If we want to live in peace, we need to lower our standards. After all, the Prince of Peace had the lowest standards of all.
Our standards are so high that we live in constant judgment of ourselves and others. We divide our own personalities into our "higher" and "lower" nature. This causes great violence, inward and outward. Our minds are ceaselessly weighing Good and Evil according to the lofty standards we think we should obey. But where does the should come from? Was it not this very "knowledge of Good and Evil" that caused the fall of Adam and Eve?
When we lower our standards until we have none at all, we can live without judgment and eat from the Tree of Life again. We can drop the fig leaves and embrace ourselves just as we are, dark and light, sexy and pure, manic and depressed. This is the difference between Religion and Spirituality. Religion raises our standards until everything we do is unforgivable, and only a savior can redeem us. Spirituality means living by standards so low that we accept all life as sacred.
Free from our mind's ceaseless bickering over right and wrong, we relax into wholeness. Then our very presence brings peace to others. Embracing ourselves, we embrace both sinners and saints, the good, the bad, and the ugly. This was Mother Theresa's secret: "See the face of Christ in his most distressing disguise." She saw Christ in untouchables, men dying of AIDS. This is why Hindus worship the terrifying image of Goddess Kali. If you can worship her, you can find God anywhere! And this why Jesus said, "Do not resist the evil one... Love your enemy... Judge not, lest ye be judged." If Jesus said that in church today, they'd drag him to the parking lot and crucify him all over again.
It was not Jesus' high standards that healed and forgave sinners, but his low standards. His standards were so low, he even forgave you and me. He forgave his most vicious persecutors. He forgave the whole human race with unconditional love: a love without any standards at all.
Mula Nazrudin gave his son a precious porcelain vase to carry down the street to a neighbor's house. Before the boy set off, Nazrudin slapped his face. His friend asked, "Nazrudin, why did you slap your son?" Nazrudin replied, "What good would it do if I slapped him after he broke the vase?"
We are like Nazrudin. We slap each other with judgments, high expectations, demands for perfection. Nazrudin was half right: it doesn't do much good to slap somebody after they've made a mistake. But it doesn't do much good to slap them beforehand either.
When we slap our children, our students, our employees with high standards, we make them tense, anxious, frightened of failure. This fear impedes their performance. Fear of failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. How much better it would be to give them an inspired vision of beauty and wholeness rather than rules and judgments! That is why, in ancient times, students didn't learn an art or a trade in the classroom, by taking tests. Students apprenticed themselves to living masters and simply observed them, absorbing the ideal, not as commandment but inspiration.
Don't say "no" to this and "yes" to that. Just say "YES" to everything. The deepest standard -- both the highest and lowest -- is to abandon judgment completely. This doesn't mean that we give into every impulse without restraint or self-discipline. It means that we respond to the impulse from a deeper level than knowledge -- from an inner silence that senses, on a cellular level, whether the impulse is creative or destructive. Then we don't choose things out of guilt or fear. We don't choose things because they are "right" rather than "wrong." We choose things because they are life-giving.
When religious men were about to stone the adulterous woman, Jesus said, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." One by one, they dropped their stones and stole away.
"Woman, where are they now?" Jesus asked. "Did anyone condemn you?"
"No one, Lord," replied the woman.
"Neither do I condemn you. Now go and sin no more." The woman was free from sin, not because Jesus judged her, but because he didn't.
If you encounter a sinner, treat her just like that. If you face a demon, bow down and embrace the demon's feet. When you lift up your head, you'll see Jesus standing where the demon stood. You'll know that you are forgiven, just like the demon.
"Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us," says the Lord's prayer. The whole Gospel lies in that little word: as. The hinge of our salvation is that little as. Forgiveness is mutual. Freeing others from our judgment, we are free.
