenly one. In fact, when Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is in the midst of you, he was inviting us to create that kingdom right here. When he taught his disciples to pray, thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, he was referring to experiencing heaven-on-earth.

In the next 10 Sundays, I like to share those lessons, one lesson per week.

Lesson Number One: Diversity is Divinity Distributed.

The fact that the earth is a very diverse place is stating the obvious. We may know about alligators, antelopes, and ant-eaters, bears, bullocks and buffaloes, cows, camels and cats (I am only up to letter ‘c’) but there are 2 million species of animals on earth. We may know doves, ducks and chickens but there are 9956 species of birds. We have seen salmon, sardines and trout, but there are 30,000 species of fish.

Have you ever stood in front of an aquarium and watched those beautiful fish with different colors and textures? I often go the coral square mall..stand in front of the aquarium and look..it is a divine experience. We may have seen cobras, crocodiles and lizards, but there are 8240 species of reptiles. We may be familiar with cockroaches, crickets and termites, but there are 950,000 kinds of insects. We may have a mango tree, palm tree or coconut tree in our back yard, but there are 297,000 varieties of plants and trees on this earth.

I haven't even mentioned the diversity among humans; The world population can be divided into 4 major races, namely White, Black, Hispanic and Asian. The United Nations, in a 1950 statement, opted to drop the term ‘race’ altogether and speak of “ethnic groups”. In this case, there are more than 5,000 ethnic groups in the world.

Of the 7 billion humans on earth, not one is the same as the other. God doesn't r duplicate or repeat.

Faced with such mind boggling diversity around us, how can we live in the confining cocoon of our narrow minds?

I know we like uniformity. Strangers make us nervous. People who look differently than us make us uncomfortable. Some people would like to build a wall around our country and don't let anybody else come in. When we think like that, we are going against the ethos of the earth which is to accommodate, appreciate and celebrate diversity. When we fight against the ethos of the earth, we become fearful, miserable earthlings.

There are three common ways of dealing with diversity: hate it, tolerate it or accept it. Hitler was not a fan of diversity. Many people I know just tolerate it. When an African American family moved into our mostly white neighborhood, my neighbor told me that he was not too happy about it, but there is nothing he could do about it, because it is 2014 not 1950. He was just tolerating it.

According to Webster’s dictionary tolerate means to “bear or put up with someone or something not especially liked.” Accepting is a little better than tolerating because, it means to “agree, consent to, or approve favorably.”

I think we should go beyond merely tolerating or just accepting and engage in celebrating diversity because that is the ethos of the earth. Riding on earth—honoring and praising its diversity—can help us thrive in life because, the earth thrives in her diversity. Fighting against it will only make us miserable misfits in a diverse universe.

Diversity was God’s idea. It is God's plan. Going against than plan is not going to make us godly people. Look at what God says about creation, in Gen. 1.26. “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.” The word is plural. God doesn't say let ME, let US.

The US of of God is distributed all around the world.

So, God is the creator of diversity. He is also the catalyst of unity. In God's mind, diversity does not mean division but unity. As diverse as the earth is, God wants everything and everyone on earth to live in unity and harmony. God doesn't want us to build walls around us and segregate ourselves from the cares and concerns of others. God is concerned with unity in diversity. Paul articulates it so well: Galatians 3:28 says, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

If we really learn the first earthly lesson that diversity is divinity distributed and start celebrating diversity and embracing unity, all traces of racism, sexism, homophobia, hatred, and jealousy will disappear from our thinking. Traits like narrow mindedness, fundamentalism, fear of others, and suspicion of strangers, will vanish from our minds. We will start appreciating the fact that there can be more than one correct answer to the same question; there can be more than one way to reach the same destination; there can be more than one opinion on the same subject. There can be more than two sexual orientations. As the popular saying goes: there are more ways to skin a cat.

Another advantage of celebrating diversity is that we will be less arrogant and more generous in our over-all approach to life; We will fight for equality, justice and liberty for ALL and the ALL includes, humans, animals, the environment, which are all part of God's diverse and beautiful creation. We will be less stubborn and more flexible in all areas of thinking, feeling and behaving . Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.

