I have heard Barrish-sensei say many times that we are “All equal under the sun”. To me, this is such a beautiful concept. Equality. Something that we all strive for. Something that everyone wants to feel – to be an equal among their peers. Yet despite this, there are many times that I have seen many people treat other beings on this planet as lesser, due to a variety of reasons.
The concept of being un-equal is mind boggling to me. It is at the core of all three of my practices that everything is equal. All things are divine, and everything you see is on an equal playing field.
In FlameKeeping, literally everything is Divine. I am of the Divine, you are of the Divine. Anything you eat is Divine. Your carpeting is Divine. Even your feces is Divine. We are all Divine, and we all strive to uphold that divinity. To work to make everything better. And to live up to the fact that we are of the Divine.
In Kemeticism, we are also Divine. Everyone and everything came forth from the Nun. We all came from the Creator god (pick your myth). His tears. His fluids. His spit. His clay. We all came from the same place, we all share a Ka (at the core). We are all Divine. And in that right, we are all equal. You, me, the carpet.
And in Shintoism, we are told that we’re all equal under the sun. Because we all receive Divine ki from the sun, it’s solar energy. Due to the pantheistic nature of Shintoism, Kami can exist in anything in everything. You. Me. The carpet.
Yet despite the emphasis on equality, there are so many who do not seem to embrace it. There are those who think themselves higher than their peers. Those who think that they are better than what they eat, the people they interact with, and the general world around them. And in many of these situations, their reasons for feeling as such are very superficial. They have a special ‘title’ or membership to a group. They have nicer cars and clothes. They hold a job, or a ‘better’ job. It seems that everyone is out to make themselves feel better, by making everyone around them feel lesser somehow.
Every time I see this, I cry a little inside. There is so much more to life than being above or below someone (or something). There are so many much more important and larger problems out there, yet we allow ourselves to get trapped in this game of greater than and less than. Unlike the carpet, a tree, or a dog- we people have a greater opportunity and ability to enact change in this world. We are able to create beauty and change in this world. To leave it a better place than we came into it. As it is said in FlameKeeping, we are the eyes and hands of the Divine. It is our job to make sure that we don’t fall into the trap of hating on others. It’s our responsibility to keep respect in our mind at all times, because everything is Divine, and we must respect that.
Can you imagine how different the world would be if we all had honest respect for one another? If we all lived in equality with the world and nature around us. If we as a species suddenly got over our “we’re here to dominate everything” complex? I think it would be interesting to see how the world could change. And while much of the world might not practice equality on the by and large, that isn’t going to stop me from trying to keep it in my mind on a daily basis. The idea that something out there is lower or higher than me just doesn’t jive in my mind.
How much equality do you keep in your day to day life? Is it something that your religious/spiritual practice places and emphasis on? Should it?
The Twisted Rope 
odeliaivy
April 30, 2012 at 6:06 pm
I keep moving, doing, watching, thinking and that last one always lets me know that equal is what happens anyway eventually. Things level out for most folks. For example, the woman next door had to sleep on my couch a couple of nights ago because her old man kicked her out in a fit. Once she calmed down, she looked around and said she was jealous of my living on my own, doing what I want, taking care of myself and not needing anyone. She nodded off then and I knew she was playing in her mind what she would do if she was in my place. Maybe she was thinking about how she would paint the walls, or what kind of couch she would have.
But me, I have lottery dreams when I need to find a way to sleep. I think about how I would make my father rest easier about my finances and how he would finally sigh once in relief instead of exhaustion from worry. I play in my mind the day I could make my mother’s eyes go wide with surprise at the gifts I would give her. That look would replace the pity she tries to hide about my used furniture and how I mend Goodwill clothes to wear.
It levels out. And I have faith in that.
Sometimes I sense an imbalance and do something to correct it. Sometimes it works out for the good, sometimes not. It’s a crap shoot that butterfly effect.
Seems like the only thing I can do for certain, is to be compassionate when I’m called upon to do so. And I everything is calling. All the time.
von186
April 30, 2012 at 6:13 pm
I guess I’m not entirely understanding your correlation between one and the other? I’m not necessarily discussing whether events in one’s life even out. Sure, we all have ups and downs. Highs and lows. But what I am discussing isn’t about events so much as it’s about being equal with everything around us. Understanding that we are all people. We are all in this together, and we are not any better or any worse than anything else on the planet. When you strip away the outside skin and form, we are all the same at our core- whether we be human, animal, plant or ‘object’. This is regardless of the events that occur during our existence.
odeliaivy
April 30, 2012 at 7:52 pm
Yes. I did not mean a leveling out came in any individual’s life but in all things. An equal sign is the last function in an equation made up of all. High or low doesn’t matter, all has an effect in the figuring.
We fool ourselves into thinking that our fears and joys are our own. Or most people do. But there is no sense in comparing fortunes or tragedies. What was her night’s escape was the same as mine. I am no better or worse than she. And it does not matter one iota how I or she or anyone else would regard it. We are equal, and perhaps there is the most comfort when we understand even in flaws, that is still true.