The last few weeks I’ve sent a handful of emails that seemed to wake up the sleeping giant of my email list.
Some people sent in excellent feedback… but many were clearly offended.
My favourite response to one titled “Death Coaches For Kamala” (a play on words, due to a “life coaches for Kamala” conference I won’t be attending), was this gem:
“Is this really you or did someone hack your email?!”
The truthful answer?
Both.
It’s true that I wrote the emails, but it was without my True Self’s guidance, wisdom, grace and insight, which seemed to be present when I wrote better pieces such as my book, “Inside the Soul of Islam”, or some of my other more transformative writings.
So in a way, I got ‘hacked’ by my own ego.
Let me go beyond identity politics and self-righteous indignation, for a moment of truth and share why I believe that despite my (foolish) name-calling of certain politicians, I actually have a tremendous amount of compassion, understanding and love for them. I have no personal judgement of them whatsoever.
Even the ones who have been directly responsible for mass-murder over the last year (or more).
In fact, on a deeper level, I believe them to actually be completely innocent. (Let alone the people who vote for them).
I’m going to explain how I see them as ‘absolutely innocent’, and my hope is that by seeing another view point, it might help you (and me) to drop any illusory negative thinking about the state of the world today. And maybe even raise our collective consciousness.
Let’s start here, for clarity: I do not believe them to be innocent of their crimes, or in a moral or ethical sense.
Although, I’m in no position to judge them.
That would be the role of actual judges, such as the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court. And ultimately, it’s the role of the only One who’s in a true position to pass any judgement, which I call, “Allah”, the All-aware Source of life itself.
The biggest mistake I made in a previous email was a PS that stated, “I do judge you for voting for XYZ instead of ABC…” That was a tongue-in-cheek comment, much like I take the micky out of Liverpool FC supporters. But, it didn’t read that way to everyone. My bad.
And it’s not really true. When my mind slips into that level of judgment, I’ve stepped out of the role of ‘coach’, and more importantly, outside of the space of presence and truth, which ironically, I support clients to find all day long.
What I mean by ‘innocence’ here, is absolute psychological innocence.
When a man kills 100 innocent victims, there are in fact, 101 innocent victims.
Those who were killed and the one whose thinking was so deeply entrenched in the Psychological Illusion that it actually seemed like such a good idea to do the killing, that he followed through with it.
This is, by definition, “insanity”.
And the insane are absolutely innocent.
They were innocently underestimating and misusing the greatest power a human being has: Thought.
As for the politicians who enable such terrorists and the public who vote for them: each one is in a separate thought-generated reality, and when intentionally or complacently harming others, it comes from the exact same innocent misunderstanding as the terrorist in question.
In fact, it comes from the exact same innocent misunderstanding I fall into every time I watch or read the news and go on to experience feelings of self-righteous indignation upon seeing the headlines.
The illusion I fall for is this: “I’m so angry and frustrated at the tyrants and so sorry for the people who are literal victims. If they would just stop doing this, and if they would instead just do that, then…”
Then what?
I would feel better?
Do you see what I’m saying here? I’ve been falling for the exact same illusion as the war-mongering politicians:
“If my opponents would just… XYZ, then we could all be and feel… ABC”
“If we get rid of the terrorists, then we’ll be safe and secure.”
“If the occupation ends, then we’ll be safe, secure, happy and prosperous.”
Of course, on the outside, we don’t support any of these terrible crimes. But that’s not the point.
As a Sufi Master once said:
“The true believer has no enemies outside of his or her self (ego)…”
When feelings of anger, insecurity and fear are behind our ideas, decisions and ideologies (or in my case: email articles!), and when we pretend we’ll feel better when those ideas are enacted… then we’re the ones being crazy.
Like, war-mongering politician crazy.
I fall for it too. Sometimes.
But thank God I’ve been blessed to find a way out of it: an objective way of knowing when I’m the crazy one, and of self-correcting.
Before I share the insight that’s helped me the most, here’s another way I like to think about innocence:
In classical Sufi thought, anyone who engages in harmful behaviour is considered to have “diseases” of the heart.
Think about that.
Have you ever ‘blamed’ someone for being sick, catching a cold or having a terrible physical disease?
Of course not!
Yet, when it comes to the formless psyche (the soul), we see the behaviour that we don’t like and we immediately go for judgment and blame. Well, apparently I do. Sometimes.
If there is one thing that has been a doorway for me, out of the insanity and back to my True, Highest self, it has been knowing this fact:
My feelings are all ‘me’, they’re a reflection of my momentary state of mind, my thought in that moment. They’re not a reflection of the state of the world.
Thank God for that.
This instantly returns me to clarity, grace, and compassion for all the victims. Politicians included.
If you want to know more about this paradigm that can bring peace to your mind, and have a positive impact in your home and relationships, you can get direct 1-to-1 coaching with me here:
