I just finished watching a beautiful interview with a man named Jeff Olsen, who had a near-death experience. Well, it was even more than that. I’m leaving the link HERE, in case you are called to watch it as I was. You’ll need 46 minutes. The reason I mention it is because it told me what I already knew even though I’ve never experienced it. It was Truth. We recognize Truth when we hear it.

I’m thinking about this because sometimes I have this feeling that I have to experience something before I can be an authority on it. After watching this video, I was struck deeply by the knowing that it is not necessary. We don’t have to experience some catastrophe to help others in a catastrophe. We don’t have to have cancer to assist someone heal from cancer. We don’t have to go into hell to know heaven.

Ernest Holmes, mystic and teacher, once wrote that the world was coming to understand that it had learned all it could through suffering. The only reason we suffer, I believe, is because sometimes it is the only way we can connect more deeply with our Higher Selves, if we choose to. it’s a call for us to go home. Of course, sometimes we choose not to connect to our higher self. We choose to just suffer, or do not choose and even our suffering becomes a waste. I believe that the world is coming to understand that we have learned all we can through suffering. There are a group of people who are becoming stronger and stronger who are realizing that they can assist the world by being as joyful and filled with life as possible.

One of the things that Jeff in the interview said was that he finally came to realize that in order to assist others he had to love himself first. He’d spent many years in self-loathing and guilt after his accident. When he realized that there was no judging God, and that he was the one judging himself, he was able to release all of that and go to self-love. It was then he was truly able to assist others.

I started this blog asking “What do you know?” I think it is a very good question. What can I know?  I can know everything because within me is the wisdom of the Universe? I can have every experience because I am one with everything and everyone. Did you know that “Uni-verse,” means one song? We are singing one song and we all have a different melody. We can share each other’s melody by just allowing ourselves to accept others right where they are and realize that they are us and we are them. When something happens to one of us, it happens to all of us. It is called empathy and compassion.

We can have a near death experience. We can travel the galaxies. We can talk to those who have transitioned. We can experience, pain, love and compassion all at once. We can because we are one. We do not have to go anywhere to do it. It is all right here within each of us. As a friend of mine said, “It’s not easy, but it is simple.” It’s a simple thing to allow others to be who they are, to practice self-love, to love others.  The hard part is the practice that we must put in and the time we must give it. It’s a choice, a decision. We are important enough. Our gift to give is important enough.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita