Cleansing the Doors of Perception by Rev. Glover Wagner

There are two ways certainly to be good, being good, that is difficult; then another way to be good, and this is relativity, prove that the other is wrong. We need not be good, just prove that the other is wrong. This gives us the feeling that we are good. That is why if someone says about someone, "he is a bad person," we never argue against it. We say, "I always knew that was the case." But if someone says something good about someone, we require proofs. Jesus says, "the mote that is in thy brother's eye thou seeest, but the beam that is in thine eye thou seeest not." We can go on looking upon the other as darkness. This may give us the illusory feeling that we are the light, but this cannot give us the light. And if we try to make the other enlightened because we think that he or she is in darkness, that is going to make matters worse, that is adding insult to injury. In the first place the darkness is projected by us, and in the second place we are not the light ourselves so how can we enlighten another? So Jesus cautions against people who try to transform others or society. They are mischief makers. They see a hell in us because that is the only way they can see and feel themselves as heavenly. A religious person knows that he can only change himself. He says, "I am wrong, I am carrying fictions, through me the world is wrong. Unless I change myself there can be no change. A religious person simply transforms himself. He realizes his fictions, his inauthentic life, and he drops them. He sees the fiction of being something special, and making himself special by making others wrong and unimportant. He gathers courage to know himself. He lets go the dream. He drops all fear and doesn't try to escape himself. And Jesus says, "when you cast the beam out of your own eye, then you will see clearly." The fictions are the beam. They have become a mist, a smoke, a cloud in our eye. When the beam is cast out, we see clearly. Clarity is the goal. Just clarity of the eyes so that we can look directly and see the plain fact without any fictions around it. We look at a flower and immediately our mind starts talking. We say that "it is a beautiful flower never seen before." The flower is missed. Words blur. Can we see a flower without naming it? Will the flower be more beautiful if we give a name to it? There is a difference between knowing about the flower and knowing the flower. Can we see the beauty without speaking? Jesus is saying to us: meditate near a tree, meditate with the stars, with the river, with the ocean. Meditate in the town with people passing by. Don't judge. Don't use words. Just look. If you can clear your perception, if you can attain a clarity of looking, all is achieved. You will be able to see yourself. Self-knowledge happens to a clear mind, not a mind fill with judgment about good and bad. Self-knowledge happens to a wordless mind. Once this happens, then you can help your neighbor. When you are filled with light, you can help. Help flows from you as light flows from a lamp, or fragrance comes out of a flower, or the moon shines in the night. It just flows naturally. Words have dimmed, fictions have become burdensome. We carry so much that we cannot fly into the sky. We are burdened so much that we are not weightless; our wings are not free. Clarity cannot be obtained through our fictions about ourselves and others. Jesus tells us to put it aside. Simply start looking at life with clear eyes. This new perception is what Jesus is talking about. "The mote that is in your brother's eye, you see, but the mote that is in your eye, you cannot see. When you cast the beam out of your eye, then you will see clearly to cast the mote out of your brother's eye."