Divinity 

Seeing divinity in everything and in everyone is a way of being connected to the divine, and it is the way that the divine connects with us. If I see divinity in the lowliest ant or the tallest mountain, it is the same divinity. If I see the spark of divinity in my own eyes, then I see it in the eyes of everyone, for we are all made of the same stuff.

As humans, we are accustomed to seeing through the eyes of the ego, through the eyes of hierarchy. We name this thing more valuable than another thing, one person more valuable than another. However, if we can let go of the ego and begin to see divinity in everything and everyone, we can let go of judgment and open our hearts with empathy and compassion. Everything is equally valuable. Everything is worthy of existence.

The trouble comes, I think, when we cannot see divinity in our own selves. Then it is easy to denigrate and make others less than. We set up the hierarchical system in which we find ourselves today. We judge and destroy. We project our own shadow self, that which we do not see as divine, onto others. We do not see kinship, but rather “otherness.” That goes for other humans and the natural world. Whatever is “other” is not divine; therefore we can conquer it, destroy it, judge it as less than, and kill it. Because it is an “it.” It is not divine.

When I truly begin to see myself as a divine being, I look at the world with different eyes. I begin to see the spark of divinity in everything. I begin to look at the world with love and compassion because I am filled with love and compassion for my own self. I begin to see that not only is everything is connected by that divine spark of love, but that everything is divine.

Barbara Garland