I’m not here in this world to change it, nor am I here to save or “enlighten” it.
Instead, I’m here to learn to accept, love, and embrace it, just as it is, just like it loves and embraces me as I am…
Some 20 years ago, after encountering spiritual knowledge in various forms, I started to assume that I was a “savior” of the world. What I actually did was start criticizing, disliking, and challenging God, claiming that I could do better. Yet over those 20 years, I didn’t even turn my own life into a heaven, let alone those of the rest of the world…
Now here, at this point in my life, I look at what went wrong. The one thing I really wanted from this life was to be loved and accepted for what I am. In reality, I unfortunately didn’t even love and accept myself. I always loved conditionally. I said to myself, “If you do this, Hasan, you will deserve to be loved.” Other times, I would say to myself, “You’ve been a bad boy. No one can love you.” Every time I made a mistake, I would punish myself. How can someone who doesn’t love and accept himself as he is, someone whose love is based on conditions, ever manage to love the world around him? I always believed that if I changed the circumstances around me, I’d be able to love myself. I believed that if the conditions suited me, I would love the world, but I’d go mad otherwise, and that’s exactly what I did. What a preposterous illusion it was. They say a horse lacks the might to pull a mountain, but that’s exactly what I was foolishly trying to do. Instead, the best thing a horse can do is to run around the meadows at the foot of that mountain…
Now I realize that all I needed to do was just be myself and express my being. The best thing I could do was embrace myself unconditionally with all my flaws. As soon as I embraced myself, I then began to realize that the world already embraced me unconditionally. When had the sun deprived me of its light and warmth? When had this planet denied me water? As soon as I accepted and embraced myself, I naturally became accepted and embraced. Well, an embrace is a two-way street, right? Two opposites merge in a hug, and then comes the light…
It is this very light that will enlighten the world. It has little to do with reading an endless supply of spiritual books or preaching to people. Now is the time for acceptance, a time to embrace, and a time of light. So come on! Open your arms with me and let’s embrace once more…
