Pledge

There are two ways to read a pledge. One leads to war. The other leads home.

There is a problem with fanatics who interpret religious writings as the word of God and bend them to fit their own interests. The pledge of the land to Israel — as there is a land, and people created a state called Israel — leads some to believe that everything is valid in reaching that purpose: killing, lying, whatever it takes. To them, the land cannot be the Kingdom of God that is within us when we live in peace. To them, Israel cannot be anything other than a place exclusively for Jews — it cannot be a people who simply live as good persons, who let their light shine, the light that is inside every person who chooses to recognise it.

The true pledge is to everyone who loves, serves, and lives in truth — to return to the source, the Kingdom of God, the light and eternal life. The call is to recognise God in ourselves and in others, and to see the exterior in the interior as the interior in the exterior: we are the same light. Love the other as your own soul — because both are part of the same whole. It is as though after dying in the physical world we wake up and see that the experience we lived was like a dream, and every experience — from everyone — is part of the same being.

We cherish the experiences where the lost sheep is found, where the prodigal son returns, where a species grows and lives in the light.