I know a lot of people whose lives are so bent out of shape because they are holding on to thoughts and ideas and notions that have never been tested against the diversity of planet earth.

We don't want to live such lives. We want to live on this planet, experiencing the freedom of the children of God. We want to live with a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing, which is actually the mind of Christ, which we are supposed to have as followers of Christ.

Humanity has to think like the earth, be like the earth, behave like the earth, because that is what who we are.

Cosmic Kindergarten: Earthly Lessons for a Heavenly Life

I am writing this on Earth Day 2019. Few years ago, I would not have noticed this day, or paid any attention to it, let alone write about it. So much has changed in my spiritual life that I consider earth day as important as Easter Sunday, Christmas day and many other religious holy days.

It is not because I am a new age guru, or a tree-huger or ardent environmentalist, which are usually used as pejorative terms. But, it is because, I have reflected deeply about the unfathomable beauty, mystery and magnificence of this moving, yes, moving blue dot in space which holds me up as God holds me tenderly in the palm of Her hands.

I have lived on earth 21,170 days and it has never failed to provide for me: air, water and food, the three most basic ingredients needed for my very existence. Thank you holy mother earth. As I walk gently on this holy ground, I join with prophet Isaiah this morning to say: “The whole earth proclaims the glory of God.”

Let us take a closer look at our home planet. We usually experience it as stationary, because that is what our five senses tell us. But if we could stop for a moment and reflect, we will realize that we are moving, rather spinning, and yet staying put...that is a huge mystery worthy of adoration itself.

The earth spins around her axis at the speed of 1,000 miles an hour at the equator. To spin around once takes 24 hours. The spinning makes our days and nights. But as we spin, we are also on another circle journey as we orbit round the sun. Traveling at the speed of 66,600 miles an hour, this second journey takes 365 days to complete. In the annual pilgrimage around the sun, we travel 595 million miles. Such an awareness of distance, speed and order creates a sense of awe and wonder.

Consider what it must have been like for astronaut Edgar Mitchell as he gazed down on the home planet and allowed his feelings to find words: On the return trip home, gazing 240,000 miles of space towards the stars and the planet from which I had come, I suddenly experienced the universe as intelligent, loving and harmonious. My view of the planet was a glimpse of divinity.

Perhaps what most of us need is a pilgrimage to outer space, to have our eyes and hearts opened afresh to see the sacredness behind and above the appearances and to reawaken that inner light buried beneath our limited ways of thinking.

It is worthy of note that Mitchell uses the word 'divinity' but not 'God'. God is a divisive term for many. Religions people fight over their own definitions of God and make declarations like, “My God is bigger than your God.” But, if we can speak of divinity it has an an all embracing quality to it. When we use 'divinity' instead of “God' what is at work here is 'spirituality' not 'religion.' And our goal is to evolve more each day as spiritual beings not merely as religious people.

When we see the earth as a whole, from outer space, we can clearly see the connection and interdependence of all of us who live upon this planet. We have created imaginary boundaries, dividing ourselves into countries and states, forgetting that in reality we are all living together, breathing the same air, drinking from the same water, eating food grown from the same earth. We share everything on this planet, whether we are conscious of it or not, with other people, and those people are our brothers and sisters. Seeing earth as a whole brings new meaning into Christian concepts like “Communion of Saints” and “Body of Christ.”

When we realize that any sense of separation we have from one another is truly an illusion, we will naturally begin to make more conscious choices in our daily lives. The simple act of preparing food, or deciding how to dispose of our refuse, can be done with the consciousness that whatever we do will affect all our brothers and sisters, no matter how far away they live, as well as the planet herself.

When we contemplate the earth in her wholeness, we see the bigger picture, which is, every one of us, living on her body. We are connected to one another in the most intimate way, because we literally share our living space. As we become aware of the reality of our interdependence, sins of racism, sexism, and homophobia will disappear and much of the discord that we see now will dissipate and we will live in a more harmonious world.

Let earth day inspire us to become holy and wholesome.

By learning the 10 lessons mother earth has taught me, I have been experiencing heaven on earth. These lessons are titled Cosmic Kindergarten: Earthly Lessons for a Heavenly Life. I will share them  with you in the days and weeks ahead.